Maximum Rossi

by Paul W Papa

  “Thought I might take a tour around the place.”

  “I’m not sure that’s wise,” she said.

  “I’m not known for my wisdom,” I countered.

  She handed me the juice. “Drink it,” she said. “It’ll do you good.”

  I took the glass and did what I was told. My mother would be proud.

  “Do you know what room they’re in?” I asked.

  “You won’t be able to visit them. Not yet anyway.”

  I didn’t say anything. I didn’t need to.

  “They’re in intensive care,” she said. “It’s the floor above us.” She took my empty glass and left the room.

  I was about to follow her out when Virginia James walked in.

  Twenty-Four

  “YOU LOOK WORSE every time I see you,” Virginia said as she glided into the room. She was wearing sunglasses that had we been outside would have shielded her eyes and most of her face from the glaring rays. She was clothed in a tan London Fog jacket that nearly covered her beautifully long legs. She had the collar of her coat lifted and she sported a black flowing hat that arrived three minutes before she did. I began to wonder if she wasn’t a private dick on the side.

  “How did you know?” I asked.

  “You kiddin’ me?” she said, pulling off her long gloves. “A suite all shot up. You’re the talk of the town.”

  “It’s good to be noticed,” I said.

  She removed her glasses and stepped closer. Her eyes took me in, assessing my general appearance. She reached up and stuck a bare finger in the hole of my jacket.

  “It’s a new look I’m trying out,” I said.

  She smiled. It was a wonderful smile. The kind of smile a guy could get used to. “You could do with a shave,” she said.

  “I could do with a whisky,” I countered.

  “Where’s your tie?”

  I pulled the tie from my jacket pocket with my left hand and held it high in the air. Virginia stepped in closer. She pulled up my shirt collar and took the tie from me. She wrapped it around my neck and tied a perfect Winsor. My knees got weak. She laid down my collars and tapped me lightly on the chest with both hands.

  “Better?” I asked.

  “Better,” she said.

  “What now?”

  “You tell me. You stood me up.”

  “It wasn’t my intention,” I said. “I was busy dodging bullets.”

  She kept her deep brown eyes locked on mine. “Likely story,” she said.

  I wasn’t entirely sure what my next move should be. I was even less sure what the woman in front of me wanted it to be. She wasn’t looking at me as much as in me. Searching my eyes. Looking for a sign. Probably trying to decide if she could trust me. If I was a stand-up kind of guy. She’d likely be disappointed before it was all said and done.

  “How about your place?” I asked.

  “Well, aren’t you forward,” she said.

  I could feel my face flush. “I meant to go through Jeanie’s things,” I said.

  Virginia smiled coyly. “I knew what you meant.”

  “I have something I need to do first,” I said.

  We left the room and ran into the uniform standing guard outside. “Where do you think you’re going?” he said.

  “I don’t really see how that’s any of your business,” I countered.

  “Queeney told me to keep you here.”

  So it was Queeney now, no Lieutenant McQueeney anymore. “Am I under arrest?” I asked.

  The uniform gave me hard eyes. “Does it matter?” he asked.

  “It does to me.”

  “Look pal, I was just told to keep you here until I heard from Queeney and that is what I intend to do.”

  The uniform’s hand slid down to his thick leather belt and began sliding past his gun to his back. It was probably where he kept his sap.

  “You planning on using that thing?” I asked.

  “If I have to,” he said.

  I was getting ready to throw a quick jab when Virginia stepped in. “Look officer,” she said. “My father is a judge in town and he has a particular interest in the actions of the police. Furthermore, I am here on behalf of Mr. Rossi, If you are not placing my client under arrest, then we have the legal right to vacate these premises.”

  I don’t know whose eyes were wider, mine or the uniform’s. But the uniform recovered more quickly. His eyes hardened. “You don’t look like no legal beagle to me, sister,” he said.

  “Well then perhaps you should pursue your current course of action and see where it leads you,” she said, matter-of-factly.

  I smiled.

  The uniform clearly did not know what to do next. He kept his gaze on Virginia. His chest began falling and rising heavily and I’m pretty sure smoke was coming out his ears.

  “So we’re good here?” Virginia asked.

  The uniform stepped aside. He didn’t want to, but he didn’t know how not to.

  We headed to the elevator. I pushed the button and waited for the car. “You practice law on the side?” I asked.

  “When the need arises,” she said.

  When the car arrived, we stepped in. It took us to the next floor, the ICU. It was a solemn place. A heavy place. A place where sadness loomed. I walked over to the nurse’s station and asked where I could find Tony and Tina. My attorney stayed close.

  “You won’t be able to go into the room,” the nurse said.

  “I’m aware of that,” I answered. “I just want to see them.”

  The nurse gave us the room number and pointed down the hall. They were in adjoining rooms. I stopped first at Tina’s. The girl lying on the white-sheeted bed looked nothing like the woman who was dancing around my hotel suite only hours before. There were so many tubes coming out of her, she looked more machine than human. It stole my breath.

  Virginia took hold of my hand and squeezed it gently. “Do you know her?”

  “She’s married to my friend’s kid brother. He’s in the next room, probably in the same condition. They were both in the suite with me when the bullets started flying.”

  “Are they going to make it?”

  I looked at Virginia. She seemed truly concerned. “The jury’s still out,” I said. “They took a lot of hits.”

  I looked back at Tina and watched as the tube inside her mouth raised and lowered her chest. My shoulder began to hurt. Virginia kept hold of my hand.

  Twenty-Five

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER we were heading east on Charleston in Virginia’s car. A candy-apple red Ford Thunderbird convertible with thick whitewalls and a chrome grill hungry enough to devour any road it came across. It suited her. Virginia had secured her chapeau under the back seat and replaced it with a floral scarf she tied under her chin. I was holding my lid in my lap. We made our way down to 12th street and turned left, stopping at an apartment building on Clark.

  Virginia pulled into a parking space and pushed a button on her dash. The top of the Thunderbird grew out of its back, pointed skyward, then came to a rest at the top of the windshield. I helped her lock it in place, then got out of my side, as she got out of hers. She grabbed her hat and led me to her apartment.

  It was small, but well-furnished. Lamps, sofa, chairs, coffee table, nightstands, the works. It even had a television cabinet that took up most of a wall. As Virginia entered, she reached the back of her head and pulled out something that made her coffee-colored locks cascade downward—ending with a bounce around her shoulders. I felt my knees get weak.

  “Make yourself at home,” she said and headed into what I assumed was her bedroom.

  I placed my hat on the coffee table and had a look around the room. The place was spotless and everything had that new car smell. I had been around enough money in Boston to know quality when I saw it, and boy was I looking at it. This wasn’t furniture that came from the Sears and Roebuck catalogue. No, sir. This was the good stuff. The kind you buy to show off. I began to wonder how much lettuce dancers made and w
hether a career change was in order. Then I realized I didn’t have the gams for it.

  Virginia returned to the room, sans the London Fog, in a blue tea length dress with a white collar. She opted not to wear the white gloves that I’m sure accompanied the outfit. It was the first time I’d seen her without her stage makeup and, to my tastes, it was a definite improvement. Virginia was a striking woman. She had intense almond eyes, a perky nose, and pouty lips that, had she seen them, would’ve made Sophia Loren jealous.

  “Nice digs,” I said.

  “A little ostentatious for my liking,” Virginia said, as she walked over to me.

  “Then fire your designer,” I offered.

  She slipped her hands under my lapels and straightened my jacket. “Can’t,” she said. “The apartment is courtesy of Jack Entratter—furnishings included. All the girls live in this building. He likes to keep us together.”

  “Well isn’t that something?”

  Virginia examined my face, I hadn’t seen it in a while, but I was pretty sure bruising had set in. My eye sockets were still a little tender and my jaw ached, but only when I moved it.

  “Nice shiner,” she said, and ran a hand down my cheek. I tried not to wince when she reached my jaw.

  “You could use a shave,” she said.

  “I could use more than that,” I countered.

  She smiled quickly. “You hungry?” she asked.

  I wasn’t sure I could eat, but I was willing to try. “What’d you have in mind?”

  “There’s a little deli around the corner,” she said. “They deliver.”

  “Sounds perfect. I’ll take whatever they’ve got and a cold pickle.”

  Virginia picked up the phone and called the place. I couldn’t tell you what she ordered; I was too busy taking her in. Imagining her twirling in that dress, just as she had done on stage. When she hung up, she motioned for me to follow, which I did, into the kitchen. She pulled a chair from the table and patted the seat. “Come on over,” she said. “I won’t bite.”

  I’d heard that before, but took my chances anyway and went over to her. She helped me remove my jacket, and I sat down. After she folded it over the back of another chair, she took off my tie and laid it on top of the jacket. I liked where this was going. She walked over to the cabinet and pulled out what looked like a tablecloth from a drawer.

  “This will have to do,” she said as she draped it over me and tied it around my neck. Not where I thought we were going. She left the kitchen, returning a short time later with a straight razor, a cup of soap, a brush, and a hand towel—items uncommon for a woman’s apartment. Except, of course, the hand towel. I didn’t ask. It wasn’t any of my business.

  “It’s not what you think,” she said.

  “I’m sure it’s not,” I assured her. “What you do with your time is your business.”

  She had already wet the soap and began swirling the brush in the cup to create a lather. Once satisfied, she took the brush to my face. Her touch was soft, but firm. She applied just enough to soften the shave, without going overboard. I was impressed.

  I wasn’t quite sure how I rated a shave. Perhaps the woman took pity on me. Beat up and shot as I was, I must have presented as a bit of a mess. Still, Virginia had invited me over to look through Jeannie’s effects, not to get my whiskers removed and have some lunch. I wondered if two bits would get me a haircut as well. I also wondered what all this was about. Still Virginia was right. I did need a shave.

  “Close your mouth,” she said, as she brought the brush over and around it, making sure to hit all areas. She ran her finger purposely across my lips, and cleaned off the soap, then she opened the razor and held it to the bottom of my neck. The moment of truth.

  “Ready?” she asked?

  “As much as I’ll ever be,” I said.

  She brought the razor upward against my neck, with just enough pressure to remove the hair and leave the skin.

  “You’re quite good at this,” I said. “If this dancing thing doesn’t work out, you have something to fall back on.”

  She grinned without opening her mouth and kept at it, bringing the razor up along my neckline with long, even strokes. And then she got to the point. “Tell me why you need to find Jeannie.” she said.

  There it was; the reason for the shave. It’s amazing what men will say when they have a straight razor to their necks. I’ve seen it more than once. “I told you,” I said. “She’s the only one who can help me get out of the jam I’m in.”

  “Killing Bilotti?”

  I took hold of her wrist, the one holding the blade, and looked right in her baby browns. “I didn’t kill Bilotti,” I said.

  She didn’t flinch. “So you say, but Bilotti is dead, and Jeannie is missing.”

  I let go of her hand. I could see her point.

  Virginia went back to shaving.

  “I was playing poker in the Emerald Room,” I said. “Bilotti was there and another man as well. Bilotti was losing and drinking, and it had an effect on him. Not a nice one. He strikes me as a man who doesn’t hold his liquor well.”

  “You can say that again.” She moved the razor to my cheeks and jowls, pulling down now instead of up.

  I continued. “Toward the end of the evening, Jeannie came in. Bilotti was getting drunker and even more belligerent and Jeannie, like a good girl, tried to get him to just leave. He didn’t take well to her suggestion and rapped her one across the kisser. That’s when I jumped in.”

  Virginia looked down at me and raised an eyebrow.

  “We threw our fists at each other and I came out on top. I grabbed Jeannie and took her to a place I was renting on seventh. Frankly, I wasn’t really thinking. All I knew was I needed to get her out of there. I gave her some tea and she told me she was worried what Bilotti would do to her.”

  “And rightly so,” Virginia added. “He threatened to kill her if she ever left him. I heard him say it myself.”

  She wiped the razor on the towel, then placed a finger on my nose and positioned it to the side as she ran the blade down my upper lip. I waited until she was finished to continue. I liked my lip and wanted to keep it right where it was.

  “I figured I’d worry about it in the morning, but when I woke up, she was gone, and with her my alibi. Problem is, I didn’t know I needed one until later that morning.

  When Virginia was finished, she wiped off the soap, soaked the hand towel in hot water, and brought it to me.

  “And you’ve had it rough since then,” Virginia said.

  “You can say that again.”

  “I don’t understand. If Bilotti is dead, who is after you?”

  “Bilotti was a made man, from Chicago. The police aren’t the only people who think I took him out.”

  “So Chicago tried to kill you?”

  “It looks that way.”

  I didn’t tell her about my conversation with my father or Queeney or my suspicions about Manella. What good would it have done? I didn’t have anything to go on anyway. Just because my father hadn’t heard anything, doesn’t mean a hit hadn’t come down the line. It didn’t even need to be a sanctioned hit. People were always looking to make a name for themselves and even a man like Bilotti must have friends—probably. And why would Manella go to all the trouble of trying to kill me? I could see the beat down, but not the shooting. Still, I was sure all this was connected. I just couldn’t see how.

  I stood and wiped my face with the towel. It was the first time I had ever been shaved by a woman and I have to say, I quite enjoyed it.

  “Where’d you learn how to do that?” I asked.

  “You pick up things,” she said. “My father was a barber.”

  “That why you keep the tools of the trade?”

  “He showed me how to use a straightedge when I was just a young girl. I used to practice it over and over until it felt right. My father used to say, ‘It has to feel natural in your hand, like it’s a part of you.’ He was very good at what he did.” She
looked off in the distance a moment, then came back. I didn’t rush her. “I’m so used to a straight razor, that I use it on my legs.” She paused. “And other areas.”

  I almost fell back in my chair.

  The doorbell rang and Virginia went for her purse. I pulled a fiver from my wallet and handed it to her. “This one’s on me,” I said. She took the five and returned with the sandwiches. One was a Rueben, the other pastrami; both on rye and each came with a pickle. My kind of place.

  I didn’t bother returning my tie, or my jacket for that matter. I just rolled up my sleeves and moved the chair back over to the table. Virginia took plates and cups from the cupboard and laid them out in front of us, all civilized.

  “Which one do you want?” I asked.

  “I thought we could split.”

  That was fine by me. I took half the Rueben and half the pastrami and placed them on her plate. Sandwiches from a deli are mountainous and these were no different. Piles of pastrami and corned beef were squeezed between two pieces of bread, barely able to contain them. You’d have to dislocate your jaw, like a snake, just to bite into the thing. There was no way I could eat both halves, and I’m sure she was in the same boat. But she asked to split it, so I did.”

  “What would you like to drink?” she asked.

  “Is it too early for Scotch?”

  “Way too early,” she replied.

  “Whisky then,” I said.

  “How about club soda?”

  I relented. Virginia filled two glasses and brought them to the table. “Oh, I didn’t mean to split both sandwiches,” she said as she sat. “I meant only to split one.”

  That made more sense. “Then why did you order two?” I asked.

  “I know how men are,” she said. “They like to eat.”

  We sat there, the dancer and I, and ate our split sandwich.

  Twenty-Six

  WHEN WE FINISHED, Virginia showed me to Jeannie’s room. It was a normal-looking room: bed, dresser, vanity, wardrobe. Pink walls, matching bedding. A pair of furry slippers on the floor and an equally furry sheer baby doll nightie on the end of the bed. Nothing stood out.