Dollface: A Novel of the Roaring Twenties (7 page)

“That bad, was he?” Dion chuckled.

Shep shook his head. “Yeah, well, let’s just say—”

A loud bang rang out. It gave me a jolt so intense, it reverberated inside my chest. Everyone froze, eyes shifting back and forth.

“Hymie—
no
!” Shep called out as Hymie reached into his pocket, pulled out a gun and—
Oh my God
—fired off three wild shots.

“Jesus shit!” I clutched my heart, squeezed Evelyn’s wrist and dropped to the ground, pulling her with me. I couldn’t breathe, and I was holding on to Evelyn so tight, my nails were digging into her skin. The sidewalk was a blur of people screaming and running for cover, while Hymie stood stoic, his rosary beads hanging from his front pocket as smoke drifted from the mouth of his revolver.

“Aw, hold your horses, will ya?” Dion said to Hymie in his thick Irish brogue. “It was just an automobile backfiring is all.” He pointed to the black touring car turning onto Huron. “Everybody calm down. Coast is clear. Nothing to worry about.”

Just as we began to recover, we heard an anguished cry coming from a man on the sidewalk, clutching his shoulder as blood gushed out from between his fingers. The snow beneath him was already stained scarlet. I shrieked, making Hymie spin around, pointing his gun in our direction. I clasped a hand over my mouth, holding my breath, feeling each heartbeat pounding inside my head. After Hymie turned back around, Evelyn helped me up off the pavement. My knee was bleeding, scraped raw, and my new stockings were torn.

I glanced at the wounded man on the sidewalk, unable to take my eyes off him. He was pale and clenching his teeth as his eyes flashed open in alarm and he winced in pain. The blood kept coming and I could see steam from its heat rising up from the snow.

“Now look what you’ve gone and done,” said Izzy, slapping Hymie on the back.

Dion hobbled inside the flower shop and called from the doorway to one of his clerks, “Somebody telephone for an ambulance, will ya? We’ve got us a man down out here.”

Shep went over to the injured man and, after a quick inspection, gave his good shoulder a pat. “Don’t you worry. Help is on the way. You’re going to be fine,” Shep assured him. “You just hang in there and you’ll be fine.”

The man grasped his wound, writhing in pain. The blood was soaking into his clothes fast now and he didn’t seem reassured. But I could tell from the look on Shep’s face that he wasn’t worried. And that worried me. How could Shep be so nonchalant about a man being shot? It ran a chill down my body.

Shep walked back over to Hymie and said, “Feeling a little jumpy there?”

“Shut it.” Hymie shoved his gun toward Shep.

Even with a revolver pointed in his face, Shep didn’t flinch—but I did.

I wanted to get the hell out of there, and was reaching for Evelyn to leave when Dion came out of the shop wearing a big grin and holding two American Beauties. “Lovely roses for lovely ladies.” He gave one to Evelyn and the other to me. By the way I was trembling he might as well have handed me a dead bird.

Dion went over to the man on the sidewalk. “It’s okay there, swell fella. Just take her easy now.” He crouched down over the man. “We’re gonna get you fixed up in no time.”

Evelyn squeezed my hand and pointed toward a cop coming up the sidewalk.

The cop twirled his billy club, sunlight glinting off his badge and the brass buttons on his uniform. “You causing trouble again, Dion?” he asked.

“Aw, just a little accident, that’s all.”

“Hey, Hymie,” the cop said, “how many times do I gotta tell you to keep that piece of yours in your pocket?”

“C’mon,” I said to Evelyn, under my breath. “Let’s get out of here.”

We had just turned around when Shep called after me, “Hey, where are you going, Dollface?”

It was hard for me to turn away from him when he called me that, but I froze in place, my back toward him, my shoulders up to my ears. “It’s getting late,” I said, trying to keep my voice even.

“It’s not late. C’mon, we’ll go get something to eat.”

Eat!
How could he eat after this? “I’m sorry, Shep. I-I don’t feel well. Evelyn’s going to take me home.”

Shep took a few steps closer just as Evelyn called to Izzy, saying she had to leave.

“Are you sure?” asked Shep. “What’s wrong? Your head? Your stomach? Let me at least drive you home.”

“No. No, really. Female stuff, you know. I’ll be fine. Evelyn’ll take me. You stay here.” I realized I didn’t feel so well. I may have been hyperventilating.

“I’ll call you later,” he said, “just to make sure you’re okay.”

“Yeah, sure. That’ll be swell.”

Evelyn and I turned the corner and broke into a run.

THE CHASE

M
y legs weren’t going fast enough. I was trying to run but I couldn’t move forward. A scream was collecting but each cry for help was trapped inside my chest. They were after me, coming closer and closer, until I heard myself gasp and bolted up in bed, still not convinced that I was safe.

“Huh! What!” Evelyn woke with a start. The outline of her face and shoulders was silhouetted by the streetlamp outside our window.

“I’m sorry. Go back to sleep.” I was bathed in a cold sweat, and my heart continued to hammer.

“Another nightmare?”

“I’m sorry,” I said again. It was the second night in a row that I’d woken her up like that.

She pulled back her covers and scooted over to the far edge of her mattress. “C’mon,” she said, patting the sheets.

I grabbed my pillow and climbed in beside her, easing down under the warmth of the blankets. “I’m sorry.”

“Shhh.” She pulled the covers up over my shoulders. Her hair smelled of lavender from her Little Dot perfume.

Ever since the fiasco outside the flower shop two days before, I’d been having nightmares—that was if I could sleep at all. During the daytime I was on edge. Loud noises—the door slamming, the radiator clanking—made me jump.

“You want to talk about it?” she asked, stifling a yawn.

I sighed and rolled onto my side, facing her. “What’s there to talk about? It’s over with Shep.”

“You’d better tell him that. He’s been calling here since Sunday.”

“I know, but I don’t know how to tell him I can’t see him anymore. And I can’t. Not after what happened the other day.”

“But you’re crazy about him.”

I swallowed hard. My heart had stopped racing, but now it felt pinched and heavy in my chest. “But he’s
really
a gangster, Ev.”

“C’mon, you knew that already.”

“But I didn’t get it. I didn’t really understand. Yes, I knew he was a gangster but not the kind of gangster who went around shooting people. None of it seemed real to me until his friend shot that guy. My God, they could have killed him. How can you keep seeing Izzy after that?”

“It’s not like Izzy shot the guy. Neither did Shep, for that matter. Like you said, it was their friend.” She yawned again. “Our guys had nothing to do with it.”

I flopped onto my back, wishing I could justify it the way she had. My eyes were tearing up. “The funny thing is, I felt safe with Shep. Protected. Now I’m scared of him. I don’t know who he is, what he’s capable of. And to think I finally thought I met someone I really liked. I’ve never known anyone like Shep before. I knew things would never be dull with him, but I wasn’t expecting guns to be going off, you know?” I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “But still, I miss him. I wish I didn’t, but I really do miss him, Ev.”

Evelyn didn’t say anything.

“Ev?”

I looked over at her, watching the covers rhythmically rise up, then ease back down. She was already asleep again.

•   •   •

T
he next day, when Izzy telephoned, Evelyn hesitated for a moment or two, but in the end she couldn’t say no to him. And though she wouldn’t admit it, I knew Izzy’s being a
real
gangster only made her like him more. It was all part of her getting a taste of the world her parents had wanted to shield her from.

Later that afternoon I was in the front parlor playing a hand of gin rummy with some of the other girls when the telephone rang. Barbara Lewis poked her head inside and said, “Vera, it’s for you. It’s Shep calling.”

I looked up, and my heart began beating fast. God, how I wanted to hear his voice, know that he was okay, but all I did was shake my head. As hard as it was, I’d made up my mind not to see him again. The stakes were too high, the risks too great.

“You sure? It’s the second time he’s called for you today.”

“I’m sure.” I fanned out my cards and then set them facedown. “Do you girls mind if we don’t finish this hand? I’m not feeling too well.”

I went upstairs, flung myself on my bed and had a good cry, leaving smudges of mascara and eyeliner streaked across my pillowcase. Later that night Barbara brought me some soup from the luncheonette around the corner but I couldn’t bring myself to eat it.

Shep called two more times that night. The next day I still wouldn’t take his calls, and that’s when the flowers started. Bouquets of long-stemmed roses from Schofield’s showed up at the rooming house. More turned up at my job, and each arrangement was more lavish than the one before. I would have bet good money that it was the first time two dozen American Beauties had ever been delivered to the insurance offices of Schlemmer Weiss & Unger. Mr. Schlemmer himself told me to put them in the back—they were obstructing his view of the typewriter pool.

I couldn’t concentrate at my desk and instead shuffled through the cards that had arrived with each delivery:
I miss you, Dollface. I need to see you, Dollface.
Each one tugged a little harder at my heart.

In spite of how I felt about him being a gangster, I couldn’t deny how much I missed him. And I was touched. Nobody had ever pursued me like this before. Shep Green almost had me believing I was worth the chase.

•   •   •

A
bout a week later, having ignored several more of Shep’s telephone calls, I found myself alone again on a Saturday night. Evelyn was on another date with Izzy. The other girls on the floor had gotten dolled up in their best outfits and had stopped by our room to have their makeup done before they disappeared for the evening. After everyone had left I called into the switchboard office, hoping they needed me to fill in. I would rather have gone into work than sit home alone. But instead I listened to
The Eveready Hour
on the radio. The Waldorf-Astoria Dance Orchestra was playing, and it made me wish I were dancing with Shep.

“...Tonight’s program was brought to you by the National Carbon Company. This is your host, Wendell Hall, signing off from WEAF radio, broadcasting from New York. . . .”

I turned off the radio and looked out the window, watching a couple rush arm in arm down the sidewalk before disappearing around the corner. I took a deep breath, feeling the walls closing in on me. I knew if I stayed in that room, I’d start crying again.

I ended up killing almost an hour at the luncheonette around the corner, sitting in a booth with a plate of hash and eggs and free coffee refills. Someone before me had left a newspaper behind, so it kept me company. After I read the style section and the society page, a short article grabbed my attention:

Female Bootleggers Outrun Police Again

Fanny Klem, aged twenty-four, and an unidentified female companion outran the police for the second time in two weeks. The two were last seen coming over the Indiana state line in a black Harvester truck believed to be carrying more than five hundred cases of liquor from Cincinnati. Previously arrested for bank robbery, the female bootleggers are now wanted in three states and are believed to be armed and dangerous. . . .

They showed a picture of a woman, and I had to check the caption to make sure it was her, Fanny Klem. She had a blond bob, beautiful sparkly eyes and a sweet, seemingly innocent smile. She sure didn’t look like a bootlegger. But underneath that pretty exterior had to be one tough cookie, wise and cunning and not afraid to get her hands dirty. All I could think was,
She’s the type of girl Shep belongs with, not me.

After leaving the luncheonette, I wandered down along State Street to look in the store windows. That always seemed to lift my spirits and make me forget my problems, and that night was no exception. The dresses that season were dazzling and I loved how they draped off the mannequins, the hems barely reaching the middle of their calves.

It was a cold night and I stuffed my hands deep inside my pockets, my breath forming vapor clouds in front of me as I walked along. As I neared Carson Pirie Scott at State and Madison, a man walking by called to me, “Is that you? It is, isn’t it?”

I looked over and couldn’t help smiling. I recognized the lock of hair hanging down first and then the smile. It was Tony Liolli. He looked good, even better than I’d remembered. The tip of his collar was flipped up but somehow he made imperfection look fashionable.

“I’m sorry. Jeez—what is it? Valerie? Veronica?”

I folded my arms. “Try Vera.”

“That’s right. Vera.” He nodded. “How could I forget?”

“I don’t know, how could you?”

“Say, let me make it up to you. We’ll go have a drink. I know a place around the corner.”

“No, thanks.” Lonely as I was, it bothered me that he didn’t remember my name.

“No?” He sounded surprised, as if he’d never heard that from a woman before.

A car door slammed. It sounded like a gun going off and I turned so quickly I dropped my pocketbook.

Tony picked it up off the sidewalk. “Well, swell seeing you again, Vera.”

When I reached for my pocketbook, his fingers brushed against mine and out of nowhere, a charge shot through my body. I glanced up and locked eyes with him. All of me went flush. And he knew it, too.

“You sure you won’t have that drink with me?”

The next thing I knew, I was on the south side of town, at Wabash and Twenty-sixth. Tony took me to a place called the Four Deuces. It was dark and smoky inside, and the clientele seemed to fit the decor. A man with thick, wiry eyebrows and a stern expression etched on his face was talking to a man wearing a black patch over his right eye. A couple other equally menacing-looking men were sitting at the bar, huddled over teacups of whiskey, chomping on cigars. Other than a few floozies off to the side, I was the only woman in there. I was about to tell Tony I wanted to leave when the men at the bar looked up and said hello, slapping him on the back, asking where he’d been.