Yesterday's Stardust

by Becky Melby

  The first photos in the album were taken in 1924, the year his grandfather was born. One shot, of his great-grandmother holding her newborn, was taken from across the street from the restaurant. Renata Fiorini stood next to a Model T. She wore a dress with a low belt like the one Francie had drawn in her diary. Around her neck was a long string of pearls. It was the kind of scene Dani had described the day they’d stood on the sidewalk and imagined the street the way it had been decades ago.

  Most of the girls he knew wouldn’t have a clue what life was like in the Roaring Twenties, but this girl wanted a time machine. He couldn’t do much better than that. When he got to the last black-and-white image, he yawned.

  She might have spent the night cruising with Todd, but tonight she’d be all his, and that pale boy had nothing on him. He came from a long line of men who knew how to romance a lady. And he had pictures.

  He turned off the lamp. All’s fair, buddy.

  “You gotta have some talent to start with.” Scope outlined an H in white on the brick wall and handed the spray can to Dani.

  Evan looked on through the lens of his Nikon, laughing. “She’s got talent.”

  Scope appeared skeptical. “It’s art, you know? Not everyone can do it.”

  Dani slipped her digital recorder into her shirt pocket and took the can. She stepped back to take in the whole picture. Evan had set the tone by suggesting they create something upbeat and explaining that young children lived in the house. So far, a smiley-faced sun peered out of a swirling, Van Gogh-like navy background covered with stars and indecipherable letters. The boys claimed all of their names were written on the brick canvas, but Dani’s imagination didn’t stretch that far. Scope had decided it needed a “Happy Day” message—”like the hippies did.” She guessed this was a far cry from the masterpieces he once did.

  “How did you learn?”

  “I watched. I copied. I drew a whole lot of stuff on paper before I ever picked up a can of paint.”

  “Let’s see if I’ve learned anything from watching you.” She outlined an A.

  “Not bad. Try a couple more.”

  “Thank you.” She stepped back, thought it out, and painted the next three letters. “It’s fun.”

  Evan coughed. “But not cool to do it illegally.”

  Way to shut them up. “Of course.” But we could get to that part after we get them to talk. She handed the can back to Scope. “You guys each do specific things. Does everybody know what his job is before you start?” She turned around to include the two who sat like mute, slouchy statues on a picnic table bench.

  Back resting against the table, skinny legs stretched out, Broom stared at the wall. His face wore a mask of boredom. Next to him, Zip sat bent over, head down, with his arms folded across his belly. As close to a fetal position as a kid could get with his feet still on the ground. Dani waited for an answer. Finally, Broom nodded at Scope. “He’s the boss.”

  He speaks! He still hadn’t cracked a smile or made eye contact, but three words was a start.

  Scope nodded. “I’ve been doing it longer, but they’re learning fast. I do most of the designing and outlining and they do fill-in.”

  The kid was a strange dichotomy of tough guy and compassionate big brother.

  “Do you have the whole picture in your head before you start?”

  “Sometimes, but other times it comes to me while I’m doing it. The wall talks to me.” He finished the lettering and nodded to Zip, who somehow saw the signal even though he appeared oblivious to the world outside his small personal space. He got up, picked out a yellow can, and began filling in the letters.

  Evan slung his camera strap over his neck. “I hear there’s food in the fridge. Anyone interested?”

  Scope nodded. “Sounds good.”

  As Evan headed for the house, Scope sat at the table and Broom, on some unspoken cue, turned around and faced him. Dani sat next to Scope. “You guys spend most of your time together, huh?” She looked at Broom.

  “Yeah.” Not surprisingly, it was Scope who answered. “These guys are like my brothers, you know?”

  “A lot of kids join gangs to get that sense of belonging, but you three seem to take care of each other.”

  Scope looked over Broom’s head at the wall. Dani followed his gaze, watching Zip shadow Scope’s yellow sun with orange.

  “Gang bangers say they protect you, but being part of a gang makes you a target. Might as well paint a bull’s-eye on your back.”

  “You know people who are involved?”

  “Sure.”

  As Scope answered, Broom raised his head. Dani watched the muscles in his neck tighten and relax as he swallowed. “Scope got me out.”

  The Hallelujah chorus burst forth in Dani’s head, but she switched the volume off, took a slow breath, and calmly asked. “You were in a gang?”

  Scope raised and lowered one shoulder. “Almost. They tried conning him, but I knew their scams. My dad and me and some of my dad’s friends stood up for him.”

  Broom nodded. “The Vamps got a freaky way of recruiting. They beat people up then send one of their guys to beat up their own guy like some superhero.”

  Icy fingers slithered along Dani’s spine. “Good cop, bad cop.”

  “Yeah.” Broom held out his arm and showed off a diagonal scar. “I got jumped after school a couple years ago. While one guy’s poundin’ on me, another one suddenly shows up and smashes the first guy, then tells me I can’t be alone in that part of town, ever, and I need to join his people so they can watch my back. I just moved here. I was one scared kid, so I said I wanted in. Scope lived next to me and somehow he heard about it, and he and his dad went all Batman tough and got me out.” A slight smile rippled the skin on one side of his mouth.

  The slithering cold on her back and the sick feeling in her gut overrode the sense of victory over getting the boy to talk. She’d heard another version of his story in Rena’s voice.

  Scope’s hand had been clenching and unclenching the whole time Broom talked. “Once somebody gets jumped in they can’t get out without getting hurt bad…if they’re lucky.”

  Evan appeared with a tray of sandwiches, chips, and a pack of soda. As Scope reached for a sandwich, Dani caught a glimpse of a tattoo on the inside of his right arm. It appeared to have been created in two stages. Bluish-black lines formed a shape she was familiar with. A stylized number. But darker ink formed two bars, one sticking out of the top of the 7, the other at a right angle to it.

  Forming a cross.

  Nicky spread a damp towel over a bowl of dough as he waited for Dani’s head to bob up with another nugget from the diary. He didn’t have long to wait.

  “Francie wants to know who came up with ‘When the cat’s away, the mice will play?’ Her cat is away for three days and she’s playing.”

  Nicky touched the tops of two cake layers cooling in pans. He wiggled an eyebrow at the girl who sat at the end of his server counter then set a plate on top of one of the layers and turned it over. “You may have to bleep out parts of this.”

  “Nooo. Our Francie isn’t like that.”

  “Right. She’s a nice girl who just happens to hang out with gangsters.” His chest tightened. “Speaking of which, what are you learning from my sister?”

  Dani’s gaze dropped to the bruschetta she’d been nibbling on. “She’s opening up.”

  “Good. What can you tell me?”

  “If I want her to keep talking, nothing.” Her nose crinkled as she gave what seemed to be an apologetic smile.

  He eased the second cake layer onto a plate then washed his hands and took the photo album off a top shelf. He sat down across from her. “Guess I’ll have to trust you.”

  She looked into his eyes with a steadiness that made his throat constrict. “I guess you will.”

  The air conditioner was worthless tonight, and he hadn’t even turned on all of the ovens yet. He handed the album to her. “I can take a break for a few minutes. I wanted
to show you this.”

  She ran her fingers across the worn suede cover and the tooled letters spelling out PHOTOGRAPHS. She sat back and looked at him. Waiting for an explanation. Not asking questions.

  “My grandfather is in a nursing home in Milwaukee. I went up there on Monday to ask him about Francie.” He pressed his lips together to dampen the Fiorini charm rising to the surface. It scared him to realize how much like his father he could be if he didn’t rein it in. But there would always be one significant difference.

  Dominick Fiorini, unlike his father, was a one-woman man.

  “Go on.”

  He could almost hear the interrogation wheels grinding under the force of her restraint. He hated to disappoint her. “I didn’t get a chance to ask. My grandfather has good days and bad days, and this wasn’t a good one.”

  “Well, we know that Francie was here in 1928. When was your grandfather born? Would he even have been old enough to remember her? And if he did, is there a chance—”

  Once again, he stopped the flow of questions with the tip of his finger. It gave him a strange sensation…not of power, more of awe that she so readily responded to his touch. What would their relationship look like if he exercised no control on the charisma embedded in his DNA, and she let loose every question that crowded her mind? “If we keep reading we just might find the answers to all our questions.”

  “I suppose we might. But pictures first.”

  He walked around the counter and sat beside her. As he opened the album, Dani pressed her hands together as if she were praying.

  Black corners fastened the photos to black paper. Captions were written in white ink.

  “Aww. What a cutey.” Dani pointed to a picture labeled “Luca Fiorini, August 1926.” “I see the family resemblance.”

  “All Italians look alike.”

  She laughed and turned the page. She commented on hats and dress styles for two more pages then stopped at an over-exposed picture of two men and a woman sitting on bar stools. Each had a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other. The caption underneath read “Stardust 1928.”

  “Either they were drinking root beer, or that place was illegal.”

  “I asked my grandfather about that one years ago. I don’t think I got a straight answer. My great-grandmother was an activist in the temperance union, and family legend says she kept a pretty tight leash on my great-grandfather. I don’t think he would have been allowed in a place like that.”

  “I’ve read some taverns switched to soda and ice cream to stay open.”

  Nicky pointed out the row of bottles in front of a massive mirror behind the bar. “This doesn’t look like an ice-cream parlor.”

  “Sure it does. That one’s chocolate syrup and that one’s butterscotch.” She nudged him and turned another page.

  Two women held the hands of two young boys, maybe five and seven, dressed in matching sailor suits. There was no caption. It was the picture he’d been waiting to show her.

  “Could it be…?”

  “I think it could be.”

  Dani reopened the diary to the place she’d marked with a napkin. Needing some outlet for what felt like a caffeine buzz, she tapped her sandals together under the counter. She had a sudden flashback of watching Wheel of Fortune with Grandma Agatha. Sitting on the floor, inching closer and closer to the TV with each added letter until she finally let out a squeal.

  Francie’s story was practically writing itself in her head. I’ll give you something big and meaty, Mitch. “Okay, back to the mice playing while the cat’s away.”

  Francie’s handwriting seemed to change with her mood. The letters in this entry were less slanted and more open. “‘Last night Doris and I went dancing. Doc Cooke was at the White City Ballroom. I wore my yellow chiffon and got so many compliments.’” She moved to the next entry. “‘Saw Louis Armstrong at the Sunset Café. So many men. I know I was being watched, so I was a good girl.’” Dani looked over at Nicky. “See? Told you so.”

  She stared at the sculpted Roman nose and the mouth that at this moment laughed at her feigned defense of Francie. She’d found fault with that face when she first met him. Something that wasn’t all together perfect about it. Hard as she tried, she couldn’t remember what it was. “Read,” he whispered, close enough that the single word wafted garlic-scented heat onto her cheek. People talked about garlic breath as if it was something bad. It wasn’t. Not at all.

  Back to the book. “‘…I danced and danced, but never more than twice with anyone. I didn’t give out my number, and I ducked every kiss.’”

  Nicky inched closer. “So that’s the definition of a good girl, huh?”

  His eyes smoldered with more passion than one man should be allowed to possess. Her lips parted of their own accord. Her mind played out the leaning in, the lift of her chin, the warmth radiating from his skin even before his—

  “Good girls duck every kiss?” He smiled and eased away. Not a teasing smile, it was a look of sweet, shared restraint. “I have dough to punch.” His hand rested over hers for a too-brief moment, and then he got up and walked to the sink and scrubbed his hands.

  Dani stared at the heather gray shirt conforming to his back. He hadn’t given her a chance to answer his question. She breathed a silent sigh and went back to Francie’s world. Nicky slammed his fist into a mountain of dough.

  “That looks like fun.” And frustration-relieving.

  “Wash up and come here.” He fixed her with a gaze like a heat-seeking missile. “I’ll save the rest for you.”

  Was his radar reading what he was doing to her? “Okay.” She closed the diary and slid off the stool. But I’m warning you…good girls don’t always duck.

  Do good boys?

  CHAPTER 22

  Heard on the radio of another robbery attempt foiled downtown last night and read in the paper about the police department hiring new men and purchasing more cars.’”

  Dani closed the diary and stifled a yawn. “Something’s going to happen soon. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

  Nicky picked up the last double pan of bread and opened the oven door. “Not to spoil the drama, but you do realize that whatever happens happened over eighty years ago.”

  “Spoiler. Must be a blast to watch a suspense movie with you.”

  He slid the bread in the oven and set the timer. “I just don’t want you losing touch with reality.”

  “And I think it would be good for you to lose yourself in the story. Think of all the ‘what ifs.’ She’s mentioned three people who were killed. One in a police raid on a gambling operation, three during robbery attempts. They could just be people she’s read about in the paper, but something about the way she writes makes it sound like she knows them.”

  “So we need to look up those names and cross reference them with all robberies, sting operations, and bad guys gunned down in Chicago in da twenties.” The Godfather voice came easy. He’d grown up surrounded by great-uncles who talked that way without pretending.

  “Are you making fun of me?”

  “A little.” He took the stool across from her. The one next to her looked risky.

  “Whatever makes you happy.”

  Sitting on that stool would make him happy. “Okay, I’ll behave. Go on.”

  “Let’s guess. What do you think happens in the end?”

  “T is slaughtered in the Valentine’s Day Massacre, and Francie lives happily ever after on her parents’ farm.”

  “Could be. I like that, but we have to get her to Kenosha. Maybe she married somebody from here.”

  “My great-grandmother introduced her to a friend of the family, an Italian lover”—he slid his hand across the counter, picked up hers, and kissed the air millimeters above her fingers—“and she became Francine Napoletani or Pontecorvo.” He rested her hand back on the table.

  Face flushed, Dani laughed. “Or Fiorini. Maybe she changed her first name, too. Maybe you grew up with her great-grandkids.”


  “What do you think she turned out like? Did she have a come-to-Jesus moment and join the Temperance Union with my great-G-ma to atone for the sins of her father?”

  “She’s got a few of her own to atone for. She’s apparently hiding stolen goods, so I’d rule out a total life change. And what about Franky? Think he rebelled against his mother’s profession and became a priest?”

  “Nah. I can see him joining the mob. Boy had bad blood. He got filthy rich and lived in a penthouse with cute little maids in white aprons peeling grapes for him.”

  “I Googled Francine Tillman and Suzette Tillman and didn’t find anything. I didn’t stop to think that if her sister never married, little Franky would have the same last name. We need to see if we can find Frank Tillman,”

  “Let’s do it now. Unless you’re too tired?”

  She shook her head. Champagne-colored hair glimmered in the overhead lights and slid across her shoulders. “Sleep is a zero, remember?” She picked up her phone. The screen came to life.

  “It would be easier on the computer. Follow me.”

  Not smart, Fiorini. A smaller room, with a door that closed automatically. How many waitresses had his father, grandfather, great-grandfather and countless uncles—three generations of philandering Fiorinis—lured into the storeroom?

  He opened the door for her and flipped on the light. “This is the all-purpose room. Storage, office, break room.” Thinking room. Hiding place.

  He’d flirted with his share of waitresses over the years but never considered bringing anyone in here. This was his hideaway, his middle-of-the-night sanctuary. He was safe here, maybe even from his own runaway thoughts about the girl in front of him. This was not a place to desecrate, and not a place to share with just anyone.

  Then why her? He could have brought the laptop into the kitchen.

  He stepped to the side and watched her face as she touched the ceramic-tipped hooks on a wall-mounted mahogany coat rack, then walked over to the only square foot of wall not covered with shelves or hooks. “Beautiful wallpaper.” She bent closer. “It’s embossed. Is it original?”