Red ribbons stretched toward her like fingers in the snow. A body lay facedown, unmoving. At her feet, the gun was cool and dark and dead, like a second body.
She had killed a man.
She gasped and the world snapped into focus. Her hand was numb from the pistol’s recoil, and there was a stink of burned gunpowder in the air, and she was cold, so cold. “Oh God,” she whispered.
“It’s going to be all right,” Jerome said softly. “I promise.”
But how could it be? “No,” she mumbled.
“Gloria,” Jerome said, taking her shoulders in his hands. “You saved my life.”
Gloria’s head wouldn’t clear. “Where’s Carlito?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Jerome said. “He took off running right after you—after the gunshot.”
Before she could fully take that in, another set of footsteps was pounding toward them.
“Vera?” Jerome said. “It’s just Vera, Glo. It’s only my sister.”
Gloria couldn’t look away from the body. It was snowing harder now, the flakes coming down furiously out of the darkness. The gangster’s corpse was fast becoming shrouded in white, but the red didn’t go away. It just got darker.
Vera reached them, out of breath. She stopped when she spotted Tony’s body and covered her mouth with her hand. “I thought I heard a shot, but I didn’t—” She looked from Gloria’s slack face to Jerome’s bloody one.
“Carlito came out of nowhere,” Jerome said. “With one of his goons. They knew we were leaving, I think. Someone must’ve tipped them off.”
Vera looked around nervously. “Wait, what are you doing with that?” she asked, spotting the gun at Gloria’s feet.
“They were going to kill me. Gloria got the drop on them.”
“It’s Bastian’s gun.” The words came out of Gloria’s mouth before she knew what she was saying.
Vera’s face shut down completely. “Leave,” she said quickly. “Leave now. I’ll take care of everything.”
“Vera, I can’t let you—”
“I said, leave! I’ll get Fred and Doug to get rid of the body. Ain’t no cop going to dig too deep to figure out what happened to some two-bit gangster. You two need to go, and fast.”
Jerome gave his sister a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’ll write you from New York.”
Jerome slid into the driver’s open door and turned the ignition. The car shuddered and rumbled to life.
Gloria stood frozen, her eyes locked not on the body but on the red snow.
“Gloria.” She felt Vera gently shaking her arm. “You have to go, before the police come.” Vera guided her around to the passenger-side door. Before she opened it, she put her forehead against Gloria’s. “You take care of my brother for me, okay? I’m trusting you.”
It was the nicest thing Vera had ever said to her.
“Okay,” Gloria heard herself say. “I will.” And then the door of her mother’s car was shut, and with Jerome at the wheel, they drove slowly down the street, the snow filling their tracks as quickly as they made them.
They had made it.
On the platform at 11:52, awaiting the midnight train, Gloria stood half a car’s length away from Jerome. They didn’t want to appear to be together in case anyone saw them. He had cleaned up the best he could in one of the bathrooms at the station, but his lips and cheeks were cut, and a bruise was taking over his right eye. He had pulled a fedora low over his face, and the hat’s brim hid the worst of it.
As the clock ticked closer to midnight, she walked past the other people on the platform and up to Jerome. “I don’t care who sees us together,” she said.
“Good,” he said.
“What are we going to do?” she asked. This was not how she’d imagined starting her new life with Jerome. This was not how it was supposed to be.
“I want you to listen to me,” Jerome said. “As far as you’re concerned—as far as anyone is concerned—I killed Tony.”
“But, Jerome—”
“Listen to me,” he said. He moved his face close to hers. “I killed him, and that’s that. The Mob and the police will both be after me—I’m nothing but one more worthless black man to them, better dead than alive.
“So I have to run. But even when I get to New York, Carlito and Capone’s guys will try to track me down. I’ll be living as a fugitive.
“But you, Gloria,” he said softly, “you don’t have to suffer. You can stay here, safe.” He stared hard at his hands, then back up into her eyes. “I love you, Gloria. And because I love you, I can’t let you come with me.”
Gloria felt her chest crack open. He was right—she knew he was right. As long as Carlito lived, any life they had together would have to be forged in the shadows. And it was all her fault. If she hadn’t gone back to the Green Mill, she would have never run into Carlito, and he would never have attacked her, and Jerome would never have had to defend her, and—
A piercing whistle.
The train pulled into the station with a hiss of steam. Gloria looked up into Jerome’s eyes. “I love you,” she said, and the words swept everything else away. Her fear of Carlito’s revenge, her worries about their uncertain future, everything.
The conductors went down the line, opening the cabin doors.
“All aboard!” one conductor called out. “Midnight train to New York City! Final stop: Grand Central Terminal!”
Jerome took a risk and kissed her cheek, a farewell kiss, and pried himself away. “Be a good girl, now,” he said, shouldering his trunk and picking up his suitcase.
Jerome moved down the platform, as if in slow motion, leaving Gloria behind.
“Jerome!” she shouted out, but he had already climbed the steps to the train, stopped, turned around to gaze at her.
“I almost forgot,” he said, digging into his pocket. He produced an earring—her grandmother’s—the one she had lost that night in the Green Mill. He held out his hand. “That’s what I went back into the apartment to get.”
Gloria ran to him and mounted the steps. “I’d rather be with you—wherever you are, no matter how bad things are—than anywhere in the world without you.”
“Are you sure?”
The whistle blew its warning cry. Around them, people flooded into the train cars, taking seats, putting away their luggage. “It won’t be easy,” Jerome said. “Easy is over with. I won’t hate you if you say no. I’ll understand.”
Gloria gazed at this man who had changed her life, who had opened himself up to her, who had taught her how to sing—not just on the stage, but in life. This man she had killed for. She thought about their being together in New York, with Carlito hunting them. She thought about being alone in Chicago if she stayed.
Make a decision, Gloria thought. It’s now or never.
“All aboard!” the conductor cried.
VERA
“I told you never to come here,” Bastian said as the elevator doors shut. “That was our deal.”
“That was before you broke our deal,” Vera said, storming into his apartment. “Before my brother almost ended up dead.”
Bastian closed the door. “Now I’m going to have to make up a story about needing a new cleaning lady.”
“Fat chance of anyone believing those horsefeathers at two in the morning.”
Vera knew it was risky. Not only coming to an all-white neighborhood, but to an engaged, rich white man’s apartment. At night. But she had no other choice. She was responsible for what had just happened.
The two of them had never been alone before. It made her very uneasy.
In the past, they had met on a pair of benches along the east side of Washington Park, or in one of the Chinatown eateries in Hyde Park, where no one would take notice of a white man eating dinner with a black woman.
“May I take your coat, Miss Vera?” he said with mock hospitality.
“Can the act,” she said, not wanting to expose the skimpy dress she was wearing beneath her coat. She’d
gone straight from work at the Green Mill to say farewell to her brother. She hadn’t expected the blood, the body, or Jerome’s battered face.
“Then may I at least get you a drink? It might warm you up,” he said, walking over to a bottle he had sitting out.
“I don’t want your booze, Mr. Grey,” she said, staying close to the door. “You know why I’m here.”
“Be so kind as to enlighten me.”
“One of Carlito’s men is dead. I don’t think he was showing up at my brother’s to wish him a good trip to New York.”
“I already know,” Bastian said, taking a sip of his drink. “News travels fast when your brother murders the pal of one of the most powerful gangsters in the city of Chicago.”
“Jerome killed this guy?” Vera bit her tongue. So Carlito was blaming Jerome. Probably because no one would bat an eyelash if he killed a black man in vengeance. But a rich white society girl?
She had a hunch Bastian didn’t know it was his own gun that had killed Carlito’s man. “I can’t believe I ever trusted you.”
Bastian laughed scornfully. “Is that so?”
He strolled across the room and stared down at her. He didn’t hide his contempt. “Let’s be honest with ourselves, Vera. Was I the one who investigated the new singer at the Green Mill? Was I the one who ratted out my brother about his planning to run away with her to New York? Was I the one who gave me his address to make certain that the two lovebirds split up for good?”
He gulped down the dregs of his drink. “Shall I continue?”
“No one was supposed to die.” Vera felt her insides wither. Bastian was right: She had only herself to blame. She’d been convinced Gloria was going to ruin her brother’s life.
She’d been wrong.
Jerome had almost lost his life because of what she’d told Bastian. And now her brother and Gloria were on the lam, and a man was dead, and it was all because of Vera.
She had to fix this.
“You sent Carlito to kill Jerome tonight, didn’t you? You didn’t care who got hurt. You just wanted to punish Gloria.”
“Of course.” Bastian tilted his head. “Silly, stupid Vera. It’s a little too late for remorse, sweetheart.”
“Don’t you dare call me sweetheart!”
“What would you rather I call you? Judas? A traitor to your own flesh and blood?”
“That’s enough!” Vera wanted to strike him, to tear into him with every ounce of strength she had in her body. “I was trying to save my brother—”
“Then you should have known better than to involve me.”
“Gloria could have been killed,” Vera said, backing toward the door.
“I don’t give a damn about Gloria,” Bastian said. “It’s her money I want to marry.”
Vera couldn’t stay in this apartment for another second, for fear of doing something she might regret. “You won’t get her or her money. I’ll make sure of it.”
Bastian smiled wickedly. “And how are you going to do that?”
Vera opened the door, looked back at Bastian, and smiled, because she knew what he did not: that she had his smoking gun tucked away in her purse, linking him to the murder outside her brother’s apartment.
“Just you wait and see,” Vera said.
And then she firmly closed the door on him.
Find out what happens next when
INGENUE
goes on sale in 2011!
For the latest Flappers news, visit theflappersbooks.com.
Jillian Larkin’s fascination with flappers and the 1920s began during her childhood, which included frequent home screenings of the classic Julie Andrews/Carol Channing film Thoroughly Modern Millie. She lives in New York.
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