The Canary Club

by Sherry D. Ficklin

  JD walks toward us and pulls a wad of cash out of his jacket, peeling off bills and handing them out. When he gets to me, he smiles.

  “Ya did good work today. Come back tomorrow. I’m sure I can find a permanent place for ya,” he says, pressing a folded bill in my hand.

  Without looking at it, I crumple it and stuff it in my pocket. “That’s swell. Thanks.”

  He nods, giving me one long look before turning his back to me and returning to his car.

  Dickey pats me on the shoulder. “You’re not thinking of swiffing out on him tomorrow, are ya?”

  I shake my head. “Nah. I need the dough.”

  He grins. “Good. Don’t wanna make your best friend look bad to the boss. Come on, I’m gonna go over to the Rattle and see what’s what.”

  The Rattle, a burlesque club in Alphabet City, is the preferred choice for lowbrow entertainment. Bathtub gin, cheap cigars, and backroom poker all at a bargain price. Unless you lose, that is. Men have been known to drop fingers when debts couldn’t be paid.

  I wave him off. “Not tonight. You have fun. I promised Ma I’d hit the market on the way home.”

  Slipping his snap-brim hat from the pocket of his jacket, Dickey hits it once before setting it on his head. “Suit yourself.”

  We leave together and step out into the afternoon sun. It’s only a bit after four, according to the clock in the steeple across the road, but I decide to take a street car to the market by our house. When I pull out the folded bill, I see it’s not a five at all, but a fifty.

  Unsure if it was a deliberate act or a mistake, I make change. I’m careful to only spend the five I earned, resolving to return the rest. I fill my sack with eggs, cheese, bread, and some vegetables for soup, as well as a packet of Agnes’ favorite shortbread cookies, then head home.

  It’s a much shorter trip than it had been this morning, or at least it feels that way. When I step in the front door, I’m feeling pretty good about life, even though my new employer is the son of a mob boss. That might have bothered me more before jail, but being in there taught me that good people don’t always wear badges, bad guys don’t always wear shackles, and sometimes people have to do what they have to in order to protect what they love.

  I’ve lived a crime free life up to this point, and I still wound up in jail, so I figure the system owes me one. Besides, most of the fellas I met in the joint were decent enough, law breakers, sure, but just doing what they had to do to feed their families. Maybe the law didn’t allow for that, but I’m hoping other folks, the upstairs kind, take that into account.

  By the time Ma gets home, the soup is on and the rolls are in the oven. Thomas helps me clean off and set the small dining room table. Agnes, still pale and weak, decides to join us. Ma wraps her up in a wool blanket and sets her in the chair to my right.

  Pa had been a big, hulking man. When he was alive, the table was a tight fit for all of us. But now, with him gone, there’s plenty of room. And yet, somehow, I miss the closeness.

  “Should we say grace?” Agnes asks in a small voice.

  At the other end of the table, Ma bristles. She’s gotten out of the habit, and though she never said as much, I think she’s still angry at God for what happened to Pa. After his funeral, we’d never stepped foot in church again, all prayers had quietly stopped, and the cross that used to hang over the door mysteriously disappeared.

  I cover her hand with mine. “Sure, Aggie. You want me to say it?”

  She shakes her head. In a voice both innocent and wise beyond her years, she declares, “No. Mama should say it.”

  It takes Ma a moment to respond, though there’s no doubt she’ll do it—if only for Agnes’ sake. “Of course I will.” We bow our heads and clasp hands as Ma stumbles over a hasty blessing. When I look up, I swear I see unshed tears glistening in her eyes.

  “I got a job today,” I say, hoping to ease us into conversation. “I’m working for a transport company.”

  Ma sits back, laying her napkin across her lap. “Transport? You can’t even drive.”

  Beside her, Thomas giggles.

  “Well, yeah. I’m not a driver. I just load and unload trucks,” I admit. “But it pays ten dollars a day.”

  Ma’s eyes flicker up to me, a flash of worry darting across her face. “That’s a lot of money.”

  I nod. “It’s a lot of work.”

  She frowns into her soup, and I know she disapproves. A silent ember of anger ignites inside me. She’d be happier if I were digging graves for eighty cents a day. At least that, in her mind, is honest work. I want to rage…to tell her it’s all right to be paid well, remind her that pride is a sin and she should be glad I could even get a job at all.

  But I bite my tongue. She’d lost Pa and me in one week, and she’d been thrown to the wolves with no one to look after her and the twins. She’d done her best, and I shouldn’t be so hard on her.

  It’s then I decide that the less she knows about my work, the better.

  I don’t want her judging me for doing what I can to support them, and I don’t want to fight about her moral objections. So I’ll just keep quiet. I’ll lie—if I must—and let her live in blissful ignorance of the fine grey line I’m walking.

  The next day, I corner JD when he arrives, holding out his money. “I think you made a mistake yesterday. I was only supposed to get five. You gave me way too much.”

  JD holds up his hand. “You know, I’ve done that with every fella here on his first day, and you’re only the second who has tried to return it.” He snorts. “Keep it. I want you to go down to this address after shift and get a new suit. Can’t have you looking like that if you’re gonna be working for us.” Opening his billfold, he hands me a small white business card with an address printed on the back. “Giuseppe’s the best tailor this side of Paris. You tell him I sent you.”

  I stick the card in my pocket. “Yes, sir. I mean, thank you, JD.”

  He nods and I return the money to my pocket, torn between gratitude and shame as I wonder who the other Good Samaritan might be.

  JD joins Daddy and me at the table on the patio. Our penthouse offers a breathtaking view of the city skyline, and we’ve taken to eating nearly every meal here, surrounded by the pots of flowers and topiaries lining the short wall around us. Butler brings a glass of scotch and the morning paper in on a silver tray, holding it out to JD with gloved hands.

  “A bit early, isn’t it?” I tease, taking a sip of my orange juice.

  He winks, accepting the glass. “Hair of the dog that bit ya, little sister.”

  Daddy sets his stubby cigar in the crystal ashtray and takes the paper, shaking it open with a flourish. “That better not be from my private reserve,” he chastises.

  “Would you rather I imbibe that coffin varnish you’re pushing down by the docks?” JD smirks, the corner of his mouth turning up behind his glass. “Just remember that if I die, you’d have no one to take the reins when you retire.”

  Daddy snickers. “Don’t you worry about that, my boy. I plan to live to be five hundred, and I’m never retiring.”

  “If anyone could wrestle Father Time to his knees, it’d be you, Daddy,” I offer, taking a bite of my omelet. “Anything interesting in the news?”

  He lifts the paper so I can’t see his face, and JD sticks his tongue out at me playfully.

  “I did hear that Lepke Brewer got out of jail yesterday,” Daddy offers, making my ears perk up. “Turns out the evidence against him was phony. Not a surprise. Everyone knows he had nothing to do with that casino heist. Not sure where the cops got that lead, but it was all trumped up. Shame, really. It was nice to have him off the streets, at least for a few weeks.”

  JD interjects, “Well, if it makes you feel any better, my boys say he took quite a beating in the clink. Might never walk again. At least, that’s what I was told.”

  It’s only been a few weeks since June’s attack. She’s dealing with it by trying to pretend it never happened. I’m dealing
with it by replaying Vinnie’s last call in my head over and over. ‘It’s done,’ he’d simply said.

  I take another bite, not looking up from my plate. “Isn’t that a shame?”

  “That reminds me, Masie,” Daddy begins, making my head snap up. “I’m heading to Chicago in a few days. Alistair thinks we might have an investor for the new club.”

  I choke down my last bite, following it with a drink I wish was something stronger than juice. “That’s wonderful.”

  Leaning across the table, he takes my chin in his meaty hand. “Just imagine it—you, headlining your own club. We’d bring in all the big producers and stuff, let them see how beautiful and talented you are. They’ll be knocking down our door to put you in the pictures, maybe even the talkies. You mark my words, baby girl, your star is on the rise.”

  “And if it keeps the club filled every night, all the better. Right, Dutch?” JD adds, taking another drink.

  Daddy pulls the linen napkin from his lap and points at him. “You listen here, this club is our family’s future. It’s going to be our cash cow. Bigger and better than any other in the city and so exclusive people will be begging to get in. I’ve got a new distillery opening in Canada next month, and we’re going to be shipping the booze in right down the Hudson. I’ve already had to set up meetings to negotiate some trade with the other bosses for union workers and permits. I’ve thrown every penny into making this happen for us, and your sister is the key to making it work. With her pipes and my brains, we’re going to have the biggest operation this city has ever seen. And you are going to be right there, by my side.”

  “Doing what, exactly?” JD barks, practically slamming his now-empty glass on the table.

  It’s an old argument. JD wants a club of his own to run, but Daddy doesn’t trust him on his own. Or maybe he’s just afraid JD will do such a good job that nobody will need the old man anymore. It also could be because he suspects—not wrongly so—that JD is skimming from the existing businesses. Either way, there’s not a chance he’s going to back off and hand over the keys to the kingdom. At least not yet.

  Butler interrupts before a full-blown argument can ensue. “Post for Miss Masie,” he says, handing a letter across the table to me. Before I can put fingers on it, Daddy snatches it from him and scans the return address.

  “Stanford College? What’s all this now?” he asks, using his butter knife to slice open the envelope.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing,” I stammer, shooting a glance to JD looking for help. But he doesn’t look at me, rather stares at his hands entwined on his lap.

  Drawing out the folded paper, Daddy reads, “It’s our pleasure to inform you that you’ve been accepted to our early enrollment… Masie, what’s all this about?”

  I snatch it from his hands, quickly folding it away. “It’s nothing. When I was in school, they required us to apply to colleges. It was before I came home.”

  He huffs. “Well, no need for college. You’ve got everything you could ever want right here.”

  I say nothing, tucking the letter beneath my plate.

  “Besides, nobody cares how smart you are, Masie. You’ll learn everything you need to know out here in the real world,” Daddy continues. “And the rest your husband will take care of for you. You don’t need to worry yourself with college. Don’t want you to end up like one of those stuck up blue-blood debs anyhow.”

  I take a deep breath. There are so many things I want to say, so many demands I want to make, but I know that now isn’t the time. At seventeen, I’m lucky he hasn’t tried to marry me off already. Luckily, he doesn’t want anyone else being able to lay claim to my time and talents so long as he can still profit from them. More likely, I’ll end up a spinster, living in this house with him and JD until I’m so old no one will want me anyway.

  The idea doesn’t bother me as much as it probably should.

  For some reason, Daddy has it in his head that college will turn me into some sort of snobby, elitist debutante. It’s an old grudge—us versus them. New money versus old. Sure, we’ve got the cash to get in any door, but that doesn’t keep them from looking down their noses at us once they know where it came from.

  Not that he needs to worry about me. I mean, I’m no prissy deb, but I’m no blushing virgin either. I’ve had my share of flings and dalliances. None that either of them know about, of course, and none that have left me longing for more permanent relationships. Wild, that’s what my mother called me. Her wild child. Though she always said it with a hint of envy rather than disdain. She longed for freedom, that much I could see. But my father kept her close and on a very short tether.

  Perhaps that’s ultimately what did her in. A flower cannot bloom without sunlight, after all, and her life was so very full of darkness.

  And now, here I am, taking my small freedoms where I am able, all while trying to be the obedient daughter I’m expected to be. Trying to walk the tightrope of his expectations without being hung by it.

  I don’t fight the matter, because I won’t win. Not today. Someday, a door will open. It will either be my chance to take over or my chance to break free, but whatever it is, I’ll be ready to take the leap.

  Two weeks later I show up for work in my new suit. It’s double breasted in light gray with faintly contrasting stripes. Tailored to my exact fit, it has three buttons, peak lapels, and the inside is Alpaca lined. Beneath it is a matching vest, a crisp new blue shirt, and cuff bottom trousers. I’d even had enough left over for a pair of brown leather oxford shoes. It feels odd, dressing so dandy when I’ve been managing just fine in my old slacks and my one good shirt that I have to wash every evening. Going to the tailor had been an interesting experience. Just when I was sure the old codger was getting fresh with me, he’d stood, handed me a receipt, and told me it would be a few days for the alterations. I’d left feeling confused, and if I’m honest, a little excited.

  Seeing me, Dickey whistles. “Who’s this fine-looking fella?”

  I hold open my jacket, giving him a glimpse of the inside. “I still think it’s too fancy to load crates in.”

  Dickey waves me off. “Just set the jacket aside and roll up your sleeves while you work. That’s what I do.”

  “Why does JD want us looking so fancy anyway? Why does it even matter?”

  Dickey shrugs. “Far as I can tell, it’s a status thing. Shows they can afford to pay even the least of their crew well. It makes them look good, and it makes the guys working for their competitors want to jump ship and work for him instead. Make no mistake, JD never does anything out of the goodness of his heart, and he never does anything without a reason. He’s a shrewd one.”

  Dickey gets into the truck, and I slide in beside him as he cranks the engine.

  “You wanna drive?” he asks.

  “Depends, do you want to make it to the club alive?” I ask, my tone heavy with sarcasm. He knows very well that I don’t know how to drive, and he never fails to jab me about it.

  With a sputter, the truck backs out of the warehouse and down the road. The sun is shining like there’s never been a cloud in the sky, and the sidewalk is thick with people bustling this way and that. Dames in floral dresses and long scarves, and gents in spats and bowler hats. Signs hang on shingles outside office doors and motor cars are parked along the boulevard. A bright green trolley passes us, its bell ringing, as we turn onto Fifth Avenue. A copper on a motorbike passes us as we head down, swerving to avoid the occasional cab. When we turn down Broadway, a billboard sits above the Capital Theater depicting a mysterious man walking through the sewer. It proclaims in massive golden letters—Lon Cheney in The Phantom of the Opera.

  This street is even more packed with people, in cars and on foot as they make their way down to the theaters and spill out into Times Square. We fight the crowds until finally parking outside The Green Door, Dutch Shultz’s nightclub and speakeasy.

  I’ve never been here before. Most of my deliveries go to warehouses across the city, but to
day’s delivery is for the club itself. I open the back of the truck as Dickey taps on the locked door, waiting for someone to let us in since the place is shut during daylight hours. A short redheaded fella props the door open with a brick and waves us in.

  Taking off my jacket and rolling up my sleeves as Dickey suggested, I heft the first crate off the stack and carry it inside. I follow the man through the empty room, across the dance floor, through another door, and down a set of stairs to the speakeasy below.

  “You can just stack them there,” he says in a thick Irish accent, pointing to the corner of the bar.

  “Yes, sir,” I say, doing as I’m told.

  It’s only walking back to the truck that I really have a chance to take in my surroundings. The ceiling is tin tiles, the tabletops covered in crisp, red linens, and the walls are papered in swirling velvet shapes. The dance floor is pale wood, while a massive brass-and-crystal chandelier hangs from above. In the periphery of the room, there are long bench seats with tables and high-backed chairs. An elevated stage sits off to one side. It’s empty now, save for the voluminous crimson drapes in the back and a single copper microphone in a stand in the very center.

  There’s a stillness to the room, as if it’s keeping a tight-lipped secret. I can almost feel it in my mind—the pulsing music, the heat building as people dance their cares away, the electric buzz as they sip their illegal liquor from pearl teacups. It’s a spider web, waiting for and anticipating its prey. It will lure them in by the dozens, with its bright lights and melodic sounds, then capture and enrapture them.

  It’s as if the room itself is calling to me, a promise of wonder and excitement. Come and lose yourself. The bar is dark oak and shining brass, lit from above by lights dangling on chains. Behind it, there’s a shelf and a row of mirrors stretching almost to the tin-tile ceiling. As I watch, a man tips a beer tap and the glass slides back, exposing bottles of booze in compartments below.

  I’m so distracted I don’t see the three men walk in the door until they take a seat at one of the empty tables. I recognize only one, JD, in a white suit and straw boater hat. He looks tidy, as always, like he’d spent the morning lounging in the sun to flush his complexion.