The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress (35 page)

“There’s a reason they call this dirty work. Be glad I’m willing to do yours.”

They strained to hear Owney’s response, but the alley grew quiet.

Shorty’s mouth was pressed next to Ritzi’s ear, and she could feel the warmth of his breath against her temple. “This is the second time I’ve saved your sorry ass. I won’t do it again.”

Ritzi turned her head to the side, tried to see his face, to understand what he meant.

“In Coney Island,” he whispered. “You think I didn’t see your dress sticking out of that cabinet? That I didn’t know you were in there? Shit. I’m not an idiot, Ritz.”

Why?
She mouthed the word against his palm.

She felt his shrug. “I like you. Always have. You’re better than this.”

It took Owney a long time to respond to John, but when he did, Ritzi felt herself go limp in Shorty’s arms.

“I want to see her body,” he said.

“No. You don’t.”

“You don’t tell me what I want. This is a special circumstance.”

“Suit yourself. It’s at the bottom of the garbage chute. But you’ll have to dig through two days’ worth of trash to find it.”

Ritzi imagined Owney looking at his new custom suit, his Italian leather shoes, his silk tie, deciding whether she was worth the trouble. Apparently not.

“Shorty!” Owney called down the dark alley.

They both tensed, and his hand lay fast over her mouth. Shorty cleared his throat. “Yeah, boss?”

“Is there anything I need to know?”

“No sign of her.”

“Let’s go, then.”

“You sit here.” Shorty’s voice was barely louder than a breath. “You don’t move. As far as I’m concerned, you’re dead, and I don’t ever want to hear different. Best you disappear. Forever. Got it?”

Ritzi gave her head the slightest nod, nothing more than the hint of affirmation.

Shorty didn’t look at her or say another word, simply stepped from behind the trash can and ambled toward his boss, hands thrust deep in his pockets. Somewhere down the alley, doors slammed. And then Owney’s Cadillac roared to life. The glow of taillights washed red against the warehouse as they drove away.

She stayed crouched there until her bare feet went numb against the frozen concrete. Once certain that Owney was long gone, Ritzi went in search of help. Freezing and queasy and paranoid, she stumbled upon a Jewish baker raising the shutters on his shop at four in the morning. She begged to go in and sit in the heat, and though he seemed disinclined at first, her tears won him over. He asked no questions but gave her a day-old loaf of sourdough. Ritzi fell asleep beside one of the ovens and slept until noon. Upon waking, she called the only person who could help: Maria Simon. The envelope with her number on it had fallen out
of Ritzi’s purse when John ransacked it, but she’d snatched it from the floor as he dragged her from the room.

Ritzi pushed the memories aside and selected a dress from the small closet in the sparse room. She stepped into the plain shift and tugged at the zipper, willing it to close. These days her clothing options were limited to one of two dresses. Both of them uncomfortable and belonging to Maria’s mother—her kind benefactor in this self-imposed exile. How Maria came from the loins of a woman who willingly wore olive plaid was beyond Ritzi. Such stern material. Unyielding. And scratchy. A bit like its owner. But she was in no position to complain.

Ritzi’s hair had grown, and the uneven tendrils brushed against her chin. Most days she tried to ignore the rolling of arms and legs inside of her. But she could not overlook the changes in her body: the swelling feet and the itchy skin and her already large breasts now profound in size. It seemed as though her entire body expanded in effort to make room for this strange person inside her. The change was unwelcome. And alarming.

A gentle knock sounded at the bedroom door.

“Come in.”

Vivian Gordon slipped in and shut the door behind her. “I got your message.”

Ritzi practically threw herself into Vivian’s arms. “You came!”

Vivian’s purse dangled from one elbow, and her copper hair and green eyes lit up the room. Just the sight of her in a periwinkle dress and pearls made Ritzi feel dowdy. She gazed longingly at Vivian’s small waist and wondered if hers would ever be the same again.

“You look ill,” Vivian said. She pecked Ritzi on the cheek.

“It’s not my color. That woman has terrible fashion sense.”

“What? This?” Vivian asked, tugging at the sleeve of Ritzi’s dress. She laughed. And then looked as though she would cry. “It’s good to see you, Ritz. Sorry I thought …”

“I know.” Ritzi dropped to the bed and looked at her stomach, suddenly overcome. “I’m sorry. I had to wait awhile. It wasn’t safe.”

Vivian settled on the bed beside her. The mattress was old and soft, and their combined weight created a dip in the middle. They leaned in, shoulders brushing. “Owney got me a new roommate.”

“Oh yeah?”

“He came by the apartment one day and hauled all your stuff away in garbage bags. I asked him where you were and if you were coming back, and he just laughed, said you’d moved on to a more
permanent
location.” Vivian dug around in the bottom of her purse and found Ritzi’s knotted gray sock. She set it on Ritzi’s lap. “I would have never believed the message was from you if you hadn’t asked for this.”

Ritzi heaved a broken little gasp and clutched the sock to her heart. She could feel her wedding ring, firm against the skin of her palm. “Thank you.”

“I took it from your closet that night you didn’t come back. Just in case.” Vivian gave her a half smile. “What are you going to do?”

It had taken weeks for Ritzi to find the courage necessary to make her decision. Nightmares and cold sweats and sudden panic attacks in the middle of the night assaulted her after her encounter in the warehouse. She’d wake screaming and clawing at the air. There was only one place she would ever feel safe, only one place she wanted to be. She could at least thank Owney Madden for that. He’d given her the certainty she needed. Ritzi smiled. “I’m going to have this baby. And then I’m going home.”

“I thought you said he wouldn’t take you back?”

“He probably won’t.” Her lip trembled. “I wouldn’t.”

“What if he doesn’t?”

“Then that’s the end. I’ve got nothing after that.” Ritzi untied the tattered gray sock and dumped the wedding ring into her hand. She forced it over the swollen knuckle of her ring finger, ensuring that she would not be able to get it off again. She didn’t want to.

CLUB ABBEY, FRIDAY, AUGUST 1, 1930

Ritzi knocked back a shot of whiskey. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and did a little curtsy at the bar as a small crowd of men clapped and cheered. Stan rolled his eyes. What these men really wanted was to see Ritzi get drunk. Get naked. Get loose. But that wasn’t going to happen. Not here. Not tonight.

“Dance with me?” someone asked.

“Sorry, boys. I’m off duty.” She gave them a winsome smile and patted a few cheeks as she walked away.

“What about me? Do I get a dance?” Owney. Just the man she’d come to see.

“Of course.” She could feel a tingle at the tips of her fingers from the whiskey, and she forced herself to relax.

“Nice dress.” Owney appraised the midnight-blue satin gown. Low cut with spaghetti straps, it clung to all the right places but didn’t hinder movement on the dance floor.

“Thanks.” She gave a half twirl, like a child showing off a church dress. “Crater bought it for me.”

Owney gripped her around the waist, pressed in close, and effortlessly spun her onto the floor. “And where is he tonight?”

“In Maine. With his wife.”

“That’s a first. He hasn’t been up there all summer.”

“I guess he prefers my company.”

“Good. Do you think his wife suspects anything? I can’t afford to have her causing trouble.”

“Don’t mind Stella.” Her hand lay flat on Owney’s shoulder. She didn’t protest when he pulled her closer, but neither did she wrap herself around him. “It’s Crater you need to worry about.”

She felt the muscles in his shoulders tighten.

“What do you mean?”

Ritzi relaxed in his arms. Picked her words carefully so she would sound concerned but not too eager. “He got a summons to testify before the Seabury Commission. Said people have been sniffing around, asking questions about his appointment to the court.”

Owney’s voice constricted with anger. “He didn’t mention that to me.”

Ritzi moved her hand along Owney’s neck, played with his shirt collar and then his earlobe. “He avoids you. Says he’s just biding his time until he can get out from under your thumb.”

“Crater says that?”

“Occasionally. Mostly, he talks about his plans for higher office. I guess the deal you got for him wasn’t big enough. Calls it a ‘stepping-stone.’ ” Ritzi could feel the heat beneath Owney’s skin, the strain in his neck as she spoke.

“Joseph Crater’s a fool.”

“Maybe. But he’s ambitious.”

“That makes him dangerous.”

When the song ended, Owney maneuvered them to the edge of the dance floor. He stepped away with the last note.

Ritzi pouted and set her hands on her hips. “I thought you wanted to dance?”

“I’ve gotta make a call.”

“Now?”

“I think maybe Crater needs to cut his vacation short. He and I need to have a chat.” Owney disentangled himself from her arms and stalked off to the telephone hanging on the wall beside his booth.

Ritzi’s eyes were bright and her smile barely suppressed as she collected her purse from the cubby behind the bar and walked out the double wooden doors and up the stairwell into the calm, clear evening.

Chapter Thirty-One

ST. PATRICK
’
S CATHEDRAL, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1931

MARIA
could not bear sitting in the confessional again—not with Father Donnegal—so she waited in a pew four rows back from the altar. She knew he saw her, and that he waited for the church to empty. She’d chosen a slow time—two o’clock in the afternoon—to better her chances of speaking with him alone. Maria sat there for almost an hour, breathing in the stillness, listening to the cathedral settle beneath the weight of decades. As the sun shifted diagonally through the stained-glass windows and flooded the nave with pools of blue light, the last parishioner rose from one of the side altars. The old woman looked at her watch and seemed startled at the time. She blinked into the shadows and hurried from the church, jacket buttoned up to her neck. Once they were alone, Finn lurched his way toward Maria.

He dropped into the space beside her. Nodded. Waited for her to speak.

Maria wrapped her arms around her chest. She rocked back and forth in the pew. When the words finally came, she choked on them. “I can’t have children.”

Finn sat still for a long time, eyes on the altar, and Maria was afraid he would give her some religious platitude, that he would try to comfort her. But he didn’t.

“I’m sorry.” His voice was a whisper, and Maria heard the shared grief of a true friend. “I’ve always thought you would be a wonderful mother.”

“It’s a fitting punishment. For what I’ve done.”

Finn controlled his voice, dropped it lower. “What kind of God do you believe in? He didn’t give you cancer.”

She jerked her head to the side. “How do you know about that?”

“Jude told me.”

“He came to see you?”

“Many times.”

She snorted. “I thought you didn’t share what’s spoken in the confessional?”

“He wasn’t confessing.” Finn patted the smooth surface of the pew between them. “He was crying. Right here.”

Maria turned away. Blinked. Swallowed the hard lump of remorse that rose in her throat.

“A man’s sorrow is different than his sin, yes? My calling makes me privy to both.” Finn wrapped his hand around hers. It was cool, and the tips of his fingers were rough from worrying his rosary. “Cancer is not some divine currency, Maria, meted out as punishment.”

“I’ve done more than you know.”

“You’ve done nothing to earn this.”

Maria made herself small in the pew, lowered her shoulders, and hung her head. She was hollowed out, flesh and bone wrapped around emptiness. “I manipulated that promotion for Jude and never told him because I wanted him to think he’d earned it on his own. Then I found Mr. Crater in bed with a showgirl and I kept the truth from his wife. That money I stole from the Craters? I saw Jude plant it there—forced to do so because of
my
meddling—and I told no one about it. When his partner came to threaten me into silence, I kept that from Jude as well. And then”—Maria gave Father Donnegal a desperate look—“I used that money to bribe Mr. Crater’s mistress to let me have her baby. At this very moment, she’s hidden at my parents’ house until she gives birth. This too I have kept from Jude. I have lied. Stolen. Bribed. And manipulated my way for months. So please do not tell me that I have done nothing to deserve a barren womb. I deserve far worse.”

Finn laid his hand on top of her head. They sat long in the pew as he whispered prayers in Latin, fervent, desperate, and somehow more powerful in their foreignness, as though he spoke God’s own language. Maria rested beneath the weight of his hand, gathered the words into her heart. Believed them, though she did not understand them, because they were too abundant for her.

The front doors creaked open behind them, and Finn pulled away. Footsteps rang hollow down the side of the nave. Someone struck a match. Coughed. And then the murmur of divine supplication.

“What is my penance, Father?” she whispered.

“You have punished yourself enough already. God wants nothing but your repentance. And that you have freely given.”

“There is more,” she whispered. Maria picked her last secret from the darkest corner of her mind. She readied herself to speak it, to rid herself of its terrible weight. “But you will not believe me capable of such a thing.”

CLUB ABBEY, SUNDAY, AUGUST 3, 1930

Maria picked her way down the steps, her hand on the brick wall for balance. She shifted a little to the side, unsteady in the high heels and fitted black dress. Her small black hat had a netted veil that covered her eyes, good for anonymity but bad for vision in the dim stairwell. Her ankles wobbled as she descended, and her breath caught in her throat when she reached the bottom. In the shadows, next to the unmarked door, was a short man in a bowler hat, one leg propped on the wall behind him, chewing on a toothpick.