A Veil Removed

by Michelle Cox

  “You bastard!” Clive roared and leaped toward him, but Rodge stepped between them and pushed Clive backward as easily as if he were swatting at a fly. Clive righted himself, breathing heavily from fear and rage, and tried to quickly ascertain how best to attack. It was obvious that he couldn’t win a fight against both Carlos and Rodge unless he were to do something very clever or was incredibly lucky.

  “Would have been so easy to just carry them off there and then,” Neptune went on. “But I thought I’d be nice and give you one last chance to cough up the dough. Little boys is not my preference, but there’s always a first. I’d prefer your little filly, but you always got her hidden away, don’t you? Afraid your little cherry is gonna get eaten?” He grinned at Clive savagely. “Who knows? She just might, Inspector. She just might. We follow her sometimes, don’t we, boys? Likes to shop in the city, don’t she?” He tilted his head and glanced sideways at Clive. “She’s escaped me so far, but that only makes me want her all the more,” he whispered. “Know what I mean? Just might have to take her anyways, whether you pay up or not.”

  “Fucking bastard!” Clive shouted, unable to control himself any longer and leaped toward Neptune and grabbed him around the neck. He squeezed with all his might, attempting to choke him. Rodge and Carlos, temporarily stunned by the suddenness of Clive’s action, moved quickly now to grab him. They ripped him from Neptune, who dropped limply to the ground, his hands to his throat as he struggled to catch his breath. Carlos managed to grab Clive’s arms and wrenched them behind his back while Rodge sunk a fist into Clive’s gut, causing him to double over in pain. As Neptune got to his feet, Rodge hit Clive again, this time near his right eye.

  Neptune watched as Rodge repeatedly struck Clive over and over about the face and then finally motioned for him to stop. Clive sank to his knees, and Carlos grabbed a chunk of Clive’s hair and yanked his head back so that Neptune could address him. Neptune grinned at the sight of him. One eye was already swollen shut, and blood was pouring from his nose. Neptune leaned close so that he was just inches from Clive’s face in a mocking reversal of the scene in Humboldt Park over a year ago when the tables had been turned.

  Clive’s ribs seared in pain, and he felt like he might vomit. Breathing in Neptune’s fetid stench as he leaned close nearly pushed him over the edge.

  “You ready to listen, yet, Copper?” Neptune hissed. “I was reasonable in the past. But now I’m angry, see, and now yer going to bring me double, understand? I’m uppin’ it to twenty thousand dollars. You’ve got two weeks to cough it up.”

  “Fuck off,” Clive spewed out, trying to wrest himself free.

  Rodge kicked him in his bad shoulder, almost as if he knew it was his weak point, causing Clive to cry out.

  “I don’t have it,” he finally managed to utter through his severe pain.

  “Well, you’d better find it, then,” Neptune snarled. “Shouldn’t be hard, should it? Big house, lotsa cars, pretty paintins, big company downtown. Don’t cry poor to me. If you don’t deliver, we’ll take all yer little cherries, simple as that. All three of ’em. The boys I’ll sell to the highest bidder—that should raise a pretty penny. But I’ll keep the little filly for myself. Till I get tired of her, that is. They usually stop screamin’ after a while, and then it’s no fun. Then it’s time to throw the toy out. You understand, Copper?”

  Clive, on fire with pain and rage, still managed to raise his head in response to this and spit in Neptune’s face, promptly causing Rodge to kick him again.

  This time Clive fell forward, his face scraping against the icy street as he did so. He lay there unable to move and felt himself slipping from consciousness. He could sense Rodge above him, maybe positioning himself to kick him again when he thought he heard the back door of the Aragon bang open. He was able to slightly move his head in that direction, and with his one functioning eye, he could just about make out Eugene and Stan standing there, bewildered.

  “Hey!” Stan shouted. “Call for the police!” he said frantically to Eugene. Eugene paused, apparently needing a moment to take in what was happening before he dashed back inside the Aragon.

  Clive tried to shift himself as he saw Stan hesitantly pick up a bottle lying nearby and smash it against the side of the building, but pain seared through him. He watched, helplessly, as Stan approached the group, his outstretched hand trembling slightly with the jagged remnant in his hand. “Get out of here!” he shouted in a shaky voice.

  With a smirk, Rodge quickly reached out for Stan, his unexpected swiftness apparently taking Stan by surprise. Rodge was able to grab Stan’s wrist, but Stan instinctively twisted and managed to slice a part of Rodge’s hand in the process, or maybe it was his wrist. Infuriated, Rodge hit him in the face, causing Stan to drop the glass. Without his weapon, Stan’s response was to hunch into his best football stance and lunge at his opponent, impressively pushing him against the wall of the building opposite. Rodge recovered quickly from the shock of it, however, and punched Stan in the gut, while Carlos, who had been idly watching, stepped in now and grabbed Stan from behind.

  Meanwhile, Clive struggled, despite his burning pain, to stand and stagger toward the fight. With a fresh burst of adrenaline, he attempted to pull Carlos off of Stan, who was swinging wildly but ineffectively. Clive stuck his foot behind Carlos’s leg and pulled at his shoulders, effectively tripping him and causing him to fall. Before Carlos could right himself, Clive kicked him repeatedly in the ribs, as Carlos attempted to roll away from him. Clive may have continued this indefinitely had he not then suddenly remembered Neptune. He looked over his shoulder and saw him standing near a gap between the wall of the “L” station and the building from which he had emerged, like a spider, eagerly watching the scene unfold before him.

  “Two weeks,” Neptune shouted to him before he turned, then, and slipped through the gap. Clive wanted to go after him, but he knew, in his current state, that he wouldn’t be able to follow far. Instead, he left Carlos lying where he was and hit Rodge on the back of the head, distracting him momentarily from Stan, whom he was still fighting. Rodge turned and swung at him now, but Clive managed to sidestep it.

  “Stan!” he shouted, as he tried to keep Rodge distracted. “Go after the leader!” he said, nodding his head toward the gap. “It’s Neptune.”

  Mercifully, Stan seemed to comprehend quickly and set off in pursuit through the gap, though Clive assumed Neptune was probably already long gone by now. Carlos had staggered to his feet, and Rodge was coming for him again as well. Clive wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep this up and began to contemplate his own escape. Just then, however, Eugene burst forth from the back doors again.

  “Cops are coming!” he shouted, and, as if on cue, a siren could be heard in the distance. Both Rodge and Carlos stopped in their tracks, then, and panicked, each one taking off in a different direction. Eugene ran after Carlos, who ran for the gap, and Clive attempted to follow Rodge, who ran toward Winthrop, but his injuries were such that he could barely walk, much less run. By the time he reached the street, Rodge was nowhere in sight. He halted and bent over, putting his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.

  A police car pulled up, sirens wailing, and Clive could hear several officers banging out of the car. It was only when he heard a familiar voice say, “Oh, it’s you, Inspector” that he managed to look up to see his old sergeant, Clancy, smiling dumbly down on him. “Didn’t expect to see you roaming the streets on a night like tonight.”

  Chapter 18

  Elsie hesitated before stepping out into the bitter cold, the weather having turned sharply as the new year began, with temperatures dropping dangerously into the single digits. She wrapped a scarf around her head and pulled on her cashmere-lined leather gloves— the only item of luxury she allowed herself—and hurried across the circle toward Philomena Hall. Henrietta and Julia had insisted she bring her fur with her to Mundelein, purchased many months ago on a particularly exhausting shopping trip with Aun
t Agatha, who had been suitably horrified when she had turned up for the first time in Lake Forest wearing her sturdy wool coat. Knowing of its existence somewhere in the depths of her dressing room in Palmer Square, Henrietta, and thus Julia, had suggested that it was just the thing to have to dash about to class in. And while Elsie observed that a few girls did indeed wear furs to class, she refused to. Hers was still discretely hanging in her small closet in Philomena, taking up a lot of precious space and still as of yet undisturbed in the tissue that Odelia had packed it in for her on the eve of her departure. She knew Julia and Henrietta would probably be upset if they knew she had not yet used it, but she felt ridiculous in even contemplating wearing it. A wool coat was more than good enough to run across the campus with.

  As of just ten minutes ago, Elsie officially completed her first week of classes, and she found, to her delight and relief, that she had enjoyed them very much. She had been so nervous the night before her first day that she had broken out in a rash, which Melody, having since returned from Wisconsin in a bubble of talkativeness and excitement, declared to be hives and had accordingly run to get Sr. Vincent, who happened to be the sister on duty that night. Sr. Vincent was exceedingly old, a small ball of wrinkles, really, who moved about very slowly, and her solution to Elsie’s sudden rash was for Elsie to lie quietly on her bed with a cold compress on her forehead. Elsie had not taken much stock in this advice, especially as the girls all told her that this was Sr. Vincent’s standard remedy no matter what the medical emergency, but she obeyed anyway, Melody staying by her side and entertaining her with stories of Fred and Bunny and all of the hijinks the three of them had gotten up to over the holidays. They sounded like a wonderful family, Elsie thought at the time, so different from her own.

  As it turned out, the next morning she miraculously awoke sans spots, and Melody herself escorted her, arm-in-arm, to her first class, Home Economics, where she sat stiffly at the back of the room, hoping not to attract any notice and taking copious notes, despite the fact that she seemed to already know much of the material, though it was, admittedly, merely the introduction. Still, it had given her confidence to go to the next class, which was Geometry, where she found the material certainly more challenging, but not as overwhelming as she had allowed herself to imagine it might be, thanks to Sr. Sebastian’s careful tutoring. She was surprised, actually, that she so far liked Western Civilization the best and wondered if it was because Sr. Ambrose, the professor, was so alive and engaging. And while she had been looking forward to English Literature the most, she found their first reading assignment, Beowulf, to be rather difficult and, dare she say, dull, even despite the looming threat of the monster.

  The girls, she found, were on the whole quite friendly—another relief. There were a few snooty ones, to be sure, but she was used to that now, having been immersed in the upper strata of society for almost half a year in the company of the Exleys. More than once, she found herself sincerely grateful to have been assigned to room with Melody Merriweather, as she saw how very kind she was despite her famous popularity. For reasons Elsie could not fathom, Melody had taken what seemed to be a genuine liking to her and immediately introduced her all around and invited her to her many social gatherings and outings. And while Elsie was indeed thankful to thus have almost an instant group of friends, she had managed, for the purposes of studying, to muster up the needed courage to resist at least some of Melody’s invitations—a feat she was quite proud of, actually, as it was difficult for Elsie to say no to anyone. Melody did not seem offended in the least, however, if Elsie turned down an invitation, and seemed to be content even if the only time they saw each other was late at night before turning in to bed. She had so far twice smuggled some cocoa upstairs to their bedroom to drink while they sat on the side of their beds, reminding Elsie, painfully, of her days of drinking cocoa with Henrietta. But that seemed so very long ago now, almost like another lifetime.

  Elsie stepped gingerly along the icy path and made her way up the stone steps of Philomena. The path was not as clear as it normally would be, with Gunther having been restricted by Sr. Bernard from working for one full week after his accident. It had unfortunately snowed once since then, and the novitiates had been asked to clear the paths in his place. Elsie had not seen him since she had slipped from his hospital room in the wee hours of New Year’s Day, but she had found, several days later, a tattered copy of Tolstoy’s Family Happiness, outside her bedroom door with a note that read: “To Elsie, With many thanks. G.”

  Since the night of the accident, Elsie had asked Sr. Bernard about Gunther’s well-being so many times that the last time, yesterday afternoon, if she remembered correctly, Sr. Bernard had not answered, but had simply raised an eyebrow. Elsie concluded then that she was becoming a nuisance and had resolved not to ask her about him anymore. But she was desperate to talk to him. Surely, he was up and about by now? She had so many things to ask him, so many things to say. She had more than once contemplated going to see him as he convalesced, but she wasn’t exactly sure where he lived, and she didn’t dare snoop around looking, much less ask.

  Elsie paused as she stepped into Philomena, stamping her feet on the front mat and instinctively looking around for Gunther, who, of course, was not there. It was just as well, really, as she was supposed to be meeting Melody and her friends in the front parlor under the guise of studying for Western Civilization, though she rather doubted that any studying would actually occur. Already she could hear Melody’s tinkling laugh coming from the next room. Elsie began to quickly unwrap and hang her things in the cloakroom. When she emerged, she stopped at the little front desk, which was manned this afternoon by Sr. Joseph.

  Now that school was back in session, the sisters rotated the duty of sitting at the front desks of each of the two dormitories, their main object being to serve as chaperones for their young charges and to take down any telephone messages that came through. Though men were not allowed anywhere in the private areas of Philomena or Piper Hall, especially upstairs, Elsie had already heard stories of how, in years past, boys had been snuck in through windows or the back stairs as part of some elaborate ruse thought up by some of the more risqué girls. Melody claimed she had not yet done something so daring but that she wouldn’t be opposed if the right situation, or the right “fella,” she should say, came along. The girls were allowed to entertain gentleman callers in the parlor only, and said gentlemen were required to sign the guest book at the little front desk, like some quaint leftover from a bygone era.

  Elsie wrapped her navy cardigan sweater about herself tighter as she paused at the desk to give Sr. Joseph a smile and to glance at the registrar. Melody, she saw, had not only invited Cynthia Forsythe, as she had said she was going to, but she also appeared to be entertaining Charlie McAllister and Douglas Novak, two Loyola boys who were part of Melody’s inner bosom gang. They seemed nice enough boys, Elsie concluded after meeting them for the first time earlier in the week. Melody called them her “chums,” though she had already confessed to Elsie on her first night back, during which she had insisted they stay up late and trade secrets, that she had the most terrible crush on Douglas Novak. Melody had then forced Elsie to offer up one of her own “secrets.” Elsie didn’t dare relate a real one, so she sinfully resorted to fabricating one. After a few minutes of hesitation on Elsie’s part, which Melody undoubtedly confused with inner torment, she confessed to once stealing a cake from Cook, which wasn’t too far from the truth, as she had once shamefully stolen some raspberry tarts off a tray intended for Doris and Donny before it had been carried up to the nursery.

  “Is that all?” Melody had asked, clearly disappointed, and prodded her for something else. Something related to love, she had suggested. But what was Elsie to say to that? She dared not share her real secrets. Though they were probably the same age, Elsie felt immeasurably older than Melody, who seemed wonderfully frivolous and gay. Indeed, Elsie wished that she could be as such, but her “secrets” very much we
ighed her down and made her feel older than she was. How could she really tell Melody that she had already had not one but two love affairs? And how she was even now being pursued by several society men, Lloyd Aston currently leading the way by having already attempted to telephone her several times since New Year’s? And how could she tell Melody, when asked in a whispered giggle if she had ever been kissed, that she had actually gone far beyond kissing—that, in truth, her virtue had been stolen and that she was indeed already ruined? How her only hope—no, desire—was to take Holy Orders and become a nun? No, there were many secrets which Elsie felt she had to hold close to her chest, and she instead attempted to play the part of the innocent schoolgirl as best she could. She was trying her best to fit into that role and to this new life, but it was at times very difficult.

  She paused outside the parlor now, taking a deep breath and steeling herself to try to be friendly and gay. These social situations were as frightening to her as walking unprepared into a geometry class, but she knew she had to try.

  “There you are!” Melody called out to her as she silently slipped into the room. “We’ve been waiting ages!”

  Melody was perched on the divan in front of the large picture window that looked out over the vast expanse of the lake, the sheer beauty of which could sometimes bring tears to Elsie’s eyes. For this reason, Elsie made sure to carefully avert them now and focus instead on her friend.

  Melody patted the seat beside her. “I’ve saved this spot especially for you!” she said. “Douglas, here, has been regaling us with a particularly droll anecdote of how he taught his dog, Jocko, to play dead over Christmas break. It’s screamingly funny!” she laughed.