Dollface: A Novel of the Roaring Twenties (19 page)

Following him into the kitchen, I watched as he reached for the bottle of cooking oil on the counter and took a swig. “You really think that’s going to do something?” I asked, making a face as he swallowed another gulp of oil.

“Been doing it for years, Dollface. Just a little barkeep wisdom.”

I shook my head. The first time I saw him do that, he said that the oil coated your stomach, kept you from getting too drunk.

“Gotta keep my wits about me tonight,” he said, dabbing his mouth on a dish towel. “Can’t afford to get sloppy.”

“You, sloppy?” I laughed. “Never.” I arranged the new pearl necklace he’d given me and smoothed the front of my dress.

He took another swig of the oil.

“Well?” I said, arms out to my sides, on display for him. “How pregnant do I look?”

He wiped his mouth again and placed his hand over the slope of my belly. “You look just pregnant enough.”

As soon as we walked into the party, I spotted the one person I’d been hoping to avoid. Izzy was leaning against the end of the bar with a drink in one hand, a cigarette in the other. The last time I’d seen him, he’d just come out of surgery and was so groggy he didn’t know who was in his hospital room. Considering that he’d been on a gurney just six weeks before, Izzy was doing surprisingly well.

I could feel his eyes on me, watching as Shep helped me off with my coat. I looked straight ahead, willing myself not to turn his way. From the corner of my eye, I saw Izzy set his drink down. As he took a step toward me, I rushed over to Basha, Dora and Evelyn at the other end of the bar.

I saw right away that Basha was in a mood. She had a look on her face as she drummed her fingers on the marble top of the bar, her bracelets clanking off one another.

“What’s with her?” I whispered to Evelyn after Shep and Izzy had gone into the back room where the party was already under way.

“Dora and Knuckles had dinner last night with Squeak and his wife.”

“Ooh, no . . .” I made a face and ordered a bourbon, neat.

“All I’m saying is that Squeak’s wife might be here tonight.” Dora threw up her hands. “That’s all. That’s it!”

“She’s not gonna be here because I’m here with him!” Basha drew hard on her cigarette. “And what the hell were you doing out with her anyway? You’re supposed to be my friend. Not hers.”

“C’mon, Basha,” Evelyn said. “You know how it is.”

“That’s right!” Basha was all over Evelyn. “And you’d better get used to it. ’Cause Izzy’s chasing after every skirt he sees, and he don’t care if you know about it or not. Even when he was in the hospital he was feeling up his nurses. At least Squeak shows me some respect. Izzy don’t give a damn about you.”

Basha wasn’t wrong about Izzy, but I couldn’t sit back and let her talk to Evelyn that way. “Basha, back off!”

“Oh, listen to you!” She laughed, looking like she wanted to spit at my feet. “Now you wanna start in on me? You—Little Miss Nothin’. All of a sudden you think you’re a somebody. You go and get yourself knocked up and marry Shep Green, start dressing with some class, you move into that big fancy house and you think you’re better than the rest of us.”

I felt smacked down, exposed as a fraud. I couldn’t bring myself to look Basha in the eye. It was like she knew that underneath it all, I was still that same scrappy little girl from the stockyards trying to outrun my past.

“Hey!” Cecelia hissed from the opposite end of the bar. “This is Dion’s party in case you forgot.”

We got the message. Even Basha, who cleared her throat and climbed down off her barstool.

Dora whispered to no one in particular, “I was just saying that Squeak’s wife might be here. That’s it! That’s all I was saying!”

“I know. I know.” Basha held up a hand to silence her.

The four of us entered the party, packed with every major figure in the Forty-second and Forty-third wards, along with judges, representatives from the mayor’s office, the teamsters union, and a group of trusted policemen. I pasted on a phony smile that was too wide, too bright. My face felt like it was about to crack.

Dora and Basha took off in opposite directions and Basha came over and sat with me, acting as if a cross word had never passed between us. “Would you get a load of that one?” She pointed across the room where this guy, Buster, was fooling around, juggling shot glasses.

“Hey, Buster!” Shep shouted with his hands cupped like a megaphone. “You break those and I’ll break your neck!”

“No sweat!” Buster called back, tossing another glass into the air, chomping on a wad of chewing gum.

Buster was what Shep liked to call one of his Little Pishers. The Little Pishers were a dozen or so young thugs Shep let hang around the club. Whenever he needed someone to wash his motorcar or run his errands, he would say,
“
Have one of the Little Pishers do it.” Buster was just a punk, maybe sixteen or seventeen, but he wanted to be a big shot already. He was wearing the same flashy pin-striped suit and fedora that I’d always seen him in.

“What a goddamn goof,” said Bugs Moran, pulling up a chair, flipping it around, and sitting backward, sailor style. I didn’t know much about Bugs at the time, other than that he hated being called Bugs. His real name was George and he struck me as a bit of a buffoon, a big lug of a guy who wasn’t all that bright. I was surprised later when the girls told me he was third in command of the North Side Gang, right behind Hymie and Drucci.

“Hey, Buster,” Bugs called to him, “why don’t you run out and get me some smokes.”

“Sure thing. I gotta go meet my girl anyway.” Buster set down the glasses and was on the job.

Meanwhile the party lingered on and I sat back, drinking, watching Evelyn and Izzy. He had her on his lap with his arms looped around her waist. I’d been avoiding him all night but just then he caught me staring. We locked eyes for a moment before I caved and turned away.

Shep came over, set my drink down, and led me onto the dance floor. We were in the middle of
My Baby, She’s So Good When She’s Being Oh So Bad
when Buster walked in with a package of cigarettes for Bugs and a buxom redhead on his arm. The woman was a good three inches taller than him and wore a bright red dress with lots of feathers sticking out of it.

Shep sighed. “Son of a bitch—what’s that Little Pisher up to now?” He kissed my cheek. “Give me a minute, Dollface.”

He broke away and went over to Buster and his redhead. “Nice to see you again, Sally,” I overheard him say.

“Oh, hey, you twos know each other?” Buster cracked his chewing gum.

“Sally and I go way back. Don’t we, Big Red?”

“Hi, Shep.” The redhead lowered her eyes, fluttering her lashes.

“So where’d you twos meet, anyway?” Buster asked, chomping away.

Shep smiled. “If memory serves me correctly, we met over by the Four Deuces—that piece-of-shit hole-in-the-wall.”

Buster stopped chewing. His face went still and you could see him shrinking. That flashy suit of his now looked two sizes too big. “Hey, Shep—Sally here, she’s—”

“She’s leaving is what she’s doing.” Shep said this with his smile intact, his voice calm, steady. By now Hymie, Drucci and Bugs had made their way over to Shep’s side.

“C’mon, Shep. Sally’s not—”

“Sally’s not staying.” Shep tilted his head. “Good of you to stop by, Big Red. Be sure and give my best to Capone.” Bugs held the door for Big Red while Shep and Hymie escorted her out.

I wandered back over to my table. As soon as Shep was gone and Evelyn was distracted, talking to Irwin Ragguffy, Izzy got up and walked over to me. His icy cold stare reached me before he did.
He couldn’t know about Tony. Could he?
I kept reminding myself I hadn’t even talked to Tony in months. . . . Still, my nerves were fraying. Beads of sweat began forming along the nape of my neck.

“Can’t avoid me all night,” he said.

“Looks like you’ve all but recovered,” I managed to say, ignoring his comment. I took a sip from my drink, hoping the tremor in my hand wasn’t obvious.

“Good as new.” He held his hands out to the side and then lit a cigarette, holding it overhand style.

He must have smoked a good third of it down before he said anything else. If Izzy said anything to Shep about Tony, if he even suggested anything about my past, I’d be ruined. I was sure of it.

Izzy continued torturing me with silence. I looked at the doorway, hoping Shep would hurry back. Looking around, I saw Buster pacing, fidgeting first with his hat and then with his shirtsleeves.

“Listen . . . ” Izzy set his cold, black eyes on me.

My pulse jumped.
Here it comes. . . .

“I wanted to thank you for taking care of Evelyn while I was in the hospital.”

“Oh . . .” I didn’t know how else to respond. It felt like a trick.

He leaned over and planted a kiss on my cheek. “You’re a good friend to her.” Then he turned and walked away.

I stood there, dumbfounded. All I could think was that maybe the shooting had scared some sense into the man. Evelyn kept saying he was behaving himself. Maybe she was right.

When Shep and Hymie came back inside, Buster rushed up to them, hands flailing and head shaking. Shep smiled and placed what looked like a reassuring hand on Buster’s shoulder. After motioning to Dion, I watched the three men lead Buster toward the back room.

I had another bourbon and made small talk with Irwin about the baby and the move to the new house. After a bit he excused himself and disappeared over by the bar. It was getting late and the party was thinning out. I hadn’t seen Shep in a while. I was tired and figured I’d go find him, see how much longer he’d be.

When I pushed through the swinging door in the back and made my way past the cases of liquor, I heard the men below, in the cellar. I was halfway down the stairs when Buster began whimpering. “I swear, I didn’t know. I swear it. Oh, c’mon! Please, no more.
Please!
”

My body went stiff as the cry of his
please
echoed through my insides. I inched along on the balls of my feet, keeping my body flush with the railing as I leaned forward, peering into the room. Buster was seated in a folding chair and Hymie had him by his hair, holding his head up. Blood trickled from Buster’s lip like a drunkard’s spittle, and his left eye was bruised shut. A puddle had collected beneath his chair, and the inside seam of his trousers was wet. Dion stood to his side, his fist tinged red from blood.

“It’s getting late, Buster,” Shep said, leaning against a ledge with his arms crossed. “How long you want this to go on?”

“I swear to you”—Buster was panting—“I didn’t say nothin’. We didn’t even talk about the Sieben Brewery raid. I swear it.”

Shep lit a cigarette and took a long inhale. Hymie grabbed Buster by the hair again, violently jerking back his head. Buster let out a yelp as more blood spilled from his mouth. I winced, inching closer, not believing what I was seeing.

“You’ve already lost a couple of teeth,” said Shep, pacing back and forth. “But we can keep going.”

“No.” Buster raised his hands. “Please, no more teeth. Please.”

Shep examined the tip of his cigarette. “I’m only going to ask you once more.”

“I swear on my life, I never told her about the Sieben Brewery. I didn’t say a word about the raid. I swear it.”

Shep took a final drag off his cigarette before grinding it out on the floor. He looked over at Dion and gave a nod. Buster let out a begging cry that rippled through me as Dion picked up a pair of wire cutters. Dion took hold of Buster’s middle finger with the wire cutters and the more Dion tightened his grip, the louder Buster howled. I held on to the banister, squeezing it as Dion applied more pressure. The blood gushed out below Buster’s knuckle. Even above Buster’s screaming, I heard the snap of the bone. I closed my eyes and when I dared to open them again, Buster’s finger was lying on the floor in a pool of his own piss and blood.

Shep crouched down by Buster’s side and said something else as Dion started on another finger.
Oh dear God!
I gagged as my stomach rose up. I cupped a hand over my mouth, swallowing my own vomit while I made my way back up the stairs.

I paused for a moment when I reached the top step. Ever since I’d married Shep I’d been so smug, thinking I’d come so far, that I’d escaped the blood and gore of the stockyards. But look where I’d landed. I’d had my suspicions before, but now the truth was staring me down. How much more could I pretend not to know, not to see? Especially after I’d just witnessed something that would haunt me the rest of my life.
How did I get mixed up in all this? And how do I get myself out of it?

When I walked back into the party, Dora asked if I was okay.

“Yeah, sure. I’m fine. Just had a little too much to drink.”

•   •   •

I
couldn’t sleep next to Shep that night. I faked a headache and went out to the living room and lay awake on the sofa until the sun came up. Watching the shadows creeping in through the windows overlooking the park, I questioned if I knew Shep at all. I looked around our beautiful new home, taking note of the velvet cushions on the Queen Anne sofa, the Victrola housed in its beautifully carved walnut cabinet, the player piano and all the expensive artwork on the walls. As I ran my fingers over my silk bathrobe and admired my oversize diamond ring, all I could think was,
Is all this worth it?
If I hadn’t been pregnant, I would have left him. That’s what I told myself that night.

But the days passed and I didn’t question Shep about what I’d seen him do to Buster. What was the point of confronting him? What would I do if he lied to me? What would I do if he told me the truth? I had a baby coming. Was I really prepared to leave? Leave my baby fatherless, the way I’d grown up? How could I ever take care of a child on my own? So I never asked Shep about the incident. Each time I had the opportunity, I lost my nerve, telling myself it was none of my business, or that it wasn’t that bad. That at least they hadn’t killed him. Or had they?

And then, just like everything else I didn’t want to look at, I swept it aside, and over time the episode faded until its memory had all but vanished, just like Buster. I never did see him again at the Meridian after that night.