Dollface: A Novel of the Roaring Twenties (37 page)

“You’re wearing a hole in the carpet,” I said without getting so much as a grin in return.

It seemed he always had a drink in his hand and I couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten a real meal. It went on like that for days, for weeks.

At night he worried in his sleep, thrashing about in the covers, waking in a cold sweat, bolting straight up in bed, gasping.

“What is it? What’s the matter?” I’d ask, turning on the lamp on the nightstand.

He’d run his hands through his hair, catch his breath, and say, “It’s nothing. Go back to bed.”

One morning, Shep came down to the kitchen with flecks of blood on his chin from where he nicked himself shaving. He sat at the table, picking at his breakfast. I looked at the dark circles under his eyes and the stress written across his face.

“Another bad night, huh?” I asked, wiping my hands on a dish towel.

“Did I keep you awake?”

“It’s okay.” I poured him a cup of coffee and opened the icebox. “How do you want your eggs?”

“I’ll stay in the guest room tonight.”

“No, you won’t.” I closed the icebox door. “I want you to stay with me.” I went and stood behind him, massaging his shoulders, shocked by how tight his muscles were. “You can talk to me, you know. I won’t break. You can tell me what’s going on.”

“I wish I could. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.” He leaned back and sighed.

“You need to relax.”

He rubbed a hand over his face and scratched the whiskers along his jaw. “I don’t remember how to relax.”

“I’ll help you.” I leaned forward, resting my chin on the crown of his head as I ran my hands over his chest and shoulders. “That’s it. Just relax.” For a minute I felt him give in to my touch, easing back into my fingers. “Now tell me what’s going on.”

The moment I said that, his shoulders stiffened and he shrugged away from me. “I gotta get going.”

After he left, I went upstairs, and as I was sorting through his clothes to take to the cleaner’s, I found a forgotten ten-dollar bill in the pocket of his trousers. I clutched the ten and went to my closet, where I kept a hatbox hidden in the back. Inside was a pouch filled with the forgotten bills I’d found in Shep’s coat pockets or suit jackets, and lying on the bedroom dresser. I took the ten and added it to the mix. I felt guilty taking his money like that—especially when all I had to do was ask. But I couldn’t resist setting a few dollars aside for myself, just in case.

After Shep came home from prison, I swore I’d never be without money again. If something ever happened to him in the future, I wanted to be prepared. I knew if I had to, I could take care of myself but I wouldn’t take the kinds of risks I had before. I wouldn’t do anything that would put Hannah or myself in jeopardy again.

Apparently Evelyn had learned that lesson, too. She had taken what little money she’d found of Izzy’s and was investing it in the stock market. She seemed to have a knack for it and swore it was almost as easy to make money in the market as it was from the liquor trade.

“Only it’s not nearly as much fun,” she’d said to me once.

I fingered the scar along my lip, wondering how she would have felt if she’d been slapped around. I sorted through the money in the hatbox, the singles, the five- and ten-dollar bills—the occasional twenty. I didn’t have more than five hundred dollars total but I’d been watching Evelyn work the stock market. I was thinking she could help me, teach me the ropes. It was something I’d been considering.

I looked at my salvaged money, remembering the days when I counted the five-hundred-dollar bills first, then the hundreds, fifties and twenties. I didn’t have anything smaller than that.

I had to admit part of me missed the liquor trade. Those drives back and forth to Milwaukee did something for me. I loved how Steel’s men waited for us outside the warehouse, how they lifted those boxes and set them down according to our instructions. And, of course, Felix’s men were always waiting for us on the other end, not making a move until we told them to.

A big day for me now was reading the newspaper and the mail to Shep, writing out his correspondence for him, maybe preparing a new recipe or having lunch with the girls downtown. I’d spent more time waiting around the house for the doctor to come when Hannah had an earache or a cough. A challenge was fixing her doll’s arm or picking out a new book to read to her. There were only so many fashion magazines I could leaf through, only so many dresses to buy, only so much time I could spend at the beauty parlor. I hated being confined to the mundane tasks of wife and mother. I’d run my own business before for God’s sake. I’d been important then. I was the decision maker and the moneymaker. All I felt now was boredom. Denying that I needed more, that I was capable of more, may have kept my husband comfortable but it stymied me.

One night I sat at the dinner table, looking at Shep and Hannah while my mind drifted, taking my thoughts to places they shouldn’t have gone. All Basha wanted was to be Squeak’s wife. All Dora wanted was a baby. Cecelia and Viola had lost their husbands and Evelyn was alone. I should have been so grateful. According to Dora, I had it all. But it wasn’t enough. I still craved excitement, the kind of excitement that had gotten me into trouble in the first place. Something was missing. I knew what it was and I hated myself for missing it.

I was restless that night, unable to sleep. The next afternoon, once Shep had left the house to meet with Bugs, and Hannah was upstairs in her room with the housekeeper, I picked up the telephone. A band of sweat broke out across my brow, and my voice trembled when I asked to be connected. As soon as I heard Tony’s voice, I froze.

“Hello? Hello? Is someone there?”

I hung up and backed away from the telephone and went into the parlor where I sat in the dark until I stopped shaking.

ROOTING FOR BOTH SIDES

S
ummer dragged on. The hot, humid days melded together, one after another, until it was autumn. The weeks of not sleeping, not eating were taking their toll on Shep. For the first time I noticed a couple strands of gray at the tip of his widow’s peak. One night I found him pacing in the upstairs hallway, like a sleepwalker. Lately, instead of working from home, he’d been leaving the house earlier in the mornings and returning later at night. I didn’t want to add to his troubles. I tried to be a good wife, understanding and patient. I slammed cupboards and doors only after he’d left the house. He hadn’t touched me since Drucci was killed. And I didn’t have it in me to reach for him again, not after the last time, when he took my hand away and told me he was too tired.

One evening while I was in the kitchen, drying the dinner dishes, I overheard Shep on the telephone with Bugs. “Where was this . . . ? How long ago . . . ? Are you sure it was him . . . ? Who’s with him besides Liolli . . . ?”

Liolli?
I froze and nearly dropped the plate in my hand. The blood started pounding inside my head.

“Okay . . . Get Squeak and Knuckles. I’m on my way. . . .”

I slung the dish towel over my shoulder and leaned against the counter. “You’re going out?” I asked when he came into the kitchen. My voice was quaking. I couldn’t help it.

“Just for a little bit.” He bent down and kissed Hannah, who was still in her booster chair playing with an empty bowl, dancing it across the table.

“What’s going on? What did Bugs want that’s so urgent?”

Shep straightened up and looked at me, his eyes growing narrow.

I knew better than to ask about his business, but I couldn’t help myself. “I don’t want you going out there tonight. You’re exhausted. You need to start taking care of yourself.” I glanced over at Hannah, happily sliding her bowl about the table.

He reached for a bottle of cooking oil and unscrewed the cap. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.” He took a swig of oil. “It’s no big deal.”

“It is a big deal to me.” The tears were building but I swallowed them back.

“Aw, here we go again.” He shook his head. “You have no idea what I’m up against. This whole organization is riding on my shoulders.”

“I’ve never asked you for anything before. Please—please don’t go out there tonight. If you won’t do it for me, do it for her.” I reached over for Hannah and hoisted her into my arms. “Please, Shep. Please . . . ?” My voice trailed off.

“Don’t do this to me. I gotta go out there and do what I do. You know what Capone did to
my best friends. I can’t let that go, Vera. I’m never gonna let it go.”

“Not even for me?”

“Don’t ask me that. You can’t ever ask me that. I’m leaving. I have to.” He turned, reached for his overcoat and walked out, closing the door so hard behind him the chandelier in the foyer clinked back and forth like wind chimes.

“There, there, Mama,” Hannah said after Shep left, patting my hair, because that was what I always did to soothe her. “It’ll be okay. I promise.”

Seeing that little face of hers, the rosy, chubby cheeks and those outstretched fingers, lifted my heart a million miles off the ground. Only she could do that for me. Only she could take my mind off what was going on out there in the streets. I smiled as we played peekaboo and patty-cake, and after I’d given her a bath, I cuddled with her, letting the scent of her hair, fresh from the tub, circle around me.

I had put it all out of my mind until after I’d gotten Hannah to bed. That’s when the telephone calls started. First it was Basha calling and then Dora. Whenever the men went out looking for Capone, we girls stayed on the telephone, or else gathered at someone’s house to wait it out. We’d compare notes, speculating what-ifs. If they weren’t home by such-and-such an hour, that meant X, and if they hadn’t shown up at Schofield’s, that meant Y.

“Have you heard anything yet?” Dora asked.

“No. Not a word. You? Do you know who’s with Capone?”

Dora went silent. It was a dumb question, something I never should have asked. We weren’t supposed to care about the other guys, but that night I was rooting for both sides. I reached for a cigarette, struggling to get the match lit.

As soon as I got off the line with Dora, my mind started to unravel, my thoughts spiraling to the grimmest possibilities. What if Capone and his men retaliated? They were all armed and all it took was one shot, one wrong step. I feared the next call would be Bugs or Knuckles, telling me Shep was in the hospital, or else—God forbid—dead.

I got up and fixed myself a drink and took a big, burning gulp and then another. If things went the other way and they killed Capone, then Tony would be dead, or at the very least, wounded. Once I got that thought into my head, I couldn’t shake it. I smoked another cigarette, picturing Tony with a gunshot to the abdomen or maybe the shoulder. I could see him hobbling his way back to the Plymouth, hiding his blood-soaked shirt beneath his overcoat.

I drew down hard on my cigarette just as a new fear came to me. I knew how Tony was—stubborn and foolish. He would rather bleed to death in his hotel room than take himself to a doctor or the hospital. He’d collapse on the floor and no one would know he was in there dying. I crushed out the cigarette and reached for another. Suddenly keeping Tony alive became my responsibility. It was up to me to save him somehow.

I was still awake when Shep came home. It was after three in the morning. The sound of his key turning the lock sent a rush of relief through my body. He was safe. Bolting up in bed, I pulled back the covers and ran to see that he was really okay.

“I’m fine. Everything’s fine,” he said, walking me back upstairs.

What did
fine
mean? I searched his face, trying to read his expression. His eyes were heavy, his coloring off. He went into the bathroom and I crawled back on the bed, hugging my knees to my chest. When he came out he was guzzling a bottle of bicarbonate. Was his stomach upset because he’d just gone on a shooting spree, or was his stomach upset because Capone and his men got away?

“Go back to sleep,” he said. “It’s late.”

•   •   •

T
he next morning I frantically searched the newspapers. I couldn’t find anything on Capone, but maybe it hadn’t made the morning edition yet. I wanted to call the hospitals, but I couldn’t risk it. Not with Shep upstairs sleeping.

Not knowing whether Tony was dead or alive and not being able to ask anyone about it was eating me up. Regardless of what had passed between us, he was still a human being, and he had been there for me. He had saved me on that snow-covered road; he had saved me the night Evelyn killed Izzy. I couldn’t leave him to bleed to death inside his hotel room.

As soon as the housekeeper arrived, I quickly got dressed and stepped outside to hail a taxicab.

The driver turned to me. “Where to, lady?”

Where to?
I didn’t know if I was doing the right thing or not. I looked back at the house. The ivy crawling up the side needed scaling back. The front gate with its black finials needed painting, too. . . .

“Lady, the meter’s running. . . . Lady?” The driver looked at me through the rearview mirror. “You okay?”

Reluctantly I gave him the address, and twenty minutes later he dropped me off in front of the Plymouth Hotel.

My heart was pounding as I rode the elevator, my eyes locked on the iron gate as the car rose to the eighth floor. I knocked on Tony’s door, wondering what I would do if there was no answer. Would I tell the desk clerk? How could I do that without getting myself involved? I knocked again. I would call from a pay phone and have them check in on him. . . .

Finally on the third knock I heard footsteps on the other side of the door, staggering across the floor. My chest grew heavy as I pictured Tony struggling, dragging himself to the door. I heard the chain latch slide and braced myself.

Tony opened his door. He was bare chested, his trousers barely up on his hips. I looked for blood, for bandages. He was fine. Relief spread through me, and then I realized what a fool I’d been.

He looked at me, confused. He was still half asleep. “What are you doing here?”

I couldn’t tell him why I was there. No way could I say that Shep and the others had gone after him and Capone.