Dollface: A Novel of the Roaring Twenties (40 page)

My eyes glazed over. “God, no. What do you think I am, crazy?”

A NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION

D
ora and I sat side by side at the beauty parlor, waiting to have our nails done. It was the first time I’d seen her since she’d lost the baby. We’d gone for coffee earlier and then wandered through a couple stores. I kept expecting her to apologize for what she’d said that day in her bedroom but it never came up.

“What’s taking them so damn long?” I asked, watching one beautician scurrying about with a basket of curlers and another picking up a handful of bobby pins she’d dropped on the floor near us.

“Relax. Tomorrow’s New Year’s Eve. Every place in town is packed. What’s your hurry?”

“Nothing.” I eased back in my chair and crossed my legs, letting my top one swing back and forth. “I just have a lot of errands to run.” I didn’t have any errands. I was late. Tony was expecting me at his hotel at two o’clock and it was already a quarter past.

“I know we always go to the Palmer House for New Year’s Eve, but I’d love to skip the party this year,” she said.

“Is Basha going?”

“No. Neither is Viola. Or Cecilia.”

“It’s been a rough year for everyone, hasn’t it?” I said.

“You can say that again. At least you’ve got Shep back home now. But for the rest of us, what the hell is there to celebrate? Good riddance to 1928. . . .”

I gazed at the photographs on the wall opposite us: one of a woman with a shingle bob, one with an Eton crop and one with a finger hairdo. All the while I was thinking about Tony. I hadn’t seen him in more than two weeks. He’d been in New York the week before, and now Capone wanted him down in Florida after New Year’s.

“Boy, are you ever fidgety today,” she said, placing her hand on my knee to stop my leg from swinging. “What’s eating you?”

“Me? Nothing.” I shook my head and willed my leg to stay put. “I’ve got a lot on my mind is all.” I thought about Tony, waiting for me in his hotel room, wondering what was keeping me. “I’ll be right back,” I said, bolting out of my chair. “I just have to make a quick call.”

The front of the salon was crowded with women draped in dark capes, sitting in a row of swivel chairs, waiting to be shampooed or cut or dyed. Others had their heads tucked inside the drying machines or hooked up to the permanent-wave contraptions. The air smelled of perfume, borax, setting lotions and nail polish remover. I made my way over to a dainty desk with a telephone reserved for clients. Another woman was sitting in the sweetheart chair, already on the line, confirming her plans for New Year’s Eve at the Blackstone Hotel. I folded my arms across my chest and tapped my foot, glancing around to make sure I didn’t recognize anyone standing nearby. As soon as the telephone was free, I sat down and dialed. The line was ringing and I anxiously looked around the beauty parlor until finally the front desk answered.

“Plymouth Hotel.”

“Can you please put me through to Tony Liolli’s room . . . room eight twenty-seven. . . . Yes. Liolli with an
L
.” I was waiting to be connected when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned and my heart clamped down.

Dora was standing over me. Her blue eyes narrowed as she studied my face. “They’re ready for us now,” she said.

“Oh. Okay. Swell.” I tried to keep my voice steady and hung up, barely able to get the receiver placed back on the hook, my hands were shaking so. It was noisy in the beauty parlor and it was possible that Dora hadn’t overheard me asking for Tony Liolli.

She walked away and I followed her into the private room where they took care of special customers like us.

As soon as we were inside, Dora turned to me. “Liolli? Tony Liolli? Dear God, tell me he’s not the errand you need to run this afternoon.”

I closed my eyes and cursed under my breath.

“Spill it, Vera. What the hell are you up to?”

“Dora, please.” I still couldn’t look at her.

“Uh-uh. Something’s going on and you’d better tell me what it is.”

I tried stalling again, but Dora pressed harder. “Okay,” I said, finally letting my eyes meet hers, “but you can’t tell anyone.”

She gave me an indignant glare. “Who am I going to tell?”

“Just promise me.”

Two beauticians appeared in the doorway with their nail files and polish. Dora shooed them away. “And close the door behind you.” Turning back to me, she said, “I promise. I swear I won’t tell anyone. Now spill it.”

I lowered my head to my hands, perspiring. I could feel Dora’s eyes on me, wearing me down.

“I mean it,” she said. “Tell me what the hell’s going on.”

I felt myself cracking, slipping, the words rising up in me like bile.

“Vera!”

“Oh, Dora,” I blurted out, “I’m in love.”

“What!”

“I’m in love. I’m in love with him.” I held my breath, waiting for something awful to happen. Shouldn’t the sky have fallen? Shouldn’t the earth have given way beneath me?

“You’re in love with Tony Liolli?” Dora’s mouth dropped open. She leaned back in her chair looking like she’d just had the wind knocked out of her. “Aw, Jesus! Tell me you’re not serious.”

“I love him, Dora. I do.”

“Oh, honey, you gotta end it. You can’t be fooling around with Tony Liolli. That guy’s a loose cannon. He’s trouble with a capital
T
. And you’d better hope he keeps his trap shut. If it gets out about you and him, you’ll both be six feet under. You should know better. You’re Shep Green’s wife. You can’t be two-timing him with one of Capone’s men. Jesus, Vera, use your head. Who else knows about this?”

I thought of Evelyn. “No one. God, I’ve never told anyone. You’re not going to say anything, are you?”

“What? And get myself killed, too? Not only am I not gonna say anything, I’m gonna forget you even told me about it. And what you’re gonna do is end it with Liolli, you got that?”

I nodded and pressed my fingers to my temples. My head was pounding.

“You know what kills me,” said Dora, pursing her lips, her voice taking on a definite edge. “You have everything. A loving husband, a beautiful, healthy daughter, and you’re willing to piss it all away on some greaseball who probably whacked half your husband’s best friends.”

“I know it’s wrong. I know it doesn’t make any sense.”

“So you are gonna end it with him, right?”

I nodded, barely able to breathe, knowing that I’d just made the worst mistake of my life.

•   •   •

I
left Dora and on one of the coldest days of the year I decided to walk. Block after block, with no destination in mind, I wandered, heading north, oblivious to the automobiles and trolley cars whirling past me. I stepped into an intersection and a driver blasted his horn and skidded to a stop, missing me by less than half a foot. I kept walking, drifting along Michigan Avenue past the Wrigley Building, the Tribune Tower and onward past the pumping stations housed inside the water towers that looked like stone castles.

When I could no longer feel my toes or my fingers, I stepped inside the Drake to warm myself. The footman held the door for me as the luxury of the grand hotel welcomed me inside.

Entering the marble lobby, I passed by the bellhops and chambermaids and handsomely dressed couples walking along the corridor. It took me back to my first visit to the Drake, the night I modeled jewelry for Mr. Borowitz. I’d so desperately wanted to be in that world of glitz and glamour. I got glitz and glamour, all right, but I also got gore and carnage. I had escaped the rotting stink of the slaughterhouse, the blood and guts of the kill floor, and look where I’d run to. I’d landed in the middle of a world that was far more violent than the Union Stock Yards.

I kept walking and came to the spot where years before I’d first met Shep Green. That night it was Shep who had stepped in to save me from Mr. Borowitz. And in a way, he’d been saving me ever since. How could I have betrayed him like this?

Maybe it was a good thing that Dora found out about Tony. Maybe it would force me to do the right thing. God, I was tired of it all. It used to be the anticipation that made me hunger for Tony. Before the hotel door was even locked, we’d be devouring each other until my body shook and my throat was raw from crying out. Then I was empty, the lust and desire all burned out of me only to start slowly gathering strength again the minute I left him. That was the pattern, but now it had been interrupted. Tony had been out of town so much lately that already things had changed between us. At first the separation was excruciating but now it was a dull ache, fading more and more the longer I’d stayed away from him.

Standing in the hotel lobby, I felt as if a switch had been thrown and the lights were all on. I could see now that Tony had become a habit I’d grown addicted to. I’d loved Tony once—of that I was certain—but not anymore. I hadn’t realized this until that very moment.

I went to a phone booth and rang his hotel. “I can’t make it over there today,” I said, leaning my forehead against the glass panel, feeling the coolness spread across my skin. “...Yeah, sure, I’ll see you when you get back. . . .” I hung up and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. These weren’t tears of heartache. They were tears of relief.

THE KISS OF DEATH

I
t was a Wednesday afternoon, February 13, the day before Valentine’s Day. I passed by a store window filled with red hearts and strings of cupids stretched from one end to the other. It was cold outside, the temperature dipping down into the teens. The ground was frozen, the snow was old and dirty now, and even if a fresh inch or two fell and covered it up, you’d always know what was lying below the surface.

Dora asked about Tony only one other time. All she said was, “Did you take care of that problem of yours?”

I looked her right in the eye and said, “Yes.”

But I hadn’t ended it with Tony. And not because I didn’t want to. But because I hadn’t seen him. Tony had been down in Florida for most of January and when he was back in town for a few days, I made excuses, afraid that if I saw him, I’d lose my nerve. But I was ready now.

A chill swept through the air and I turned up my collar. I boarded the southbound el train and rode it down to the Fifteenth Street stop, just a few blocks away from the Plymouth Hotel.

When I keyed into the hotel room, I was surprised that Tony wasn’t there, especially since he knew I was coming over. I sat on the side of the bed, waiting for him. I had my compact out, passing the mirror over my face. I looked like hell. My eyes were bloodshot, my skin was gray and my expression was sad even when I forced a smile. I used to shine, like I was something special. How did I get to look so old at twenty-three?

I heard someone out in the hallway. I looked up, expecting Tony to come through the door, but whoever it was kept walking. I lit a cigarette and helped myself to the bourbon he kept stashed in the bottom of the nightstand. With my drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other, I lay back against the pillows, knowing that this was the last time I’d ever be in his bed.

After I finished my cigarette, Tony showed up. He was wearing a pin-striped suit, a wide-brimmed hat and white leather spats with black buttons. He was suntanned from being down in Florida and looked every bit as handsome as he had the first time I’d seen him at the Five Star. But still, something inside me had shifted. And he could sense it.

I sat up on the side of the bed when he kissed me. “There’s something I need to talk to you about,” I said, watching him toss his hat onto the dresser.

He came over and sat beside me, placing his hand over mine. “There’s something I gotta say first, though. You have to hear me out.” He reached for a cigarette, lit it and chucked the burning match into the ashtray. I waited, holding my breath, while he drew a deep puff. “I did a lot of thinking while I was away.” He got up, poured a couple drinks and handed one to me. “I love you, Vera. I want you with me. Not just for a few hours here and there. But every day, you and me.”

“Tony, that’s what I need to talk to you a—”

“I’m getting out of the rackets. For real this time. No more talk. I’m gonna leave town and start over. And I want you to come with me.”

“What?” I was there to end it, not run away with him. “I can’t go with you.”

He shook his head, sending that strand of hair onto his forehead. “You. Me. Hannah—we’ll hop a train, or we’ll jump in the car and head to Mexico and we can start over. We’ll hide out in Tijuana or Mexico City. No one’ll find us there.”

“I can’t leave Shep. You know that.”

He took a pull from his drink and fixed his eyes on me. “I’m gonna tell you something. And you can’t say a word—not to anyone—you understand? If I didn’t hate Capone—if I had a shred of loyalty left for him—and if I didn’t love you as much as I do, I wouldn’t be telling you this. And if you breathe a word of this, I’m a dead man, you got that?”

I took a long sip from my drink.

“When I was down in Florida with Capone, I was let in on some business, and it has to do with Bugs Moran and Shep.”

“What?”

“He had someone contact Bugs and Shep—they think they’ve got a lorry of whiskey coming to their garage on Clark Street tomorrow morning. And as soon as they show up, Capone’s gonna take them out. Both of them.”

I looked at him in shock, trying to make sense of what he’d just said. “What? Why Shep?”

“Why? Because, next to Bugs Moran, the one person Capone wants dead is your husband.”

“What are you saying?” My voice was cracking. “I don’t understand—why? Why is he going to kill Shep?”

“I can’t tell you any more than what I already have.” He got up and paced like a madman. “Jesus, I’m talking way the hell out of school, do you get that?”

I just stared at him, still in shock.

“You gotta keep your mouth shut about this, Vera. I mean it.”

“How can you expect me to keep my mouth shut? You just told me they’re going to kill my husband and you expect me not to say anything?”

He came over to my side, grabbed my chin and forced my eyes to meet his. “If anyone knew I was telling you this, they’d kill me. You want that?”