She kissed his cheek. “Can we really go to the Cotton Club to see Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway and Ethel Waters?”
“Maybe, probably not all tonight, but we’ll see them before we go home to Brooklyn.” He got distracted; his eyes on where her naked leg peeked out of the covers.
She laughed, followed his gaze. “I still can’t believe it, Johnny. New York. I’ve dreamt about it for so long. Bee’s Knee’s, pinch me, I’m dreamin’.”
“I’d rather do something other then pinch ya.”
She’d hardly rested before their departure, partying with Rosie and Mike who’d come for a long awaited visit to see them in Chicago. She’d worked right up to the end, running on whiskey, cigarettes, anticipation and doubt, but the moment she’d seen the New York skyline she knew she was where she belonged, needed and was meant to be. Here, with Johnny.
“Be serious,” she admonished, wiggling her polished toes.
“Nah, you always say I’m too serious. How ‘bout we…?” His suggestion almost made her blush. He watched with amusement dancing in his eyes as she giggled and squirmed when he reached under the blankets.
“Hells Bells, as Meg would say, Johnny Gallo, you’re so bad!”
“Nah, damned good and you know it. Admit it, doll.”
“Okay, I admit it.” She capitulated easily, rubbing up against him like a puppy wanting a pat as his hands worked their magic.
“Don’t I know what you want and always give ya more than you bargain for,” he asked sounding quite sure of himself.
“John…ny…” She choked on a moan.
He knew Hannah cared, wanted and needed him. He knew she liked what he gave her. But, sometimes he worried if it was only her body he held in thrall, not her heart, or her soul. He wanted it all, to possess her like she had him. Not that he’d ever admit that to her, or to any other living soul. Hell. He was jealous of everything she liked that didn’t pertain to him. He didn’t know why she needed anything but him, but like a diamond she was multi-faceted, tough, beautiful and expensive. Aggravating too, like only a dame could be. “So, who’s the only fella for you?”
She turned and said his name as she reached for him. The room was quiet except for the creak of the bed and their heavy breathing. After several contented sobs and moans, Johnny regained his wits, barely. “Guess you’re happy we moved, huh?”
“Forgot about Chicago the minute we stepped off the train.” She was breathless; her cerulean eyes hungry, for him, for the pleasures only he could give. Johnny’s hand expertly foraged between her silky thighs, shaking her ability to think, yet somehow he always managed to maintain his control longer and it always irked her that he could.
“You sure of that?” He was still annoyed he had to work even a little bit to talk her into it, like she had a choice.
“Yes.” She’d been proud he’d been asked to act as the liaison between Chicago and New York, yet uncertain about leaving her job. “I was mostly worried what picking up stakes again might do to my career.”
“I told you I got more connections here than a mutt’s got fleas. But our new digs need furnishing, so you’ll be busy. Maybe you won’t care about working?” Yeah, right, he thought as her eyes widened. If anything, his Hannah was tenacious and as stubborn as a mule. “Only kidding.”
“I expect to take time to get us settled, but not too long. I’ll be lonely when you go off to work and I want something of my own to do besides wait.”
“I’ll be around more. You can take cooking lessons, shop and eventually sing, whatever you want as long as you make time for numero uno—me.”
Even though he was proud of her, of her talent, it bothered him that she made such a big deal about working when she didn’t really have to. And, it was a man’s career that mattered more anyway. He used his hands like a writer wielded his pen—expertly.
“Open your eyes,” he demanded, his voice a sharp whisper as he played, watching, waiting, driving her mad.
“The pictures in magazines don’t do it justice,” she gasped, visibly affected. No casual joining here.
He prided himself on his control, his ability to keep her in line, needy and needing him, respectful. In the bedroom he was always in charge.
“New York makes me feel big and small, all at the same time.”
“I’ll give ya big.” He smiled, releasing himself in all his throbbing glory. He was pleased to see her eyes widen with knowing appreciation. Her attention made him harder. “Toot some flute, doll?”
She sank down upon him, her mouth soft, warm and very enthusiastic. Possessed. She was a splinter under his skin. It scared him how much he adored her.
He knew he shocked her by turning her, her back to him as he positioned her buttocks high in the air as if he meant to use her like a boy. He left her in suspense before finally impaling her snatch from behind with one masterfully slick stroke. He was no sodomist, but he was a man in charge and it didn’t hurt to remind her of that. “This…” He cupped her Venus patch with his hand, “…is mine. Anyone ever touches it besides me is dead—ya hear me—dead.” What belonged to him remained his forever. Too independent for her own good, he felt the need to remind her who was boss sometimes.
Hannah sighed; rolling her eyes.
He artfully flipped her beneath him. Right where she belonged. Slowly pushing into her, their eyes met. He felt powerful. Things were as they should be.
“I feel full of hope again, like the sky is the limit,” she choked out.
“Good,” he held himself still inside of her. He nibbled on her ear, her mouth. “It is.” Her lips were swollen from his rough kisses. The gold crucifix he always wore around his neck was tickling her breasts, a parody of all that was holy. “Tell me how much you want me.”
“Johnny,” she bucked up against him, fidgeting wildly. “C’mon, don’t tease now. This isn’t a battle.”
“But, it is.”
She moaned, begged but didn’t speak.
“Say it.” He could be relentless. He wouldn’t give in until she did.
He was a demon—demanding. Her nails raked into his back, into his shoulders, her legs were around him like a vice yet he persisted, resisted. When she could no more care about who was mastering whom, she said it. “Please. Johnny…you…yes.”
Her breath exploded as he sank into her tight warmth, pounding hard and fast, reaching for her soul. He drank in her cries. Tears filled her sightless eyes as she met him thrust for thrust, a harmony as brutal and rhythmic as time.
Being with him was staccato intensity, hot jazz on a wild blues night. “Faster…no slower…I don’t know…” Sex was never like this with anyone else. He brought her to pleasure two times, three maybe before he finally gave himself up to his own explosive release. Hannah felt his burning juices shoot through her like a geyser as she drifted into a place between peaceful oblivion and numb satisfaction.
Johnny’s grin was cocky. Twenty minutes later, a cigarette dangling from his lips he reached for a light. He was a fella in charge of his world and damn, life didn’t get any better than that.
A few idle automobiles were parked on the street, but people were sparse. Hannah, in her robe and fresh out of the shower watched from the window of her beautiful new apartment as a kid, tall as a Viking warrior with rust colored hair hopped down from a horse cart with an ease that belied his rangy build. The driver, an older man got out to hobble the horses.
Johnny had told her to expect something special, a surprise. She saw the two men lifting a cylinder shaped object with claw foot legs out of the cart and guessed immediately that her surprise had arrived. When the doorbell rang she eagerly buzzed them in.
The small lobby had marble floors and crystal sconces on silk papered walls. There was a small glass elevator behind the stairs, two apartments on the first floor, three on the second, a basement and a stairway with a carved walnut banister. Peering into the hallway she waved.
“Mr. Gallo sent us.” The older fella introduced himself as
Turk, the younger fella as Jimmy. Hannah thought Jimmy looked her age or maybe a year older.
“Oh my, is it a big one?” she asked, staring directly at Jimmy.
Jimmy gaped back.
“My bird, silly boy,” she said, trying to peek behind him. “I’m Hannah, by the way.”
“Jim…Jimmy, this here’s Turk.”
“I know,” she said, giggling and feeling bad as Jimmy’s face turned a bright red.
“I wanted a pet,” she said, trying to put him at ease with a friendly smile. Poor guy, must be really shy, she guessed cooing at the pretty little bird. She grabbed her robe flap with one hand and opened the apartment door wide. “C’mon in, fellas. That Johnny is such a precious little pussycat, isn’t he?”
“She wasn’t wearin’ diddly under that robe.” Jimmy was still in a daze.
Turk snorted, reaching for the reins. “Did ya see the fancy stuff in that place?”
Jimmy’s tongue was finally working again. “She’s something. I think I’m in love.”
Turk shook his head. “Don’t even think it, kid. She belongs to Gallo sure as his shoes. No dame’s worth dyin’ for.”
Jimmy smiled. “Oh, I dunno, she’s closer to my age than his.”
Turk eyed him funny.
“A fella can dream, okay?”
“Dreams can turn into nightmares real quick, kid.”
16 CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Johnny and Hannah rang in January 1925 with thousands of people at the opening of New York’s Madison Square Garden. While in Chicago, Weiss and Moran tried to hit Capone as he ate a meal in a State street restaurant. New Year’s Day, the New York port authority confiscated a shipment Johnny was waiting for. They’d claimed the ship and the captain had violated the Volstead and Immigration acts. The Italian schooner’s crew ditched most of their illegal contraband, but the authorities found several bottles of rum and held the crew and its captain, Antonio Gallo, a distant cousin of Johnny’s, without bail. As if losing an entire shipment wasn’t bad enough, Johnny spent most of the day dancing around with lawyers and judges to get the trumped up charges dropped.
Pacing impatiently, he fixed himself a drink. It was well past seven o’clock and he was waiting for Hannah. He was always waiting for Hannah.
“If you’re so nuts about the dame, marry her.” Mobster Lucky Luciano’s comments to him from earlier that day came back to haunt him. They’d been sipping Sambucca in Johnny’s warehouse off of Humboldt Street just a few hours before. “We all have to settle down sooner or later, piasano.” This from the proverbial bachelor.
“We’re tied together in all the ways that count.”
“’Til death do you part?”
“Yeah, like that,” snapped Johnny, dark eyes serious. He didn’t discuss Hannah with anyone, even old friends. Hannah and their place on 362 Diamond Street was personal and neither of them were the marrying kind. “Goddamn, what the hell are you doing in there, Han?”
“Gettin’ dressed. Be patient cutie patootie, another minute.”
Hannah’s idea of a minute was different from the real deal, so he was surprised when she actually came out of the bedroom smiling, twirling. “What do you think?”
She was wearing what at first glance appeared to be a conservative black silk sheath dress. It reached her knees, but the only thing that was actually covered was her lower torso. “Your tits are exposed for anyone to see.”
“They are not,” she argued petulantly. “The collar is up to my neck.”
Dressed in a dark suit, his tawny skin freshly shaved, his hat drawn rakishly over his face, Johnny studied her with his usual intensity. “I can see right through it and if ya move, so will everyone else.”
She walked over to the mirror, looking annoyed. She studied her reflection. “Oh bunk, is it really so bad? Besides, it’s a Paris original and cost you over two hundred smackeroonies.”
“Yeah, well I already lost a fortune today so one dress ain’t gonna kill me. Go change and quick.”
“I don’t want to.” Her chin tilted.
He rubbed his eyes feeling surly, not in the mood for her defiance. “Get rid of that damned dress, Han or I’ll get rid of it for you.”
“Ohh, if you’re gonna be like that about it, fine.” She pulled the dress over her head, dropping it on the floor to pool at her feet. Standing almost naked, she hissed. “How’s this, better now?”
“I’ll say.” He chased her into the bedroom.
About an hour later feeling much better, Johnny was again pacing in the living room, waiting for Hannah. Although this time he smiled when she appeared. Cheeks rosy and looking freshly fucked, she was wearing a different dress.
“Johnny, I’ve been thinkin’.”
He moaned. Every time Hannah got to thinking, it usually meant one thing and one thing only. She wanted to talk about work—hers. He’d gotten her a booking one weekend a month at The Drifter in Manhattan, but the stupid job hadn’t lasted six months. The place got busted last month. “I’m working on it.”
She frowned. “I know you are, but maybe I should too?”
“No.” He shook his head, annoyed. He almost tripped over one of her discarded shoes. “I told you to be patient. Shop, get your hair done, clean up this place, why don’t you, or call that damned maid back quick. Josie-Rosie-whatever her name was.”
“Josie, and that’s not the point.”
“What’s the point then?”
“I chat with the neighbors or Josie when she comes on Monday. I go to the beauty parlor, the cleaners and all over town running errands, but how much do you think a body can buy?”
He reached for a cigarette. “I thought you liked shopping, spending my money?”
She sighed, reaching for her hip flask, taking a swig, tucked it back into her garter. “You’re impossible.”
“And you’re not? Dames,” he muttered as she glared at him, hands on her hips. She looked so sexy he wanted to tumble her all over again except he was hungry, this time for food. “Frankly, I don’t see a problem. Whatever you want I give ya. You don’t hafta work, you want to, okay. You earn money; I put it into your bank account. I’m working on another gig, trust me.”
“I do, but I seem to be marking time waiting and you’re busy most of the time. I don’t want to be a burden.” She hated that she sounded like a nag, but she was lonely, bored and itching to work again. She knew now what Meg had felt like.
Johnny hugged her, keeping his voice soothing as he pulled her close. “Ahh, Han, you’re hardly a burden. I know it’s tough my being away so much lately, but it’ll change. I’m building a future for us both. At least, I ain’t out runnin’ around with other dames.”
“My voice teacher knows a place that might need a singer.” Having never had a trained voice, she’d thought it would be helpful to take some lessons. And she’d had the time.
Johnny’s patience ebbed. “Be patient.” All hell had broken loose after they’d left Chicago. An attempted hit on Papa John, Frank Capone iced. Fortunately the hit on Torrio failed, but left two holes in his gray fedora and his dog and chauffer dead. The culprit, O’Banion got what was coming to him, but it changed the way they all did business. Carefully. Johnny’s new enterprise, an import/export business reflected that. It looked like a typical warehouse, but was a fortress. Fences, dogs, guards and only he knew that the bookshelves behind his desk opened to a safe room where he kept his favorite treasures. In fact, Hannah hadn’t even seen the upstairs offices yet. Few people had.
“Han, if someone wanted to get to me, all they would have to do is get to you first. It ain’t like the old days. The higher a fella climbs, the more someone wants to knock him down.”
“Like that’s going to happen,” she said, scowling. “I’m sure they have bigger fish to fry then little old me. Geez, Johnny sometimes I think you’re worse then Ray, tellin’ me what I can, can’t, should, or shouldn’t do.”
“Christ, Han, that ain’t fair. I look out for you no matter what
and you know it.”
“Hell’s Bell’s, you gonna wait around for Johnny to make things happen, or are you gonna go do it yourself, Han?”
Somehow Hannah knew she was dreaming, but she didn’t want to wake up. “Meg?”
“Of course silly, who else?”
She knew it was impossible. She wasn’t really having this conversation, she was asleep. Meg was dead, but she wanted and needed to talk. “Meggie, I’ve missed you so much. Johnny’s great, we moved to New York. He gives me anything I want, but he’s always busy now. He travels a lot.”
“And you’re going stir crazy all alone here in this fancy place?”
“Well, he’s a little overprotective.”
“I noticed.”
Suddenly Hannah saw her even with her eyes closed. She was sitting on the end of the bed, holding a long gold cigarette holder in one hand, taking a long drag on it. She was smiling, looking healthy and happy again, dressed stylishly in a red dress with matching nails and shoes, her hair perfectly coiffed.
“Get out there and do what you need to do, girl,” Meg urged, her brown eyes calm as she exhaled smoke in a stream. “Don’t let any fella bamboozle you into being trapped like that pretty birdie you’ve got there in that fancy thingamajig.”
Meg’s no-nonsense advice was just what she needed. She smiled feeling better already. “Thanks, Meg, you’re absolutely right. Johnny means well, but I can’t sit around here just waitin’ for him or his permission. Geez, what was I thinkin’?
“Probably weren’t.”
She laughed. “I have a maid now named Josie. Her friends play the Cotton Club and she invited me to come along sometime. It’s a real swell place. Johnny took me there once, but I’ve been itchin’ to go back, to meet some other musicians, to hear some good music.”
Meg just grinned, taking a deep breath, standing. “Then go. Remember Han, success is in the doing, make friends, make it happen.”
The Songbird with Sapphire Eyes Page 20