by Debra Dunbar
He’d been surprised when Lefty had told him the Crew owned this mansion in Druid Hill—even more surprised when he’d found out Vito had turned it into a women’s boarding house, smack in the middle of the wealthy neighborhood. From the outside, it looked the same as all the other stately homes on the avenue, but in the late summer heat, with all the windows open, the difference became apparent.
Somewhat raucous female laughter emerged from the house along with tinny strains of fast-beat jazz music. He could practically feel the other houses leaning away in disdain.
Vincent gave the bell a ring, and heard a shrieked, high-pitched, “I’ve got it!”
The door opened and a breathless blonde in a drop-waist dress with a huge bow at the collar ushered him in.
“You Fern’s gentleman caller?” Without waiting for a response, the woman turned and shouted behind her. “Girls! Come see what Fernnie hooked on her line! He’s a looker!”
Two women raced out from a side parlor, one wearing an asymmetrical skirt with a crisp, white blouse, the other a pleated dress. Their bobbed dark hair was disordered, a faint sheen of perspiration on their foreheads.
“Oh, he is a looker!” one exclaimed as the woman who answered the door tore up the stairs shouting for Fern.
“Do you know the Black Bottom?” the other woman asked in a tone of voice that would have made seasoned soldiers spill national secrets.
“Uh, a little,” he replied, half afraid to admit he knew the complicated dance that bore some faint resemblance to the Charleston. Vincent had faced down armed gangs. He’d fought another pincher. He’d stared into the fiery eyes of a demon. But nothing was more unsettling and…well, downright terrifying as stepping into this bastion of bold, independent females.
“How many beats before the hip swings?” she demanded. “Is this it? Because Bea says it’s not.”
The woman twisted her feet to the quick rhythm, knees in and out as her arms undulated in time. Then she slapped her fists on her waist and hopped a tight circle, her hips in wide rotation.
Vincent cleared his throat, hoping that Fern hurried. “Uh, eight more beats of the…of the other…thing. I think. I mean, from the last time I saw…. And your fists need to be lower, I think.”
“See!” Bea pointed triumphantly. “I told you!”
The record faded to a stop, and the women dashed back into the parlor, while Vincent sent an imploring glance up the stairs.
Finally, a clacking of footsteps captured Vincent’s attention. He turned to find Fern descending the stairs, the blonde woman in tow. She wore a red-and-black gown which fell off one shoulder, pinned by a neat red rosebud atop a spray of baby’s breath. Her face was made to perfection, eyes smoky but reserved, lips red but demure. As both women stepped down into the foyer, the blonde reached out and tweaked something on Fern’s dress.
“Have fun, Fernnie-girl. And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” She winked and Fern laughed, an attractive pink staining her cheeks.
There was the spark he’d thought was gone. But then the blonde joined her friends in the parlor, and the Fern that turned toward him was beautiful and polished, like a perfect statue, not a trace of joy or emotion at all on her face.
The spark sputtered. Died.
She marched forward gripping a black-beaded clutch in black-gloved hands, lifting one to smooth a tidy curl of brunette hair held tight to her face by a velvet headband.
“Mister Calendo.” She gave him a nervous smile. “I am ready for dinner.”
It was then that Vincent realized he hadn’t removed his hat. He popped it off the back of his head, sending it tumbling in a controlled line into an outstretched palm at his breast. He bowed with a wink.
“You’re a sight!”
Her smile softened, reaching her eyes. “Thank you. Shall we?”
He opened the door for her, closing it behind them. She stepped across the portico, then took the few steps to the concrete walkway with Vincent’s outstretched elbow in her hand. Once inside the car, and a block clear of the mansion, she released a long sigh.
Vincent eyed her quickly. “You okay?”
She blinked a few times, then nodded, her eyes remaining locked on the road before them.
Vincent cleared his throat. “So, uh…nice digs back there.”
“Nicer then I should be able to afford.” She shot him a quick sideways glance. “As long as I’m available to help patch up any of the Crew, I don’t pay rent.”
It wasn’t any of his business, but Vincent was glad she wasn’t living off some stipend from Cooper. Suddenly the reality of her situation hit him. She’d said her mother had passed, and he got the feeling she had no living family to help her out. A single woman, trying to make enough money to live on her own didn’t have many options. It was a good thing she had picked up her mother’s nursing skills, or Fern might have found herself having to rent a room in a much less desirable part of town.
His thoughts went to another young woman, one who put on pants and survived by working in a man’s world, a smart, confident, strong, capable woman. But Fern wasn’t Hattie, and it wasn’t fair to compare the two.
“So the three other girls live there?” he asked, trying to focus on the woman next to him. “They seem…nice.”
She released a single dry laugh, then shook her head. “There’s eight of us, although one is…uh, leaving for other accommodations next week.”
“Oh.” Vincent set his jaw, knowing exactly what she meant. Was that what Cooper…
But he wasn’t going to think about Cooper.
“It’s a bit strange living with a group of women. I never had sisters or anything growing up. I always had my own apartment or…well, you know.”
Yes, he knew. And he wasn’t going to think about that either. Vincent gave his head a quick shake as he turned onto the cross-street. “I’m glad. It’s a nice place and you deserve some comfort.”
She looked away, staring at the darkening buildings as they passed by and they both fell into an awkward silence for the rest of the drive.
Vincent finally pulled up to the front of the Old Moravia Hotel. One of the valets approached, but stopped short as he spotted Vincent exiting the driver’s side door. Vincent gave him a stern glare and tossed the keys to him. Even though he was Vito Corbi’s only pincher, the Capo barely offered Vincent any more recognition than these valets. They knew it, too, and were used to seeing Vincent pop out of that same car with Lefty, his handler, not a beautiful woman—a woman who had until recently been attached to one of the actual famiglia.
That thought gave him a moment of pause. But Vincent couldn’t worry about that. Not tonight. This was his first official date with Fern, since he’d ironed things out with Vito and Cooper. “Ironed” might have been a charitable way of putting it. There were, in fact, several wrinkles left in the fabric. One, that Vincent had effectively strong-armed Cooper away from Fern. Two, Vincent’s lack of standing among the Crew. He was a tool, simply and completely. He was owned, not even considered a person, let alone part of the famiglia. He was not allowed to take the oaths to the Capo. There was simply no need. He was the property of the Crew, not a member.
Which was strangely the reason Vincent was here with Fern tonight. It was against the dogma of the family to poach a woman from another member of the Crew. As Vincent wasn’t actually a member, he’d taken no oath, and thus had broken no such taboo. But when it came down to it, the real reason he was “allowed” to be here tonight with Fern was because no one liked Cooper. The man was a pig, and every woman he kept in his clutches would end up with fresh bruises of one sort or another. The Crew had always looked the other way. Vincent had been the first to call Cooper to account for his behavior.
And in a sheer stroke of luck, he’d survived performing what had basically been an assault upon a made member of the Crew.
This was his first public appearance with Fern on his arm. He’d chosen the Old Moravia specifically for this reason. He needed to demon
strate his autonomy in front of the others. If Vincent were ever to gain their respect, he’d have to seize it for himself, to show them he was more than just a well-trained attack dog, and that he deserved respect.
It had seemed like a good plan at the time, but now, he wondered if he’d made a mistake. Perhaps a quiet, lesser known venue would have been a better.
He waited by the curb as the second valet guided Fern to the front of the hotel. With a nod, Vincent offered his elbow once again, and the two stepped through the brass-and-glass double doors of the hotel.
They were greeted immediately by the swells of fat, languid music. This wasn’t the up-tempo beat of Fern’s roommates or the music of Saturday night. No, this was Sunday. Older couples gathered at the hotel restaurant, tucked beneath potted palms and brass sculptures, indulging in the slow sounds of twanging bass and tenor sax as decadent as the food.
The maître d’ nodded to Vincent, offering him a grin of recognition if nothing else. Still, Vincent had left nothing to chance. A reservation was waiting for them, and unless the Crew intended to openly disrespect its pincher, they should be guided to a table shortly.
They were.
Vincent moved to hold Fern’s chair, but the maître d’ beat him to the punch. Vincent returned a stiff nod as the man withdrew, and removed his hat, only to realize he had no one to offer it to. Deciding to slip it underneath his seat, he took his place across the tiny two-top from Fern.
She watched him, her soft eyes sparkling in the candlelight. The smell of seared beef and lamb swelled around them, mixing with the fume of cigar smoke and the pulse of the band on the opposite end of the hotel lobby.
Vincent smiled at Fern, searching for something to say.
“So, uh…here we are.”
Her smile opened enough to reveal pearly-white teeth. “Yes. Here we are.”
The waiter arrived with three menus…one each for food, and one for the wine. He offered the wine list to Vincent, who eyed it with trepidation. If a lifetime in the service of the mob had taught Vincent anything, it was to appear more confident than he actually felt. And as such, he sent a calm finger down the list until it found a Meritage from a vineyard in Havre de Grace.
Vito’s vineyard. He ordered the wine, sending the waiter scurrying along. Again, he peered over the flickering candle at Fern.
“You look really nice,” he announced, wincing at his clumsy verbiage.
She nodded. “I do like that suit you have on. It’s sharp. You should wear it more often.”
He replied, “Maybe I will.”
A blush rose to her cheeks as she looked down to the table, inspecting the menu. Her eyes ran up and down the list quickly, rising again to take in the scene.
Vincent, for his part, found the menu to be utterly baffling. He’d eaten steak before, and there it was. Steak. Hard to mistake that. Everything else, on the other hand, was another language. Vincent knew that people ate duck…he simply hadn’t had the opportunity. Nor was he likely to try it for the first time in front of Fern, in case he found duck to be unsettling in his stomach.
When the waiter returned, he opened a green-glassed bottle with several quick twists of a corkscrew. They were practiced motions, and Vincent wondered if waiters wouldn’t be formidable opponents in back-alley knife fights. The man poured a finger of the red wine into his glass, then lingered with heavy eyes on Vincent.
Vincent took a moment, then realized the waiter expected some kind of response.
Lefty had brought him to proper dinners here perhaps twice in the six years they’d spent together. He dove deep into those memories to determine the next course of action. Vincent lifted the glass, smelled it, then took a sip. He nodded to the server, who poured Fern a full glass, then Vincent before setting the bottle onto the table. When Lefty’d done it, the action had seemed like afterthoughts, as if he needn’t even pause the conversation to go through these motions. Indeed, Lefty hadn’t. This was normal for Lefty. This was far from normal for him.
Fern reached across the table with her goblet, holding it to the light.
“To the family,” she declared.
Vincent took the glass and chimed it against hers. “The family.”
They both took a sip. As Vincent set the glass back down, he spotted a table or two nodding in approval nearby. Thank God for Fern, he mused.
“So,” Vincent said, “have you settled in?”
“Hmm?”
“The new address.”
Her brow shot high, then she nodded. “Yes, I have. There’s a matron there who is supposed to answer the door and look after us, but I think she’s deaf. She rarely comes out of the back rooms unless it’s to bring out a meal. Bea jokes that if she died back there, we wouldn’t realize it for a week.”
He chuckled. “At least a deaf matron means you can play the music without someone yelling at you to turn it down.”
“True, although the neighbors do plenty of that. Actually, they don’t yell, they just stand in their yards and glare at us. And you? Still at the old apartment?”
He nodded. Yes, he was still in the old apartment—the one in which she’d nursed him back to health. That one with three rooms—four, if you counted the bathroom. Unless the Crew decided to increase his stipend, that would be his address for some time to come.
“Are you practicing medicine now?” he asked. “You said you were taking care of us in a more formal arrangement?”
She laughed. “I’ve never practiced medicine.” Before he could contradict her, she continued, “But yes, I stitch up knife wounds and take care of a broken bone here or there. Time to time I’ll see to a poor fella who’s taken a bullet.”
“I’m glad. I owe my life to you.” He shook his head at his own grandiose pronouncement. This was dinner…not the burial of some Viking king. “I mean…”
“I know what you mean.” She nodded. “My mother taught me what she could after…” Her eyes drifted.
“The War,” Vincent stated, more to continue her sentence than to ask.
She nodded stiffly, returning all of her attention to the wine. “And what about you? Was your father in the War?”
Vincent set his jaw.
Fern’s eyes shot wide for a split-second, and she covered her mouth with her fingertips. “Oh…I am so sorry.”
“No sweat there.”
“I wasn’t thinking,” she insisted with a tilt of her head.
Vincent sighed. “Truth is, I have no idea. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t. No clue if he’s alive or dead. Whatever. It doesn’t really matter, you know?”
Fern nodded, then buried her nose into the wine goblet.
Damn. Vincent had assumed this would be a safe subject, but on retrospect perhaps bringing up the War wasn’t the best idea for a dinner date.
“Moving on,” she declared with renewed composure. “What have you been up to these past few months?”
“Well, there’s problems everywhere. Bootleggers from the mountains trying to run product around Baltimore and go direct. Grumblings in New York about who owns what and where. And now there’s these Russians.”
She cringed. “I meant…I didn’t mean business.”
He clenched his jaw for a brief second before answering. “That’s pretty much all I do, Fern. Business.”
“Oh.” She picked at the tablecloth. “I just…should I even know the details of these things? Should you be telling me about this?”
He took a breath and let it out. How the hell would any relationship work if he couldn’t talk about business? What were they supposed to talk about? The weather?
“It’s been a hot summer,” she offered. “We could sure use some rain.”
The weather. “Yes, very hot.” He searched for something else. “Did you see that pothole on Light Street? Someone needs to fix that thing.”
“No, I didn’t see it.”
Silence fell. Vincent eyed his wine, wondering if he’d suddenly become more witty and articulate if he slugged it down
. Probably not.
Fern sighed, then bit her lip. “Okay, business then. So you were saying something about Russians?”
He struggled, trying to find something else to discuss and coming up empty. Maybe if he kept it all vague, she’d be okay with it. “Yeah, thought we’d taken care of the Russian situation, but now I’m wondering if that’s not the case.”
The Russians. That was a memory Vincent had hoped to bury. Last year there had been an incident that had sparked a brief and bloody feud which ended with a whole lot of dead Russians and no dead Italians. It had been quick, violent, and when it was over the Baltimore Crew was the last mob standing. The fighting over those three months had been the final act of Vito’s consolidation of power. Though the full extent of his control was still questioned in the shadows, it had never since been outright challenged.
The brief turf war was one thing, but that first incident? That haunted him. Yakov Dmitrivich had done some work for the Crew and had been caught with his hand in the till. Just a little bit of embezzlement, but Vito wasn’t known for giving second chances to non-famiglia. The only problem had been that Yakov lived in a building filled with the Bratva—the Russian Brotherhood, and they weren’t likely to hand him over without a fight.
So Vincent had frozen time, and there had been a slaughter. And over the next few months, there had been a whole lot of slaughtering, all of it aided by the Crew’s time pincher.
He’d done his job, and he’d done it well. But that didn’t help him sleep any better at night.
Vincent released a discreet sigh and forced a smile. “But enough about me, what about you? What’s been in your bonnet these past few months?”
“Well, I’ve been patching up a few men here and there. I can’t really go out much, because I have to be available and easy to locate in case I need to provide medical care.”
He grimaced. “Surely you can go out sometimes? Let someone know where you are?”
Fern paled and sipped her wine, not offering a reply. Vincent suddenly imagined what would happen if one of the Crew pulled up to that mansion with an emergency that needed Fern, only to have to go haring all over the city looking for her. That…that would not be a pleasant exchange when they finally found her.
