The Drazen World: The California Limited (Kindle Worlds Novella) (10 page)

He paused, hearing himself say the name.  “Minnie.”

Click.

He felt the click like a shot.  With a certainty she had to have known he owned the Canary, the Ambassador.  She would have taken one look at Declan, heard his name, and known they were brothers.  She had signed her initials, her phone number in such a strange and obvious place.  She had come to him.  Sought him.

“Tell me you have paperwork on her,” he said already striding back to Declan’s office.

“Yeah.”  Declan produced her file with a home address on Franklin Avenue in the Hollywood Hills and he turned to leave without explanation.  “Are you going to tell me what it is about this girl?”

Jack stopped and thought, then turned back.  “I don’t know yet.  But do
not
get rid of that piano.”

It was late, well past 10pm, by the time he pulled up to the Claridge, the courtyard aglow as he walked through the front gate.  He made his way to her garden-level unit, braced himself, then knocked on the door.  No answer.  He skulked to the tall bay window, pressed his face to it, and peered inside.  No lights were on, no one moving about.  She wasn’t home.

When he pulled back, a pane came ajar and he realized it was a garden door.  Without conscious thought that he was entering unlawfully, he pulled it open and stole inside.

In the early hours of the morning, the key finally turned in the door.  He sat waiting in a chair that faced it, the pale light of the courtyard to his back.  She was shrouded in darkness, but her form, her shaded movements.  It was
Her
.  He clicked on a lamp and she screamed, her hands coming to her mouth, her eyes wide when she saw him.

“Minnie,” he said, his voice lower and more stern than he had imagined it would be.  “Where have you been?”

Minnie

Ever since I could remember I always wanted to be someone else.  The idea of stepping into another person’s life for a time, on a stage or in front of a camera like Sara Allgood or Mary Philbin, was my fondest wish.  As ridiculous as it seemed to some, to me it was as sensible as the soles of my shoes.  More so, even, for shoes could be discarded; my dream would not be.  There was nothing so horrible as the prospect of living my entire life only to find out that I was utterly ordinary.

My father George worked the line manufacturing fanning mills, machines that separate wheat grain from chaff. 
A more important job than most
, he would say, and one for which he was uniquely well-suited.  He loved nothing more than to separate use from waste.  Whenever he regarded me, the youngest of seven and
a mere girl
, it was with a keen and measuring eye for whether I could contribute and what.

My mother Margaret said it was his old Irish sensibility for famine. 
You reap what you sow
, they reminded us.  And we did, with our behavior, our appearance, our marks in school, our attendance at church.

With my oldest brother on the line next to my father and the next in seminary, my sister married to a fine parish boy with a wee one on her knee and my mother’s lace curtains white, we were as good a middle-class Irish-Catholic family as any other.  Until October 1929.  That is when we lost our shine and everyone else around us.

My parents, who had only ever shown us their restrained caring for each other, became agitated, faces flat, then furrowed, voices impatient, then hard-edged.  They wore their worry like a heavy cloak they could not remove, burdensome and unacknowledged, yet always there.

We stopped throwing things away.  A linen too old or frayed for a bed was cut into strips and put on the loom to weave blankets.  Socks were darned.  Shoes cobbled.  We dug a garden in the backyard to grow everything we struggled to buy.  I helped in the garden.  We all helped where we could. 

With my older sister already married, my special job was to help my mother with the laundry.  It wasn’t nearly as bad with the Maytag, but when that broke and could not be repaired nor replaced, it became the worst drudgery.  Boiling and washing and rinsing and bluing and starching and ironing.  I never felt so poor as I did when I looked at my hands.

We were getting by until Junior lost his job in the factory the following year and his home the next.  Of course he and his family came to live with us in our fine home in town.  Five extra mouths and a bed in the drawing room.  My sister married into some money and helped us out as she could.

Until the factory closed in 1934.  The market for wheat had collapsed.  Like us, farmers stopped buying new fanning mills and simply repaired their old ones.  They had tried to remain open.  Four years of cutting wages and jobs.  But when they finally closed, all the men who had been there the longest, enduring cuts to wages and hours, lost their jobs.  Including my father.

Like us, many of those men had nice homes bought free and clear many years before.  My mother thought she had the solution.  Mortgage the house.  It would buy us time to get through.  Humbling, yes.  But it was not the time for pride.

The fight, unable to be hidden behind a closed door, was the worst in my memory.

What have you done?

I couldn’t turn a blind eye to my country’s struggle.

We are Americans!

Irish-Americans.

How could you?

That’s unfair, Margie.  How could I have known that this would happen?

So you gave our home,
our home
, George, away to some militants across an ocean?

Our brothers.  Our friends.  They were giving their blood, Margie.  The least I could do was give them some money.

Goddamnye, you’ve ruined us.  I’m so tired of your politics, George.  But this,
this
…Goddamnye, do you hear me?  We’re lost.  God. Damn. You.

You don’t mean it.  You’re angry.  Take it back.

You fix this.  Do you hear me?  You fix this.

And he did.  Unfortunately, his eagle eye fell on me. 

“You like to sing, don’t you, Minnie?”  He took me aside one day out of earshot of my mother, of anyone, his eyes darting around as he spoke softly.

I nodded.

“Good.  Good.  And you’re quite good at it.  I’ve always thought it.”

“Thank you,” I said.  Whether he had always thought it, he had never said.  “I think so.”

“And you’d like to be a performer one day.  A singer.  A dancer.  Maybe even an actress.”

“Yes, sir.  I would like that very much.”

Suddenly his derision of my dream had turned to admiration.  I should have been more tentative, questioning.

“How would you like to sing?  In a real club.  Before a live audience.  Not like in church.  Not like that at all.  For money.  Real money.  Just like you imagined.  Would you like that?”

I sang on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and made $400 a month.  More than my father made at the factory in a year.  He resented me more than a little for that. 
Singing was no kind of work
, he said.  And in a way he was right.  I would have done it for nothing and I might have if he had gotten his way.  But some pluck in me managed to carve out my right to some of the money.  $100 dollars a month.  I was so happy to have it I didn’t even care that it might have been more.

For a year my mother knew nothing of it.  My father told her he had managed to find a little work in Milwaukee.  The evening shift and that I was helping, which wasn’t a lie.  Exactly.

But his pride would not allow him to sit idly in the back of a club while his seventeen-year-old daughter provided for the family.  He transported sugar for a bootlegging operation and made some interesting friends.  That’s when I met Frank.

“Why don’t you sit right here on my lap, sugar?” he’d say after my set, uncrossing his legs and patting them like a pederast.

And I did.  I had to. 
Part of the job
, Artie always said.  No one said no to the Fiores.  So I smiled and flirted, sat on his lap and let him touch me.  He was always whispering crude things in my ear while he played with my nipples and lips.

“Suck, precious.”  His eyes widened with lust as he watched me suck his fingers and thumb.  God knows where they had been.

I wished I could demand the rest of the money.  I was earning it then.  It was bad enough to play the whore until my father came to me with another proposal.

“You’d like to go to Hollywood.  Wouldn’t you, Minnie?  Be in pictures.  Wouldn’t you?”

I paused, more hesitant of his grand offers.  “Yes, sir.”

“Well, there is a town, not far from Hollywood named Las Vegas.  It’s not as bright or glamorous as Hollywood, but it will be one day, I’m promised by Mr. Fiore.  He’s sending young Francis there to get them established.  He’s a real go-getter, that Junior.  You like him.  Don’t you, Min?”

In fact, I couldn’t stand him.  I supposed he was handsome enough, dark and slick.  But he was slippery and vulgar in a way that made me want to crawl right out of my skin when he touched it.

“Yes, sir.”  I hoped I said it soft and inauthentic enough.

“Good.”  He patted my leg.  “Good.  Because he’s asked for my permission to marry you.  And I said yes.” 

His smile was so wide and bright that I wanted to slap it right off his face.  I could never have imagined something so disrespectful as slapping my father, but in that moment it was all I could see.  My hand itched to do it.  It was more than losing respect for my father.  I could barely stand to call him that.  I hated him in that moment.

Instead of saying no.  Instead of running out like a child, I smiled tightly and nodded.  I was being sentenced to that slimy boy, being sent to some nowhere town that might have been the moon for its closeness to Hollywood.  I had to figure a way out.

I did the one thing my father had told me never to do and it gave me great satisfaction to defy him.  I went to my mother.  Told her everything.  My singing.  My father’s bootlegging.  Young Frank’s wish.  And Father’s consent.  And like I knew she would, she didn’t fret, didn’t get angry, she got calm, fierce, certain.

“It’s George’s debt,” she held my face tenderly, her warm, caring smile making me tear up, “and George who’ll pay it.  Not you, my girl, never you.  We’ll find a way out of this.”

***

Chapter 9

“I don’t think I like you living in this garden-level apartment where anyone can get in,” said Jack.

“Don’t scare me like that.”  She stood frozen in a powder-blue trench and black kitten heels.  “How did you get in here?”

He pointed behind him.  “Your window, door thing wasn’t latched.”

She walked past him to secure it.  “It always sticks.” 

When she moved to walk past him again, he grabbed her hand.  He peeled the glove off and brought it to his cheek.  “Are you real?”  He smoothed his fingers over it, his eyelids drooping as if drugged.  Then he stood and looked at her, studying her, his fingers smoothing over every feature on her face, down her hairline, along her jaw, like a blind man sees.

When his fingers skated over her lips, his gaze narrowed on them as if he would kiss them, she grasped his wrists and looked at him.

“Why did you leave me?”  His voice was angry and accusatory.  He didn’t know what he would be, how he would feel, when he saw her.  When she had first disappeared all he could imagine was a deep feeling of relief when he found her.  Over the past six years, if his mind allowed him to contemplate finding her it was still relief.  To be sure, he felt shades of that, but more than relief, inexplicably, he was angry.  Without knowing anything, he was like a petulant child.

She pulled his hands from her face and walked away.  He followed her into her bedroom to see drawers open and a suitcase laid out on the bed, clothes hastily piled in. 

“Going somewhere?”

She took off her coat and heels, avoiding his gaze, then turned to go into a bathroom.  But he grabbed her arm none too gently and forced her chin up to look at him.

Her mouth agape and tears in her eyes, she shook her head.  “I have to go,” she said, her voice breaking.  She swallowed more emotion down.  “For weeks I’ve been wanting to see you.  And now…”  Her hand covered her mouth as she turned to go into the bathroom.

“Frank,” he said, following her.

Turned away from him, she nodded, her shoulders shaking.

He wrapped his arms around her.  “You’re not going anywhere.”

She relaxed into his embrace, her breath leaving in a slow, satisfied
ha
, still she nodded.  After long moments, she turned and rested her hands on his chest.  “Does he live here?”

“No.  Las Vegas.”

She nodded.  “But he’s here, in LA, right now.”

“No.  He left for home right after our meeting.”

“But he saw me.  I was just finishing my set when he came in.  Strolled right up to the center table.  Though the lights are bright on stage, I thought it was him.  And…” she paused, as if thinking, “I thought he recognized me.  H-he seemed to look at me longer.  Study me, even.”

She looked at him, pleading for reassurance.  “How did you know it was Frank?” she prodded after he didn’t say anything for a long moment.

He stepped back from her and scrubbed a hand down his face.  “He happened to mention you looked familiar.”

“I knew it,” she said, darting around him for her suitcase.  “I’ve got to get out of here.”

Again he followed her, grabbing an arm before she could close her suitcase.  He put her in a lounge chair, his hands gripping the arms to trap her, his gaze piercing her.  “Relax.”  She opened her mouth to speak, but he put a hand up.  “Ah-ah.  Just listen.

“Frank Fiore doesn’t know who you are.  He asked and I told him I hadn’t a clue who my lunch girl was because I hadn’t.  Not until Declan found your little message and I pulled it out of him.  Inventive, by the way.  Very nice.”

Again she opened her mouth to speak.

“Ah,” he put up a finger, “you’re listening, if you’ll remember.

“Frank’s a little shit,” he continued.

“He’s in the mafia,” she rejoined.

“Barely.  Las Vegas is a second-flight town filled with second-flight gangsters and second-flight girls.  It’s the kind of place the mob sends someone they don’t give a shit about.  And believe me, they don’t give a shit about Frank Fiore.”

“He’s more dangerous than you realize, Jack.  You don’t understand.”

Minnie

Frank had wanted to marry right away.

“We’ll do it up big and nice in your home church,” he said, his fingers skating over my lips.  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

It was then I took on the role of a lifetime.  Smiling sweetly, I took his disgusting fingers and kissed them.  “I would.  So much.  Only…my mother is so distraught by my leaving, going so far away and not knowing when we’ll see each other again, that I think to marry here would only be pouring salt in her wounds.  Can we marry in Las Vegas?  We could marry right away when I get there.”

“What do you mean, you?” he’d asked.  “We’ll go together.”

“But I thought your father wanted you to be out there within the month?  Remember that I promised to help my sister Virginia when the baby comes.  Five, Frank.  It’s a handful.”

“Ginny’s got the money.  She can hire help.”

“It’s not the same, sweetheart,” I’d said, stroking an errant hair and giving him a schooling smile.  “Family should help family.  Right?  And only think of how prepared I’ll be for when we have our babies.”

He’d smiled so sweetly.  What a gift, that lie.  I thought I won my freedom.

“All right.  I’ll go on ahead.  You’ll have some money.  Be sure and buy a nice dress and underthings.  Some jewelry and perfume.  The very best.  Only the best for my girl.  Piero and Antonio can travel with you.”

Frightened that one heavy hand would pass me to another, I told him that I could manage the ride myself.

His brow furrowed as he pulled back skeptically.  “I don’t think I like that.”  He shook his head.  “No, pet.  Th-that doesn’t seem safe at all.  What if you should get off on one of the stops in some Nowheresville and you’re delayed in the ladies’ room and it rides right off without you?  No, I think you’d best ride with the boys so they can keep an eye on you.”

I’d squeezed his hand.  “Be a darling and consider that I can take care of myself, will you?”  Still he was hesitant.  “What if I promise never to get off on a stop?  Would that put your mind at ease?” 

And before he could say no, I’d redirected his attention just as I did with my parents as a girl.  “Will you buy us a house, Frank?”

His eyes lit up.  “I’m going to buy you the most beautiful house, sweet,” he’d said, stroking his fingers along my cheek.

My eyes brightened and my smile widened as I pretended to think.  “Could it be white?  All white clapboard with bright blue shutters and a picket fence and some window boxes.”

“Whatever you want, doll.  Whatever you want.”

I thought I had him.

Nothing of my goodbye to my family was pretense but for my final destination.  I was leaving them to go live out West.  When I would return, when we would see each other again was anyone’s guess.

“You’ll be a good girl for him.  A good wife,” my father had said.

“Yes, sir.  I will,” I’d said with a flat smile.

When my mother took me in her arms, her eyes widened with hidden meaning.  “You’ll let me know when you arrive there safely.”

“I will.”  My voice cracked.  I couldn’t help it.

In Chicago, Piero and Antonio lurked on Track 12 while the
Los Angeles Limited
to Las Vegas was boarding.  I had no choice.  I had to board and wait to see if they did, too.  I found my seat and stared at them and at my ticket to Los Angeles.  I didn’t like Frank.  Not at all.  I wasn’t pleased with his family or his business, which seemed to be entirely illegal and often dangerous.  But walking away meant running; how and how long I didn’t know.  As the porters were pulling up the stools, I saw Frank’s men turn away.

That’s when I heard the last call for the
California Limited
.  It was like a clarion.  I slipped off the train and took off running.

***

“Make me understand,” he said, pulling a chair up and sitting down in front of her, his gaze earnest and hands resting heavily on her knees.

She told him the story of her life, beginning with her name.

“Margaret Anne Ward.  My mother’s name.”

“That was the truth.  You would share anything with her, you said.”

She nodded with a faint smile.  “My father called her Margie.  And when I was born I was a dainty little thing, he said.  So they called me Minnie.”

How they weathered the Depression.

“Your poor hands,” he said, taking them in his, stroking the palms with his thumbs and rubbing them against his cheeks, then kissing them.  “I’m so sorry I ever said anything.”

That her father lost his job.  How she met Frank.  Everything.

“But you got off the train and ran for the
California Limited
.”

She nodded, her eyes filling with tears.

He tenderly stroked her face, flicking her tears away with a thumb.  Then he leaned in to kiss her, stopping right before his lips met hers to look into her eyes, his heart anxious and wondering in the gaze.  Her eyes met his with pleading, with longing, and without fear.  So he kissed her, gently, tentatively, then harder, desperate as if he were starved and would devour her.  She met him eagerly.  Desperate, too.  They held on to each other and kissed as if they couldn’t bear to let go.  Until finally they pulled away, gathering their jagged breaths.

“I’m so glad you did, sweetheart,” he said and kissed her again, a light, almost careless peck.  “So very glad.”  He nodded, then she nodded.

“But it’s not safe for me to be here now that Frank knows.”

“First of all, you’ll remember he
doesn’t
know.  Not for sure.  And even if he did, so what?  He lives in Vegas.  Is happily married by all accounts.  Just tonight he rushed home to her.  There’s nothing to fear.”

She nodded as still more tears filled her eyes.  “I-I don’t know.  I can’t feel safe.  I can’t trust him.”

Suddenly angry, reminded of his hurt, Jack sat back.  “And you can’t trust me to keep you safe.  Not six years ago and not now.”

Of course it was too easy.  He would fall back in with her, the connection, the touch.  But he didn’t trust himself.  And he definitely didn’t trust her.  The trusting soul he had been was discarded at La Grande like her suitcase.  He hated that place and was glad it too had been discarded.

“It’s not about trusting you,” she said, trying to caress his cheek, but he grabbed her hand and pulled it down.

“It is,” he said, glaring at her.  “That’s exactly what it’s about.  The
only
thing it’s about.  Christ!”  He stood and walked away from her, pacing, thinking.

She stood.  “Maybe you should go.  It’s late and—”

“And what?”  He turned to her.  “You have to be on an early train in the morning?  No.”  He shook his head.

“No.”  She paused, her mouth gaped as if she were searching for words.

“Yes.  That’s exactly what you were going to do.  Whatever else you do, please do me the favor of being honest.”

“No.  I’m—I’m tired is all.  My nerves have been frayed since this afternoon.  Now I’ve seen you I…”  Her words fell away, her eyes distant.

“I’m not going anywhere.  I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

She turned pleading eyes to him.  “What would you have me do?”

“Promise me you’ll not do anything rash.  Not tonight.  Then tomorrow you’ll come see me at my office in the Ambassador.”

She shook her head.  “I can’t imagine I have a job after what I did.  Your brother is always babying that piano.”

“He hates that piano.  Don’t worry about that.  You have a job.  If not on the main stage, I can find you something.  A cigarette tray, perhaps.”

She nodded, walking him to her door.  She went to turn the knob when he grabbed her hand and kissed it.  Then he placed his hands on her shoulders, massaging lines up her neck with his thumbs.

“I can’t walk out this door.  I can’t…”  He shook his head.

“You can’t keep one eye on me for the rest of your life.”

“I can.  And when I can’t, I can put someone else on you.  Believe it.”

“Oh, I do,” she said, her hands lightly stroking his lean waist.  “But you don’t want me to feel like a trapped animal, do you, Jack?  A trapped animal that strikes out at her handler.”

He pulled her hands from his waist and squeezed them gently.  “Frankly, Minnie, that doesn’t frighten me.  It excites me.  I would rather have you hitting and kicking and spitting at me than lost somewhere.  Not knowing where you are or whether you are alive or dead or whether you’re hurt or hungry or being abused.”  He cupped her face, pressing his to it.  “Not. Knowing.  That is the greatest agony.  I won’t feel that again.  I won’t let you make me feel that again.”

Jack left Minnie’s apartment, nodding to his man Gregory before getting into his car.  He would not be unprepared with her.  Never again.