Dollface

by Renée Rosen

  Unlike Evelyn, Shep was gripped with genuine grief. Each day that passed with no sign of Izzy compounded his agony. He combed Izzy’s hangouts looking for him, asking questions. He and the guys scoured the lakefront, back alleys and quarries searching for Izzy.

  One night, as soon as Shep walked through the door, I knew something was up. I was worried that they’d found some part of Izzy. Or maybe they’d found his ring. Tony said he’d get rid of it, but what if they’d found it?

  Shep fixed himself a drink and handed me the late edition of the Daily Herald. “Do me a favor,” he said, pointing to the photo of Izzy on the front page. “Read that. Tell me what it says.”

  Though he’d sold papers as a kid, Shep was never one to read newspapers. Until he met me, he never even had a paper in his house. He said they were filled with lies. Nothing but yellow journalism. So I was surprised that this time he wanted to know what it said. I thought maybe he had handed the task over to me because he was too distraught to read it himself.

  “Just tell me what it says, huh?” His jaw was set, his eyes focused on the newsprint.

  I sat down and began to read:

  Search Is On for Missing Gangster

  A citywide search continues for Isiah “Izzy” Seltzer, a top lieutenant of the so-called North Side Gang. Last seen on July 18, 1927, the twenty-six-year-old missing gangster is a close associate of gang leader Vincent “Schemer” Drucci, George “Bugs” Moran, and convicted mobster Shepherd “Shep” Green. . . .

  When I finished reading the article, Shep dropped into the chair opposite me. “Anything else in there about him? Does it say anything about Capone?”

  He got up and paced while I leafed through the pages of the front section, scanning the columns. “I don’t see anything. Here,” I said, handing him the paper, “see if I missed anything.”

  Shep shook his head and backed away with his hands up like I was tossing him a bomb. “I can’t . . . I can’t read that.” A deep crease formed along his brow, and if I didn’t know better, I would have thought he was about to cry.

  “It’s okay,” I said, setting down the newspaper.

  “No! It’s not okay! It’s not okay, goddammit!”

  In all the years I’d known Shep, I could have counted the times he’d raised his voice on one hand. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Don’t do this to me.”

  “Shep—”

  “You really want to break me? Now? Of all times?”

  “Shep . . .”

  He was panting hard, like he’d just run a mile. “Don’t make me say it. Do you really need to hear me say it out loud?”

  “Say what? Why are you getting so angry with me?”

  “I’m not angry with you. I’m angry with myself. Jesus . . .” He ran his fingers through his hair and tried to calm himself.

  I didn’t know what we were fighting about.

  He turned his back and muttered, “I can’t read that paper. Okay. I can’t read any paper.”

  “What?” I still didn’t get it.

  “Why the hell do you think I never wrote to you when I was away? Why do you think I don’t read to Hannah?”

  I sank down on the sofa, dumbfounded. Shep still had his back to me, his shoulders rounded and slumped forward. I thought about all his books, how he had arranged them according to color and size, not by author or even subject. . . . How he always wanted me to read to him . . . I thought about the files I’d found in his drawer—how everything had been typed by someone, but there was no handwriting. It struck me then that aside from his signature, I’d never seen Shep’s handwriting. It was all making sense. It should have made sense all along.

  He came and sat next to me, but still, he wouldn’t look me in the eye. “I hate this about myself.”

  “Don’t say that.” I leaned over and rubbed his shoulders.

  “I had to drop out of school when I was just a kid. Hell, I never even made it past the first grade. I can do numbers. They come easy to me. They make sense. But words—letters—they just never did.” He hung his head and I began to massage his neck.

  “How come you never told me this before?”

  “I didn’t want you to think you married some stupid loser.”

  “I never would have thought that. Look at you. Look at what you’ve accomplished.”

  “Yeah, look at what I’ve accomplished.” He laughed bitterly. “I’ve done a lot of things I’m not too proud of. And now half my friends are dead because of it.” He polished off his drink, got up and poured himself another. “I just can’t keep this up anymore.”

  “You’ve done great, Shep. I know men with a wall of diplomas who aren’t half as smart as you. So what if you can’t read. If you can’t write.” He winced when I said that. “You don’t have anything to be ashamed of.”

  “I never wanted you to know. I never wanted anyone to know. Izzy . . . He was the only one I ever told.”

  “Izzy?” Just the mention of his name flooded me with guilt.

  “He used to do all my reading for me. My writing, too.” He blew out a sigh and rubbed his temples. “I don’t know how I’m gonna manage without him.”

  I leaned over and cupped his face in my hands. “You have me now. I’ll help you. Whatever you need. You bring it to me.”

  He turned away and looked at the bookcases. When we moved into the house I had the housekeeper alphabetize the volumes. I remember when he saw them rearranged, he said they looked sloppy.

  “Dion always said it was important to surround yourself with good books. I always thought someday I’d get to read them.”

  “You will.” I wrapped my arms around him. “I know you—I know the kind of man you are, and someday, I know you’ll read every one of those books.”

  PAYBACK TIME

  Evelyn and I made two failed attempts to square our business with Felix Marvin and Warren Steel. Both were interrupted by funerals of two North Siders, one found in the trunk of his car, the other shot two days later on the front steps of his house.

  Still, Evelyn and I were able to pull together twelve hundred and fifty dollars of the twenty-five hundred owed—but that was based on if we could deliver the hundred cases to Felix. We were hoping that if we could meet with both parties, face-to-face, and hand over the liquor to Felix and the money to Warren, then Warren might pardon the remaining twenty-five hundred dollars. I couldn’t think about the other twenty-five hundred dollars I owed him on top of that.

  But with Shep back and working the phones from his office at home, it was impossible for me to disappear for the ten or twelve hours it would take to get up to Milwaukee, meet with Warren Steel, make the delivery to Felix and get back home.

  While Shep was down at Schofield’s one afternoon, I telephoned Warren, hoping to buy us more time.

  “I’m a patient man, Miss Abramowitz. But even I have my limits. You’re testing me—you should know that.”

  “I can give you about half the money now and—”

  “I’m not interested in half.”

  “But I promise—”

  “You keep promising but not delivering. I trust this is the last time we’ll have this conversation.”

  Before I could say anything more, the telephone line went dead.

  About a week later, I was standing at Dearborn and Division, waiting for a taxicab. It was a hot, balmy afternoon, and the sky was a sheet of uninterrupted blue. Pigeons waddled about, pecking at the sidewalk. I fanned myself with a magazine and squinted as the sunbeams bounced off the windows, shiny hoods and fenders of the motorcars parked along the street.

  I’d been waiting for nearly ten minutes when a familiar voice coming from behind said, “I told you, I have my limits.”

  I turned around and there was Warren Steel, puffing on his pipe. He was standing next to a short woman who was broad across the shoulders and had the ruddy complexion of a fisherman who’d been at sea too long. I had no idea how he’d managed to find me.

  “You decid
e you’re done with the liquor trade and think it’s all right to leave me with a warehouse full of whiskey? That doesn’t make for good business, Miss Abramowitz.”

  “I’m working on it.”

  A streetcar passed before us, the conductor clanking the bell.

  “What is there to work on?” he asked. “I’m getting tired of hearing that.” He and the woman took a step forward that drove me one step backward.

  “I just don’t have the money right now. I have about half, but—”

  “I’m not looking for half the money.” Warren and the woman advanced another step while I retreated from the sidewalk into the alley. “I don’t do business this way. I didn’t think you did, either.” He looked at his companion and nodded.

  I didn’t see the woman’s hand come up, but I sure did feel it. She knocked me backward. I saw a flash of white and before I could steady myself, she came at me again, tore the pocketbook from my hand and cracked me across the jaw with it. I tasted blood as it filled my mouth. She charged at me again with a force that knocked the wind out of me as she pushed me into a row of garbage cans. I doubled over, lost my balance, and landed on my side. The putrid smell of spoiled food filled my nostrils as more blood trickled from my lip. I started to get up and she was on me, pounding me with her fists as a string of bloody spittle spewed from my mouth. She hit me again and again. I cowered with my hands up, trying to shield my face. I didn’t even put up a fight.

  Before they turned and left me, Warren said, “I’ll expect my money by the end of the day tomorrow.”

  My lip was sliced open and my knees and shoulder throbbed from where I’d hit the ground. A pigeon hobbled at my side, cooing. Pages of the magazine I’d been carrying lay scattered about the alley. Everything in my pocketbook had spilled out onto the ground. My lipstick, hairbrush, and compact were lying in a pool of slop. I crawled over to my pocketbook lying next to a coal chute with the grate unhinged. Warren hadn’t even bothered with the few dollars I’d had tucked inside. Staggering toward the curb, I found a taxicab and headed home.

  The cabbie turned around and looked at me. “Miss, you okay? You sure you don’t need to go to the hospital?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, trying to wipe away the blood running down my chin. “Just take me home.”

  The housekeeper gasped when I stepped inside. She helped me upstairs, helped me clean off the blood. I looked in the mirror and saw that the bruises, red and plum colored, were already coming up. She worried that I needed stitches and telephoned Shep down at Schofield’s. He rushed home and found me in bed, holding Hannah in my arms.

  “What happened?” His expression turned from concern to alarm when he bent over and got a closer look.

  Hannah pointed to the ice pack on my lip. “Mama got boo-booed.”

  “Yeah, she sure did.” He leaned over and scooped her up in his arms. “Why don’t you go downstairs and see what Daddy brought you and let me talk to Mama.” He set Hannah down and nodded to the housekeeper.

  Once they were out of the room, Shep closed the door and sat on the edge of the bed, brushing the hair from my eyes. “What in the hell happened?”

  I lowered my eyes and studied the backs of my hands. From where I sat now, I realized what a foolish move this had been. I wasn’t cut out to be a bootlegger. And now that I’d gotten in over my head, I was terrified to tell Shep I needed him to step in and save me.

  Shep leaned in closer, gently lifting my chin, forcing me to look him in the eye. “Who did this to you?”

  “Oh, Shep.” I began to cry. “I’m in trouble.”

  • • •

  That night, while the doctor came to the house to put a few stitches in my lip, Shep and Squeak headed for Milwaukee to pay Warren Steel a visit. Evelyn came and stayed with me. Even though the doctor gave me something to make me sleep, I fought it all the way. My mind was so keyed up, I wasn’t even groggy. Not even a bottle of whiskey could have put me out.

  “You did the right thing,” Evelyn said, lighting a cigarette off the one she was about to rub out. Dark circles had settled beneath her eyes and her skin had a dull, grayish cast to it. Everyone mistook that haggard guise of hers for grief.

  She’d wasted no time finding a new place to live, a small efficiency with a Murphy bed and one tiny window with a cracked pane of glass. She’d moved out of the apartment she’d once shared with Izzy, and closing the door, she put what she’d done behind her. Evelyn had been questioned so many times by the guys and then the police that she had her story down. It was like the lie you tell yourself over and over again until it becomes your new truth. I knew that, because I’d been doing the same thing.

  For two girls who had grown up discussing everything from first kisses to our monthly cycles, we never talked about that night with Izzy. She never mentioned Tony Liolli either. We had swept the entire incident from our minds, but there was no denying what she’d done, what I had done. You couldn’t do something like that without being changed forever. I knew there would be payback for this somewhere down the line. There was no way Evelyn and I could walk away from this scot-free. Life didn’t work that way. I still closed my eyes at night and saw Tony with that cleaver. I could still smell the blood. I still saw Izzy’s mouth gaping wide for his last gasp of breath, one eye shut, the other open, watching the whole thing.

  By the time Shep got home, Evelyn had dozed off on the divan, but I was still wide awake.

  “What happened?” I asked. “What did you say to him?”

  Shep removed his hat and set it on the hook on the back of the closet door. I couldn’t read him. Couldn’t tell if he was angry, tired, or just disappointed in me. At least he knew that no one else had been providing for us while he was away, though that didn’t change the fact that I’d had an affair with Tony.

  “A debt is a debt,” Shep said finally. “And yes, I could have bartered with him, could have sold the liquor for him myself, but thank God, I don’t need to do business with a shtoonk like Warren Steel.” Shep went over to the bar and poured himself a drink. “But I’ve never chiseled a man in my life and I wasn’t about to start now. So I paid him his five grand.”

  “Oh, Shep, I’m sorry.” He’d barely been home for a month and I figured that I’d just taken a big bite out of whatever money he’d been able to make since. And then some. “How did you even manage to get hold of that kind of money?”

  “Let’s just say I’d rather owe Vinny a few bucks than that putz Warren Steel.”

  Evelyn began to stir, her eyes fluttering open.

  “I squared away with your buddy Felix, too.”

  Evelyn was awake now, sitting up, reaching for a cigarette.

  Shep came back over and sat down. “Now would be an excellent time to tell me if there’s anything else you ladies have been up to while I was away.”

  I couldn’t look at Evelyn. I just shook my head.

  “So it’s over?” asked Evelyn.

  “For now.” Shep swept his hair off his forehead, exposing his widow’s peak. “Tomorrow Squeak and Knuckles are going to sit down with Mr. Steel and teach him a thing or two about how to treat a woman.” Shep raised his glass and took a sip. “And from now on, ladies, you two are officially out of business.”

  RETURN TO MOUNT CARMEL

  The next day I got a frantic telephone call from Basha. I’d just walked into the house and she was jabbering a mile a minute.

  “Slow down, Basha.” I held the receiver to my ear while I worked my way out of my coat. My lip was still swollen and it hurt to talk. “I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”

  “They got him. They shot him.”

  My thoughts went straight to Izzy. My heart took off, pounding away. I knew we’d get caught. I knew it!

  “Cecelia’s a mess.”

  “Cecelia?”

  “Didn’t you hear what I said? They got him. They shot Vinny. . . .”

  Vinny! I nearly dropped the phone. Everything in the room turned hazy and dark. Not ano
ther one. Each man we lost brought the danger that much closer to home. If they could kill Vinny, was Shep next?

  I still couldn’t believe it. Vincent “Schemer” Drucci, gunned down and dead at the age of twenty-nine. He was killed in broad daylight at Wacker and Clark. As it turned out, Capone and the South Siders weren’t responsible. Not directly anyway. This time the bullets belonged to a Sergeant Dan Healy. But no one doubted that Capone had paid him plenty to pull the trigger.

  I was numb for days. It was as if I were only going through the motions when we attended the wake and then the funeral.

  “Poor Cecelia,” I said, as we girls rode in the back of the limo out to Mount Carmel for the funeral. The fellas were in the car ahead of ours.

  “We’re losing all our men,” said Basha.

  Dora nodded. “Doesn’t it feel like we were just here?”

  “I had to buy a new black dress just for this one,” said Basha.

  I took a long draw off my cigarette. The violence wasn’t just getting to the North Siders. The whole city was on edge, bracing itself for the next round of gunfire. Some of Capone’s men had set off a bomb at a speakeasy on State and Division, not far from our house. The week before, they shot up a barbershop because Capone thought Bugs was inside, getting a haircut and a shave. What was next? Were tommy guns going to turn up in the dance halls, in restaurants and movie houses? I was afraid to pick up a newspaper anymore. It seemed like somebody we knew was either washing up in Lake Michigan or found in an alley or the trunk of a car.

  I opened my compact and looked at my bruises. Even though they were fading, hidden beneath my makeup, I didn’t look like myself. I had too many different faces: wife, mother, accessory to murder, former bootlegger, former adulterer. I didn’t know which one was the real me anymore.