The Long Path Home

by Ellen Lindseth

  His head lolled back, his eyes rolling up into his head as she heaved him into a proper seated position. Panting with exertion, she eyed the now-unconscious Tony. Except for the faint rise and fall of his chest, he didn’t move.

  Lord above, she had done it!

  Time for the next step of the plan. Cautiously, as if she were working with a rabid animal, she loosened his tie and unbuttoned his starched white shirt. She watched his eyelids for any fluttering signs of awareness as she switched to unfastening his pants. Nothing. Emboldened but still wary, she spread the waistband open and undid his suspenders. All she had left to do was to pull the shirttail free and then slide his pants and underwear down to his ankles.

  While the first task required a bit of man wrangling, the last one was like wrestling with a rock slab. A rock slab with soft, squishy parts that she didn’t want to touch but would have to.

  Once she had finished rearranging his clothing, she blew a stray strand of hair out of her face and mentally prepared herself for the final and key part of the faux performance. Normally she took a certain perverse pleasure in fooling a would-be Casanova into thinking he had been victorious. This time, all she felt was revulsion. Aware of every minute passing, she retrieved the tube of lipstick from her clutch, then painted her lips and then the inside of her thumb and forefinger.

  She turned back to the disheveled form of Tony and hesitated.

  Don’t think, just do. Come on, Vi.

  Sucking in a deep breath, she reached down and smeared what she hoped would be enough lipstick on his exposed anatomy to suggest a certain sex act, one she was supremely glad she hadn’t had to perform tonight. A shudder of disgust racked her as she worked. When she was done, she spread his legs wider, into a vee, truly tempted to add injury to insult. Except she had learned a few things while living on her own, and the wisdom of avoiding unnecessary risks was near the top of the list.

  On the other hand, he had threatened not only her but Jimmy, and for that the risk was almost worth it. Almost.

  With a sigh of regret, she leaned forward and whispered in his ear. “Fair warning: if you so much as touch a single hair on my son, I’ll castrate you, Antonio Vecchione. Capisci?”

  He didn’t respond; nor had she expected him to.

  She pressed an angry kiss on his mouth to stain it red with lipstick and then trailed red lip prints across his cheeks, chin, neck, and even the collar of his shirt. Tony snored softly but was otherwise as limp as a discarded bar towel.

  Satisfied that there was now enough evidence to make Tony believe he’d had a good time, even if he couldn’t remember any of it, she picked up his glass and carried it to the kitchen. After dumping the ice into the sink and giving the glass a thorough rinse with water, she took it back to the living room and poured half of her unadulterated drink into it. Now there were two glasses of an innocent, if very alcoholic, drink, one with lipstick prints that matched those on his collar and elsewhere.

  Not wanting to stick around, she made a quick phone call, and within minutes a taxi arrived. As she pulled the front door shut behind her, she worried a little that it would remain unlocked through the night. Then she dismissed her concern. No one would dare rob a Mob assassin, not unless they had a death wish. And it wasn’t like the house was in a bad part of town. Quite the opposite, in fact.

  After getting into the back of the cab, she settled wearily onto the fabric seat and sorted through the worries all clamoring for attention. What Tony might do next in his pursuit of her could wait, since he’d likely be leaving town in the next few days. That he knew about Jimmy was a concern that could also wait, for the same reason. What she really needed to focus on was that the club might be closing soon. No club meant no job. And then there was Tony’s threat to blackball her, effectively ending her dance career. Surely Sal would have some advice on that.

  Whatever Sal suggested she do, she would, since she trusted him like no one else. Sal was the one who had taken her under his wing, calling her the daughter he’d never had but always wanted. Likely because she was ambitious, like him, better educated than the other girls, and keener on learning the business end of vaudeville.

  Stripping paid only while one was young and beautiful, which meant she had another five years left, maybe ten at best. Then she would have to find a different line of employment if she wanted to eat, though she’d be damned if she’d ever stoop to selling her body again. Not that she judged those girls who still did. The cash had been nice, no doubt about it.

  The problem was that fellows could get rough, or possessive. She’d had enough close calls during those first few years that, once she was able to pay rent on her dance wages alone, she had made the decision to only “lighten the spirits” of men she actually liked and found desirable. And if they gifted her with presents or cash in return—well, where was the harm in that? It wasn’t like she had to safeguard her virginity for a husband. Anyone willing to marry a burlesque star would hardly expect an intact hymen.

  There was definitely something to be said for having complete control over who she shared her body with. She wanted to live to a ripe old age, which meant minimizing risks where she could. No, her days of turning tricks were over. She would put herself through secretarial school first, entombing herself in a windowless office if she couldn’t find some kind of stage work.

  But those were worries for tomorrow. For now, she let herself relax into a daydream about getting back to her apartment and into pajamas and then soaking her feet in a bath of Epsom salts. A moment of bliss put off too long already tonight, and one she couldn’t wait to attain.

  Then maybe later, before bed, she would pull out her secret stash of photographs and newspaper clippings of her career pre-Jimmy and reminisce about the past. She needed to return the bankbook to the pile, in any case. It would also help keep her from worrying about Tony’s reaction when he woke up and found himself alone. There was nothing she could do about it tonight, so she might as well leave it for tomorrow.

  After all, tomorrow was another day.

  Chapter 3

  “Steamy” and “sultry” were usually considered good things in Vi’s world. However, when the words were being applied to the current atmospheric conditions, not her performance, and it was only nine in the morning? Not so much.

  Vi shifted on the wooden park bench and fanned herself, hoping to create even an illusion of a breeze. Her skin was as wet as if she had fallen in the Chicago River. Thank heaven she had been able to snag a seat beneath a huge elm tree. The shade from the broad, leafy canopy was the only thing keeping her from melting into a puddle of sweat.

  The view made up for it, though. In front of her, seemingly unbothered by the heat, a gleeful, noisy band of little girls in dresses and boys in short pants played on the swings and teeter-totters while their nannies, mothers, or grandmothers wilted nearby. Not as many adults as there had been when Vi had first started coming to the park three years ago. The war had pulled so many parents into its machinery, children often came by themselves these days.

  Vi thanked her lucky stars that her own son hadn’t been similarly abandoned. Of course, she didn’t know the family situation in detail, but the familiar presence of the nanny, dressed as always in a plain, drab dress, reassured her that he was still being well taken care of.

  She hadn’t always been so sure. At first, she had taken the orphanage’s advice to forget about her baby. The first year had been lost to grief and survival anyway. But the second year had given rise to a deep and unquenchable fear that she had made a mistake. She had begged Sal to find her a way to see her baby again. Not so she could steal him away and raise him herself, though she had become more financially stable. Rather, to reassure herself she had done the right thing, to quiet the horrible, aching sense of loss that occasionally gripped her.

  Against Sal’s better judgment, he had given in to her repeated appeals for assistance and helped her to get the name and address of Jimmy’s family by paying off the right peopl
e at the adoption agency. His caveat had been she could never contact the family or Jimmy. She had agreed, but with her fingers crossed behind her back. She had no intention of directly interfering with the family. But someday she would like to anonymously give him something, a small endowment, as proof of her undying love for him, her baby, the one person she valued above everything else in this world.

  In the meantime, she had spent her mornings off shadowing the building where her son lived, learning the family’s habits. When the nanny had begun taking her little charge to the nearby park every Tuesday and Thursday morning, Vi’s schedule became cemented. Faithfully, every week for the past year, she had come to quietly watch the small miracle she had created grow and flourish.

  As Jimmy ran by, his high-pitched voice filled with the innocent joyousness of youth, Vi’s heart melted. The dappled sunlight brought out the red highlights in his russet hair that was so like her own—at least when hers wasn’t bleached. The brown eyes were his father’s, but she would never hold that against her son. Jimmy was nothing short of a marvel, a glimmer of perfection in her otherwise screwed-up life.

  The familiar, bittersweet dream gripped her, of Jimmy running up to her instead of the nanny, his eyes bright with intelligence and wonder as he proudly showed her whatever treasure he had found in the grass—or grabbing her hand and towing her over to the swings so she could push him.

  Oh, how she loved him. She would do anything for him. Absolutely anything. Even tear herself in two so he would have the chance to live a life far above what she had to offer. So far above that her sins would never touch him.

  “He’s a handsome boy.”

  Startled, she stiffened as Sal sank wearily onto the bench beside her. “Sal? What are you doing here?”

  She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen him outside the shadowy confines of the club.

  “A better question would be what are you doing here?” he rasped, his voice rough from a lifetime of cigarettes. He leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees, his hands loosely steepled as he watched the children. “You do know the police are out looking for you, yes?”

  “I beg your pardon?” The stifling heat of the morning disappeared beneath a wash of ice. “Sal, that’s nothing to joke about!”

  His sad, dark eyes gave her a sidelong glance from behind his wire-rimmed spectacles. “Would I joke about something like that? To you, who I love like my own flesh and blood?”

  “Yes, actually. If you thought it would get you something.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “Remember when you said they’d caught the snake that had escaped during Howie’s act, and I found it later, curled up in my red costume?”

  He shrugged. “You were upset, and I needed you onstage.”

  “Exactly. So what’s the angle this time? You want me to tame down my act?” Though she couldn’t imagine why or what statute she had broken. Everything that needed covering had been.

  Sal didn’t answer. Instead, he studied the children on the playground, his lips set in a grim line. Her heart pounded as the seconds passed, her dread building with the realization he might not have been kidding.

  “Rumor has it you were with Tony Vecchione last night,” he said, “a rumor I find hard to believe since I know how you feel about his . . . business.”

  “We did go to his house to discuss my . . . my future, I suppose you could say. So, yes. I was with him for a while, but not long.” Fear pooled in her stomach like lead. “Don’t tell me the Feds saw us? God damn it. Now they think I’m his moll, don’t they?”

  “Was anyone else there with you?” Sal’s expression was unusually grave.

  “No, why?” she asked, confused now. She could have sworn Tony would be knocked out for several hours, but had he recovered enough to do someone in after she had left?

  Her stomach cramped at the thought, and she swallowed hard.

  Sal sighed and slumped forward again to rest his elbows on his knees. “I might as well tell you, though it pains me to be the bearer of bad news—he was found dead this morning. Shot at point-blank range between the eyes, with his trousers around his ankles and his revolver still holstered.

  “And as cagey as Tony was, the cops are theorizing the person who got the drop on him must’ve been someone he trusted. Someone he didn’t suspect wished him harm. Someone like the pretty dame who was seen leaving on his arm last night from the club.”

  Shock knocked her speechless for a moment. “It wasn’t me, Sal. I swear it! He was completely fine when I left.”

  “Was he?” Sal’s knowing gaze met hers. Sweat began trickling down her back, but it had little to do with the heat.

  “He might have been a little . . . tired,” she admitted. “But definitely alive.”

  “And a sitting duck for anyone who might have wandered by. Now we both know Tony had a lot of enemies, but the cops . . . they’ve got bigger problems. The fine citizens of that neighborhood are justifiably upset and are calling the mayor as we speak. They don’t like having people murdered on their block, and they want someone held accountable. Unfortunately, without the cops having any other suspects, that someone is you.”

  “I don’t believe this.” She closed her eyes and worked to slow her racing heart. “Tony was the one breaking all the laws. Not me.” And yet, unless the real murderer suddenly made an appearance, she would be the one going to jail.

  Her eyes flew open. “Wait. He mentioned a loose end last night, something connected to Outfit business. That’s why he was back in town.”

  Sal’s eyebrows rose. “You think the loose end got to Tony before he could get to it?”

  “It’s either that . . . or, as you said, one of his many enemies caught up to him.”

  “True, but unless Tony mentioned any names, it’s unlikely to help you much.” Then Sal shrugged. “Still, I’ll pass along the tip.”

  “Please do. And even if it doesn’t help, I’ve gotta believe that whoever offed him will eventually start boasting about it, proving my innocence.” Her brain worked feverishly on this sudden avenue of escape. “If I can stay out of sight long enough for the real killer to start blabbing . . .”

  “Assuming he would do such a thing. And that you could successfully hide from the police. Their reach is wide.” A statement that echoed Tony’s one from last night about the Mob a little too closely for comfort.

  “Nor would it be just the police you’d be hiding from,” Sal continued. “Truth is, the family is currently divided on what to do about you. Everyone agrees they want the cops’ noses out of family business, but otherwise . . . ? I mean, who cares if some no-account showgirl takes the heat?”

  “I would care!” Real fear gripped her. “I’m not going to jail, Sal.”

  “Nor would I let you. You’re like my own child, Lil. Have a little faith.”

  “But you said the police are looking for me.”

  “Yes, but as a person of interest. There’s no arrest warrant . . . yet.”

  She rubbed at the dull ache forming behind her eyes. “I’m confused. What is it you want me to do?”

  “Not run. Not only would it end badly for you but also possibly for your little boy over there.”

  She stilled. “How do you mean?”

  “Lily . . .” The disappointment was back in his voice. “You are out here twice a week, rain or shine. You think certain people haven’t noticed, people who might be interested in finding a way to keep you in line?”

  Vi’s gaze flicked back to her son, and a crushing pain stole her breath. No, no! This couldn’t be happening. Not to Jimmy. She had given him up for adoption precisely to avoid this, to keep the stain of her mistakes from touching him. As if that were even possible given her propensity for disastrous decisions.

  Her vision blurred as she watched Jimmy come down the slide. No longer chunky with baby fat, he was becoming stronger and more slender every day. Someday he would no longer be a child, but a man . . . if he lived that long. “I didn’t do it, Sal. I swear it.
”

  “It wouldn’t matter if you had.” Sal turned to face her more fully. “As I said, the family is divided. There are some who see Tony’s untimely demise as the perfect opportunity to undermine one of our rivals. In which case, it might be useful if you skipped town for a while, until an alternate, more advantageous fall guy is handed over to the commissioner.”

  “But you just said Jimmy would be in danger if I ran.”

  “Who said anything about running? I’m talking about taking a job elsewhere, until the heat is off. I made some calls this morning. Called in a few favors to see what I could do for you. Turns out someone important, someone connected to another branch of the family, has a problem that needs taking care of.”

  A dozen possibilities for what might be asked of her raced through her mind, each more damning than the last. She shook her head. “I won’t kill anyone, Sal.”

  “Lily.” Sal gave her another disapproving look, his third of the morning. “You should know better than to think I would ask that of you.”

  Vi knew no such thing but decided it was in her best interest not to say so.

  Sal continued, “As I was saying, I have a friend who needs a song and dance gal, someone who is available immediately but also one with a squeaky-clean past. One that even the most persnickety of society matrons wouldn’t turn up her nose at.”

  Vi huffed in disbelief. “You do realize my being a stripper who used to turn tricks is hardly the definition of squeaky clean.”

  “On the surface, sure. But don’t sell yourself short. While you might have had a couple of bad breaks recently, at your core you’re a good kid. You got heart. You got class. If you put your mind to it, and a new name, no one would guess you’re anything but an all-American sweetheart.”

  “Maybe no one except all the men who have seen me perform.”

  Sal waved his hand dismissively. “Men have short memories. Trust me.”