On the Day I Died

by Candace Fleming

  But it didn’t work on fat Aunt Viola. “You’re here just until your mother makes bail. And during that time, you’re going to do exactly as I say.”

  She was starting to freak me out, not like the “there’s a zombie around the corner” kind of freak-out, but the “you better not mess with me” kind of freak-out. So I said, “I’ve got a razor blade taped to my thigh.” It was a lie. I was unarmed. But it sounded good. Authentic, you know, like I was a real delinquent. I made myself look right into those cold blue eyes of hers, met her gaze, bluffing.

  Aunt Viola didn’t even blink. “Done with that?” She pointed to the melting pint of sherbet in front of me. Without knowing it, I’d stabbed the spoon into its softening orange innards over and over again. I pushed it away.

  We left the sherbet melting on the table—why was I not surprised?—and I followed her around the house. We took the cleared trails. There was no other way unless you were a mountain goat, and it dawned on me that each trail led someplace necessary—bed, fridge, john. The whole place reeked of that dirty scalp smell, and everything was covered with a gritty white film, like the house had a bad case of dry skin. It was pretty obvious the place was falling apart. The floors slanted, and there were lightning-bolt cracks all over the ceiling. It was like the house was collapsing in on itself, buckling under the weight of all that stuff.

  For a second I changed my mind about staying there. Then I thought of the ESC, with its rows of torture cots, and its pathetic little kids crying all night for their mommies because they hadn’t figured out the score yet, and those oh-so-sincere social workers who were constantly in my face, trying to quote, “break through your emotional walls,” unquote. And you know what? Aunt Viola’s didn’t seem so bad after all.

  But it would have been even better if I’d had a razor blade, you know?

  We came to a fork in the trail.

  “I sleep in there,” Aunt Viola said. She pointed to the right, where the trail cut through a wall of cardboard boxes and into a bedroom. Through the growing darkness, I could see a double bed, its sheets a tangled knot, half of it hiding under a jumble of cookie boxes and catalogs.

  “What about me?” I asked.

  She pointed to the left. “There’s a sofa in the living room,” she said. “In the corner there. You’ll need to clear it off.”

  “What’s that?” I asked. There was a door in the hallway, strangely clear of debris. It had a heavy, industrial-strength padlock on it.

  “That’s off-limits,” she said. “The stairs to the attic.”

  “Why off-limits?”

  “You ask too many questions.”

  I reached out and tested the lock just to rattle her chain. “Ooh, nice and tight,” I said. “So what do you keep up there? The family jewels?” Or just more broken typewriters and rusty sinks?

  She grabbed my arm, her fat hand squeezing with an anaconda grip. “Listen, girly.” Yeah, she actually said “girly.” “You just mind your own business. Understand?”

  I shook her off. “Jeez, I was only teasing. Can’t you take a joke?”

  “I never joke,” she said, and her eyes looked dead and flat. “Never.”

  “Oh,” I went. The minute I said it, I wanted to kick myself. Like, really, what kind of snappy comeback was “Oh”?

  “Off-limits,” Aunt Viola hissed again.

  “All right, already,” I said.

  Aunt Viola stood there glowering, her hands on her elephant hips, and watched as I squeezed into the living room and over to a sofa that was buried beneath two feet of books, papers and magazines. I looked around. No sheets or pillows, just an ancient lap robe that looked like it had been crocheted by Martha Washington. I pushed everything into a heap on the floor, then sat cross-legged on the gritty cushions.

  “Comfortable?” Aunt Viola called out.

  Was she joking?

  “Cozy as a coffin,” I called back.

  I heard the floorboards creak under her weight as she headed toward her bed, and then I was alone. I sighed. It couldn’t have been later than ten p.m. Too early for bed. Besides, I was still feeling a little ambushed by the day. This place. Her. I knew I couldn’t possibly fall asleep yet. Halfheartedly, I looked around for a television, but knew I wouldn’t find one. Bummer. I could have used a little Chico and the Man distraction right about then.

  Bored, I pushed around the heap of books and papers with my foot. A liver-spotted copy of Life magazine surfaced, a picture of Frank Sinatra on its cover. There was an empty album sleeve from some band called the Tijuana Brass, a tattered composition book, a bent postcard of the John Hancock Building, and …

  What’s this?

  I reached down and snagged a scrapbook—water-stained, its edges curling—out of the mess. A ghostly puff of dust rose as I opened it. It was all newspaper clippings. Page after page of yellowing old newspaper clippings. All of them were from the 1920s. And they were all about Aunt Viola.

  I read the scrapbook from beginning to end. Every clipping on every page. And pretty soon, all those bits and pieces came together to form a story—the Story of Aunt Viola. And man, was it a crazy one.

  She was born Viola O’Hara, and she began her life of crime as a petty thief in a bad neighborhood on the near North Side called Little Hell. By the time she was in her twenties, she was a small-time racketeer who paid for her fancy dresses (made to accommodate the three guns she usually carried) and her florist business (a cover for what she really did) by running booze from Canada. Twice the Genna family, believing she was muscling in on their territory, tried to gun her down—the first time in front of a thousand people on opening night after a show outside the LaSalle Theatre; the second time while dancing the Charleston at the Aragon Ballroom. But Viola was a better shot. She made headlines. Her picture was in every paper. Reporters dubbed her the doll-faced moll. The Genna family dubbed her a menace. And Al Capone—the most famous gangster of all—called her sweetheart. That is, of course, until the day he tried slapping her around her apartment. That was when Viola pulled a four-inch knife from her garter belt and turned Al into Scarface. Needless to say, he never called her sweetheart again.

  According to a long article in the Chicago Tribune, Viola did fall in love with this guy named Pete Winters, a war hero who worked in her florist shop. Pete was on the up-and-up, as straight an arrow as they came. Viola had never known such a hardworking, decent guy. He somehow managed to touch the few tender chords inside her. She decided to give up her life of crime, move away to Colorado with Pete, become a respectable married dame. But she needed money. So she swallowed her pride, cinched up her courage and went to the richest man she knew—Al Capone. I guess she was willing to risk it all for love, you know?

  So what happened next? I got the rest of the gory details straight from this old-time pulp-fact magazine called True Crime. The facts seemed to me like they might have been a little dicey, but the story was a juicy one. According to True Crime, this is how things went down:

  “What do you say we let bygones be bygones?” Viola says to Capone. “I’m here to do you a favor and sell you my portion of the Canadian whiskey business.”

  “How much?” asks Capone through gritted teeth.

  “I’m a reasonable woman,” replies Viola. “And we’ve known each other a long time.”

  Capone smiles a tight little smile.

  “How does fifty thousand dollars sound?” asks Viola. “Fair?”

  “Done,” says Al. He writes Viola an IOU. Tells her it’s good to see her again. Kisses her cheek goodbye. Maybe he even touches the scar on his face.

  The following evening just before closing, the phone in the florist shop rings.

  Pete Winters answers.

  “I’d like to place an order for a funeral tomorrow,” says the man on the other end, who claims his name is Mr. Brown. “Am I too late?”

  “Not at all, not at all,” says Pete.

  “Okay,” says Mr. Brown. “I want a wreath of red roses. A real big one
. Say five hundred dollars’ worth?”

  “Fine,” says Pete. “We can do that.”

  “I’ll come in and pick it up tomorrow, around noon,” says Mr. Brown.

  “We can deliver it if you want,” says Pete.

  “No, this is something I want to do for myself,” says Mr. Brown.

  “Of course,” says Pete. “Glad to oblige.” He thanks Mr. Brown for his business, checks the cooler to make sure there are enough roses to fill the order, then goes out to dinner with Viola.

  At noon the next day, Pete and another employee named Jim Holloway are bent over the worktable in the florist shop, wiring the last of the roses together, when a blue touring car rolls up to the curb. Three men climb out; the driver stays where he is, motor running. A boy playing on the sidewalk notices that the man in the middle has a scar on his face. “Get lost, kid,” says the man. The kid scampers away. The men push open the florist’s door. The bell jangles. Holloway looks up. Uh-oh, he thinks. I recognize that face. He ducks into the back room.

  “Hello, gentlemen,” says Pete. “Here for the flowers?” He steps forward, shears in one hand, the other held out for a handshake.

  The man with the scar takes it. “I’m Mr. Brown,” he says.

  Pete smiles and nods.

  Holloway makes it to the back room and shuts the door.

  A few minutes go by. From his hiding place in back, Holloway hears chitchat. A couple of laughs. Then—bang!

  The first shot goes wild. But not the next ones. They’re fired at such close range that they leave powder burns on Pete’s wool suit. The last shot is a head shot—the coup de grâce, is what the Mob likes to call it. Holloway waits until the men are gone before creeping back out. Pete is on his back in a puddle of blood and rose petals. He never knows he’s been arranging flowers for his own funeral.

  The True Crime story ended there. Eager to know more, I turned the page of the scrapbook and found a batch of clippings from some old newspaper called the Chicago Daily News. I read slowly, piecing together the rest of Aunt Viola’s story.

  She obviously spared no expense when it came to Pete’s funeral. His silver and gold coffin cost ten thousand dollars; its makers had it sent from Philadelphia by express train in a private baggage car. Musicians from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra played “Ave Maria,” and the city’s cardinal delivered the eulogy.

  There was a picture of Viola on the front page. She was, like, two hundred pounds skinnier, wearing black satin and a full-length mink coat. From behind her black veil, a reporter overheard her say, “It’s time to get back into the florist business.”

  In no time flat, Viola had gunned down the leaders of two rival South Side gangs and seized control of their bootleg operations. She tracked down Mr. Brown’s accomplices and allegedly killed them by shoving a rose stem into their brains through their left nostrils while they begged for mercy. Then, with her Thompson submachine gun blazing, she shot up the Lexington Hotel, Capone’s headquarters down on Michigan and Cermak. Capone escaped through one of his secret tunnels. But that didn’t stop Viola from taking a sledgehammer to his Tiffany lamps, his gold-plated bathroom fixtures, his beloved lavender-tiled tub. She stormed his basement vault, too, emptying it of more than a million dollars in gold coins. Then she just disappeared. Most people figured Capone caught up with her, gave her a pair of cement shoes and tossed her into the Chicago River. But a few speculated she had gotten away.

  The last article in Aunt Viola’s scrapbook was still white-paper new, printed just a little over a year ago on the forty-fifth anniversary of the Lexington shoot-out. “Where is the Doll-Faced Moll now?” the article asked.

  “Right here,” I muttered to myself. “She’s right here.”

  Was I scared?

  Sort of.

  But I was even more curious. What if Aunt Viola really did get away with Al Capone’s gold? What did she do with it all? I looked around the grody, overstuffed living room. She sure as heck hadn’t spent it here, right? Like, this wasn’t exactly Millionaires’ Row. So where was it?

  I remembered reading once about this loony old lady who stashed hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of loot in crazy places all over her house. Like, she froze her emerald rings into ice trays and hid her diamond necklace in a cracker box. Maybe Aunt Viola had done something like that, too. I mean, she was nuts enough. But where would she have hidden it? I sat there on the sofa with the scrapbook, wondering.

  I must have fallen asleep, because I woke with a start. Someone was trying to tiptoe down the pathway without making a sound—a pretty impossible task if that someone was the size of a baby hippo. Floorboards groaned. Mountains of stuff rattled and shook. I heard the telltale creak of a door, then the heaving, straining, panting sounds of Aunt Viola climbing a flight of stairs. Her heavy footfalls caused the whole house to shudder and shed trickles of plaster.

  Off-limits, huh?

  I got up and waded through the books and papers until I found the pathway that led from the living room to the hall. The door to the attic was open a crack. A key on a red satin ribbon, like the kind florists tie around bouquets of roses, still dangled from the now-sprung lock. I touched it, causing the ribbon to sway back and forth.

  What was up there?

  And as soon as I asked the question, I knew. I knew what was up there. It was obvious, wasn’t it? It was Al Capone’s gold. Aunt Viola had stashed it in the attic. I bet she was up there counting the coins that very minute.

  I thought about charging up the stairs, bursting in on her, shouting, “Caught ya, you fat, lying mobster!”

  But a better idea was already wiggling its way into my brain. Why not help myself to a little of that loot? I wouldn’t take much, just enough to say so long forever to Aunt Viola and her weird, stinking house; and to my useless mother and her long police record; and to the ESC, which could never, ever be a real home.

  I grinned. Oh, yeah, by tomorrow morning I’d be hitching west on Interstate 80, free and easy, my pockets bulging with Scarface’s gold.

  I went back to the sofa, pulled the ancient lap robe up to my chin, traced the cracks in the ceiling and waited.

  Time crept by.

  Finally, Aunt Viola dragged herself down the stairs. The house shook, and I couldn’t help wondering if the steps would hold. But they did. Minutes later I heard her mattress springs groan. Minutes after that, I heard her snore.

  It was my turn now.

  It was easy to sneak into her bedroom. Easier still to swipe the key off her nightstand. Aunt Viola snored louder than a Harley without a muffler, drowning out any giveaway noises, like the crunch of plaster beneath my shoes and the ting sound the key on its ribbon made when it accidentally bumped into a half-empty bottle of soda.

  I had the attic door unlocked and open in less time than it took to say “mobster.” Behind it was a flight of narrow, sagging stairs. There was no light switch, but a window at the very top let in a shaft of moonlight. I began to climb, quietly, quietly. The attic stank of dirty scalp. It wasn’t until I reached the top landing that I realized the stairs were clutter free. For the first time since I’d arrived at Aunt Viola’s house, I hadn’t had to wind, wade or pick my way through junk.

  I came to another door. It was partway open, revealing nothing but darkness.

  Why was I hesitating? Because all of a sudden, I felt a little scared—those narrow stairs, the moonlight, an attic. Suddenly, I remembered all the late-night horror movies I’d watched where some dimwitted girl walks into a slimy cellar or cobwebby attic and the whole time I’m yelling at the TV screen, going, “What are you, stupid or something?”

  But that was the movies, and this was real life. There weren’t any zombies or chain-saw-wielding serial killers hiding behind that door. What there was—I knew it—was gold.

  I gave the door a push and it swung open, the moonlight piercing the blackness. And it was hard to tell, but I thought … yes, there in front of me was … a bunch of dummies. You know, like stor
e mannequins, and they were arranged around a long table. Six dummies, actually, three on one side, three on the other. They were sitting in chairs and dressed in old-time clothes—fedora hats and overcoats—all neat and tidy as well-loved dolls. As a matter of fact, everything about this room was neat and tidy. There was no junk. No clutter. No dust or plaster grit.

  And no safe or pile of gold, either.

  I crept into the room for a closer look, and the stench hit me so hard I thought I was going to puke. It was totally gross, like if you scrape the surface of your tongue in the morning and then smell it. You know, sort of moist and decayed. Breathing through my mouth, I looked around.

  There was a bottle of whiskey and six shot glasses in the middle of the table, and in front of each of the dummies sat a crazy object, like a violin case or a box of cigars. There were name plates, too, and I bent down for a closer look. BUGS MORAN, read one name plate. JOHN DILLINGER, read another. The dummy closest to me was labeled AL CAPONE.

  Now we were getting somewhere. “Where’s the loot, buster?” I said, goofing around. Even with my nostrils pinched shut, it was a pretty good mobster imitation. I looked directly into the dummy’s face.

  Except it wasn’t a dummy face. It was a … a real face. Withered. Dried. Horrible. Its leathery lips were drawn back over yellowing teeth in an eternal sneer. There was a gaping black hole where the nose should have been, and the eyes, wrinkled like raisins, were sunken in the eye sockets. In the green-tinged skin stretched tight across the cheekbones, I could just make out the shadow of a scar. And now—now!—I knew what that smell was, that smell that stank up every crevice of the groaning, sagging house. It wasn’t dirty scalp or tongue scrapings. It was death. The smell of rotting human head.

  I looked around the table. Correction: six rotting heads!

  Six rotting heads mounted on six mannequin bodies!

  I fell back, and a weird sound came out of my throat, not a scream but a croak. I wheeled, ready to run.