by Ariel Lawhon
Maria caught the waver in her voice and forced it back. “Costurera. There is no English equivalent. Tailor will do just fine.”
“Are you as good as they say?”
She answered the question as honestly as she could without sounding arrogant. “Yes.”
Owney looked at Smithson. “I like her.”
A bored smile. “Her talents are unrivaled.”
Heat crept up Maria’s face as Owney’s eyes traveled down her body and paused at her breasts. “I’m sure they are.”
Smithson leaned forward eagerly, clipboard in hand. “How can we serve you today, Mr. Madden?”
The Liverpool accent, derogatorily referred to as Scouse by most, sounded to Maria’s untrained ears like the bastard child of Ireland and England, and though she’d often heard it mocked, Owney was the first person she’d ever met who had one. She tipped her head to the side, intrigued and slightly unnerved. Given his reputation, the accent only made him appear that much more sinister.
“I need a new fall and winter wardrobe. The latest styles. Top-notch, hear?”
“Of course.” Smithson practically trembled with joy. “Why don’t we look at our newest trends? Maria, go get the fabric. Bring the hand-finished wool. Chocolate and charcoal. The merino wool.” He paused to think. “In navy and black. The gray tweed. And the vicuña.”
Maria parted her lips to speak but then pressed them together again. She nodded and walked toward the door.
“What were you going to say?” Owney asked.
“Nothing.”
“Yes, you were. Go ahead.”
Maria avoided Smithson’s gaze and debated for a moment before she said, “The vicuña doesn’t hang well. Especially in winter. And I doubt it would suit a man such as yourself.” She cleared her throat. “It’s a bit effeminate.”
Owney looked from Smithson to Maria and grinned. “What would you recommend?”
“A classic English wool would drape better across your shoulders.” The suit he had on looked worse for the wear, wrinkled and stretched. Typical of cotton. Certainly not up to her standards of craftsmanship.
Smithson stepped forward with a little cough. “She does know her fabrics.” A sharp glance in her direction. “Fetch them. Would you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But leave the vicuña.”
Maria nodded and left the fitting room. Vicuñas, like llamas, had long woolen strands that were wonderful for weaving but terrible for holding shape. Smithson knew this but did not care. The fabric was rare, so he could charge three times as much as for standard sheep’s wool. She’d worked with it on a number of occasions and resented its defiance. It fought against her as she sewed, bunching beneath the thread. It took a great deal of tension on the stitch and patience on her part to make vicuña cooperate.
Glad for the chance to escape, Maria went to the showroom, running her fingers over the bolts as she searched. She collected all the samples that Smithson requested, in various colors, and also grabbed three shades of satin for the lining to save herself a trip later. He would ask for it. She was certain of that.
She slid back into the fitting room, holding the door open with one foot, while they discussed the latest fashion in men’s suits. Owney held a newly lit cigar between thumb and forefinger, puffing out small bursts of smoke.
“There she is,” Smithson said. “Let’s get your measurements.”
She set the fabric bolts on one of the leather chairs and stepped up behind Owney on the platform. “Jacket, please.” He shrugged out of it and she laid it aside. “Stand still if you can. The more accurate your measurements, the better the fit.”
“I heard you go more on sight and feel than numbers.”
His words came so quickly that she had to sort through each syllable after the fact, disentangling them from one another. “The numbers never lie, Mr. Madden.”
“Well, feel free to look and touch all you like regardless.”
Maria turned her face away to hide the furious blush that swept across her cheeks. She tapped his elbows quickly. “Arms up.”
As Owney raised his arms above his head, she wrapped the tape around his chest. Smithson recorded the measurements on the order form as Maria called them out. “Chest, forty-three inches.” She stretched the tape between her fingers and stood back. Owney was well muscled but not lean. “Make that forty-four. He’ll want the extra room for movement. He’s broad through the torso.”
“Was that a compliment? Or a complaint?”
Maria placed her first and second fingers on the protruding bone at the top of his spine and did her best to ignore the innuendo. “Chin down, please—your sleeves are next.” She set one end of the tape against the bone and ran the rest over his shoulder, down his arm, and all the way to his wrist, then added another inch for the shirt cuff. “Sleeve, thirty-three inches.”
Owney raised his arms again as Maria stepped in front and brought the tape around his waist. He tried to catch her glance, but she did not look at him. “Waist, thirty-six.”
There were few things more awkward in her experience than measuring a man’s inseam. The near groping aside, her position—kneeling at crotch level—was compromising. It was a rare client who did not squirm beneath her touch or make an off-color remark. Owney did neither. He stood, hands on his hips, searching her face with a curious expression.
“How did you end up here? Aren’t most of your kind sewing scraps down in the garment district?”
Her embarrassment was replaced with a sudden anger, and Maria clenched her jaw to suppress a sharp retort. As though there were much difference between his kind or hers: limey or grasa. They’d all crossed the Atlantic the same way, penniless and desperate. At least she’d been born on this continent. Owney clearly had not. He couldn’t have acquired a dialect like that anywhere but the docks in Merseyside. Maria sniffed, unwilling to dignify him with a response.
“She replaced her father when he went blind,” Smithson explained when the silence stretched on longer than was comfortable. “An unconventional arrangement, to be sure, but there is no doubting her abilities.”
Maria sat back on her heels and looked up at Owney Madden. “Inseam, thirty-four.”
“Sure you measured that right?”
She didn’t blink. “I was generous.”
“Maria!” Donald Smithson stepped forward.
Owney laughed, a deep sort of thing that left no doubt as to his humor. “It’s my fault. I provoked her. Just wanted to see if she’d bite back.” He grinned. “Nice sharp teeth on that one.” He stepped off the platform and grabbed his jacket from the chair. “Now, why don’t we talk style?”
“I think what you want”—Smithson walked Owney to the nearest mannequin—“is the drape cut. Or the London drape, as they call it on Savile Row. It has a softer silhouette. Extra fabric in the shoulders for movement, and a narrowed waist. We have found this style to greatly enhance a man’s figure.”
Maria laid out the fabric bolts on the platform and stepped aside, waiting.
“What do you think?” Owney asked, looking over his shoulder at her. “You’re the expert. Or so I’ve been told.”
“And what friend referred our services, Mr. Madden? I’d like the opportunity to write and thank him.” Smithson made a note on the corner of his clipboard.
“Simon Rifkind, an attorney downtown.” He prodded Maria again, undeterred by Smithson. “Go on.”
Simon Rifkind. The toothy, obnoxious associate of Mr. Crater’s. It made sense that the three of them would run together. Maria kept her voice steady, nonchalant. “I think the London drape looks pompous. I prefer a simple double-breasted suit with a waistcoat and a strong, bold tie in an accentuating color. A matching fabric square in the breast pocket for evenings. Classic. Nothing showy.”
Smithson forced a laugh. “Leave it to a woman to try and get out of hard labor. The London drape requires more craftsmanship than the double-breasted. Why don’t we look at those fabrics?” He cupped Maria’s elbow i
n his palm and bent closer. “What’s wrong with you?”
“He asked my opinion.”
“Your opinion is irrelevant.” Smithson released her and stepped away. “Thank you for your help, Mrs. Simon. I will take it from here. I put some piecework at your station.”
She placed her sewing materials back in her bag and gave Owney a courteous nod. “Mr. Madden.”
“A pleasure to meet you.”
Again, she thought as she turned away. Maria had the distinct impression that he watched her backside as she left the room. In the last few hours, Maria had found Joseph Crater in bed with a woman half his age and herself measuring the inseam of one of New York City’s most reviled gangsters. She was overcome with a sudden need to wash her hands. After a quick trip to the restroom, she returned to her work area and dropped into her seat. She set her face in her hands. What have I gotten myself into?
Chapter Three
CLUB ABBEY, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 6, 1930
RITZI and Crater sat at a small table in a corner of Club Abbey and listened to the jazz quartet. She slipped one shoe off under the table and rubbed a blister on the side of her big toe. Rehearsal ran long that afternoon and her feet ached, but she hid it with a smile. Crater couldn’t stop looking at her. Couldn’t stop touching her.
“Where is she?” Ritzi asked, looking at his wedding ring. “This wife of yours?”
“In Maine, at our lake house. She spends summers there.”
She brought her bare foot up the front of Crater’s leg. “That must be nice. A vacation home. You should take me there sometime.”
He caught her gaze, still on the ring, and spun it around his finger. “I can take it off if it bothers you.”
“Doesn’t make a difference, I suppose.”
He slid the ring off and put it in his pocket.
The room smelled of pipe smoke and wood polish and anise. Area rugs and lamps with red shades were scattered around the bar. Warm. Seductive. Flickering candles cast halos of soft light across the center of each table. Young couples lounged close together, arms draped over shoulders and hands resting on thighs. The nuzzle of a neck. A brazen kiss. On the other side of the room, Owney Madden sat in his corner booth. He nodded at Ritzi and continued to study Crater. She shifted a little closer to the judge.
The bartender arrived at their table, a fresh-faced young man with red hair and a wrinkled apron. He still looked to be in his teens. “What’ll you have?”
“Bring her an absinthe,” Crater said. “And one for me as well.”
Although Joseph Crater always imbibed in the evening—straight whiskey on the rocks being his drink of choice—this was the first time he ordered absinthe. Perhaps he was feeling a bit cosmopolitan, or maybe just giving in to the trend. It arrived several minutes later on an elaborate silver tray with two reservoir glasses, slotted silver spoons, a bowl of sugar cubes, and a carafe of ice water. The bartender set the paraphernalia on the table and was about to slip away when Crater asked, “What’s your name, kid?”
“Stan.”
Crater tucked a dollar bill into his hand and said, “Keep them coming.”
“Sure thing, mister.” He stuffed the money in his pocket and went back to the bar.
“I don’t want to drink tonight,” Ritzi said.
Crater dismissed her with a glance. “I don’t care.”
Fine, then. Ritzi lifted her glass and would have taken a swig had Crater not grabbed her wrist.
“Easy. You’ll be on the floor in two minutes if you take it like that.” He took the glass from her and held it up to the candle. “Let me educate you.”
“By educate, you mean corrupt.”
“Semantics.”
Crater lifted a sugar cube from the bowl and set it on the slotted spoon. He rested the spoon on the glass of absinthe and poured a small amount of ice water over the top. “Look,” he said. The liquor was the color of green apples, and the sugar created a small white cloud as it dripped into the glass. He stirred the absinthe with the spoon and then handed it to her to taste.
Ritzi wrapped her lips around the spoon. It tasted of licorice. Her tongue curled away from the bitter alcohol. “How can you drink that?” She coughed.
“I just wanted you to try it.” Joe laughed, seemingly delighted by her naïveté. He poured more ice water into the glass, filling it two-thirds full. “You don’t drink it straight.” He handed it to her again.
She sipped. “Better.” Ritzi took another, and then another. The sugar replaced the bitterness with a sweet tang, and the absinthe slid down her throat in a cool rush. Her head felt a bit light before the glass was half empty.
According to the Eighteenth Amendment, this was illegal. And therefore highly desirable. For a decade, Owney Madden had taken advantage of the Volstead Act and added bootlegger to his list of lucrative careers. Prohibition was good for business, and those with enough clout to get through the doors could quench a variety of thirsts at Club Abbey.
By the time William Klein joined them at the table, Ritzi was nursing her second absinthe. Pompous prick, she thought, knocking back her glass to avoid his lewd gaze.
Crater ran a finger under Ritzi’s chin and tipped her face upward. “Why don’t you go powder your nose?”
“But—”
“Now.” He squeezed her chin between thumb and forefinger, pinching just enough to make her eyes sting.
Ritzi grabbed her purse, smoothed the anger from her face, and carefully wound her way through the dance floor, ignoring the appreciative glances that followed her.
The ladies’ room in Club Abbey had dark paneled wood and low lighting. Ritzi looked at her reflection in the mirror. It always seemed distorted in there. Like she was a cheap imitation of herself.
Ritzi took her time primping. She adjusted the neckline of her black satin gown away from the deep plunge of cleavage, painted her lips red, and pinned a stray curl behind her ear. Looped the pearls around her neck three times instead of twice so the eye would be drawn to her clavicles rather than her breasts—no small task. Rearranged stockings and garters. Emptied the trash from her purse: ticket stubs, broken cigarettes, and a matchbook with the Club Abbey logo. Then she settled into one of two purple velvet chairs and drew a pack of Pall Malls from her purse. Only two smokes left. Ritzi drew one out and set it in a mother-of-pearl holder. Eveningwear, Vivian had said. Make sure you don’t use the silver one after six. So many damned rules to this gig. She struck a match and cupped her palm around the flame, watching the paper curl and burn black.
God, Mama would die if she saw me smoke. She smiled. Her mother had always said it was a filthy habit, something tramps did in the big city. Poor Mama. She don’t know a thing about the big city. Or tramps, for that matter.
Waiting was an art Ritzi had mastered in the last three years. Men needed time to talk shop. Return to the table too soon and she’d be dismissed again. Too late and they’d get suspicious. Fifteen minutes was her general rule, long enough for their conversation to turn elsewhere. So she rested her head back on the chair and let her mind wander to her childhood and the farm and days when she could smell the barn from her open bedroom window. She recalled the brown eyes of a dairy cow. Long lashes and a knowing gaze. Udders full and dripping in the predawn chill of morning. One of countless mornings that Ritzi was sent out to milk and feed and gather eggs, her fingers numb and red from cold. The rough patches on her hands. It had taken her months to pumice away the calluses. She was careful that first year in Manhattan how she shook hands. A delicate greeting, all fingertips and none of the crushing grip Daddy had taught her to give. Three years in this place and she still had the pad of muscle between thumb and forefinger earned from years in the milking stall. She’d grown her fingernails long and kept them painted, but they were still farmer hands. Strong hands. Not pretty and slender like the rest of the girls’ in the chorus line. But she made up for that lack with a multitude of other things. And Crater didn’t complain at night when she kneaded his shou
lders and back and thighs with her farm-girl hands.
Legs crossed and eyes closed, Ritzi finished the cigarette and prepared herself for what would surely be a wretched evening. A few more minutes and she stubbed out her cigarette in the sink and washed the ashes down the drain.
Time to get back out there.
Ritzi caught fragments of their hushed conversation as she approached the table. “Do you know how close Seabury is to figuring this thing out … And that damn reporter George Hall … Could kill whoever tipped him off … Have to leave town for a while.” Crater went silent when he caught sight of Ritzi.
Crater shoved another glass of absinthe into her hand as soon as she sat down. Ritzi already felt dizzy and nauseated, and what she really wanted was a steak and hot rolls with butter and then a piece of chocolate cake as big as her fist. Real food. Something she rarely got the chance to consume.
Ritzi wrapped her hands around the absinthe to stop them from trembling. She winked at Crater. “Look at Billy licking that glass.”
“Never heard him called that before.”
“I nickname all you boys. Isn’t that right, Billy?” Ritzi had caught the ain’t on its way out of her mouth and swallowed it with a sip. She set her glass on the table. Grimaced. Wiped her palms on her lap and then laced her fingers together.
Klein slid a littler closer and patted her thigh. “You can call me whatever you want, baby doll. But for the record, it’s not the glass I want to lick.”
“What do you call me?” Joseph Crater asked.
Uncircumcised donkey pizzle. Ritzi grinned, lopsided and charming. “Your Honor.”
Crater waved for the bartender. “Put this on my tab,” he said when Stan arrived.
Stan shot a glance at the corner booth. “Did Owney clear you for that?”
“Do I look stupid enough to try a stunt like that if he hadn’t?”
Stan smiled apologetically. “Just checking.”
Ritzi followed Crater and Klein out the front door and up the steps onto the sidewalk. They stood in the waxy light and searched the street for a cab.