Most speakeasies weren’t much to look at. People went to them to soak in alcohol, not atmosphere. But the interior of this joint looked like the inside of a museum. The floor was made of marble, and columns lined the walls at regular intervals, or at least where walls should’ve been. Between the columns was empty space, and beyond them rolling green fields beneath an achingly blue sky. A gentle breeze blew from across those fields, a warm spring breeze. The columns supported a domed ceiling upon which was painted a scene of naked men and women engaged in revelry – dancing, laughing, singing, and screwing – all of them holding goblets filled with dark red wine. Some guzzled it, some poured it on each other, and some flung the contents into the air. They shared similar expressions of sheer ecstasy, and I wondered what it would be like to feel that way, even if only for a moment.
The chairs and tables looked more normal than the rest of the place, but they had been fashioned from expensive mahogany and polished to a high shine. The bar was made of the same material, with a gleaming brass rail and a long curving mirror mounted between the columns behind it. The mirror’s frame looked like it was made of gold and encrusted with glittering jewels. It had to be fake, I told myself. Hell, this entire set-up had to be nothing more than an elaborate gag. But if that was true, then why did it feel so goddamned real?
The doorman wasn’t the only bizarre-looking creature in the place. While there were plenty of human men and women in the joint, sitting at tables drinking and laughing, other . . . things were in attendance as well. A short skinny guy with curly brown hair, a scraggly goatee, pointed ears, and honest-to-God horns walked by on hairy goat legs, hooves clip-clopping on the marble floor. He carried a glass of wine, and as he took a sip, he gave me a wink, as if we shared some private joke.
The bartender was a muscular man with long, glossy black hair and a full beard. His features had a roughness to them, but he wasn’t unhandsome. What he was, however, was a centaur. It took a lot of space behind the bar to accommodate the equine part of his body, and his horse tail swished back and forth as we entered. That, combined with the scowl on his face, was a clear sign that he wasn’t happy to see us.
There were other creatures from myth in the place. A hodge-podge monster that was part lion, goat, and dragon lay on the floor, lapping wine from a crystal bowl, and a harpy crouched on top of a table, mottled jugs swaying as she took a sip of wine from an upside-down human skull and then began to preen her filthy, matted feathers.
But as strange as all of this was, there was something even more bizarre about the place. In the middle of the room was a table larger than the rest, around it a trio of luxurious high-backed leather chairs, two of which were occupied. One by a young man wearing a tux, and the other by the evil cocksucker himself.
Capone grinned, stood up, and spread his arms wide, as if delighted to see us.
“Glad you and your boys could make it, Ness!”
Billy, Paul and the others immediately reached for their revolvers. Every eye in the place, both human and monstrosity, suddenly focused on us. Giddy laughter turned to gasps. That harpy stopped preening her feathers and hissed. Capone…Well, Capone was all smiles. In fact, that scar on his cheek made it look as if his grin went all the way up to his ear.
I held up my hands. “Now wait a minute, boys, there’s no reason for things to get ugly.”
“Look around, Eliot,” Billy quipped. “This joint’s got no shortage of ugly already.”
“Just put the bean shooter away,” I said, and then I turned on the rest of the boys. “That goes for all of you.”
They were slow to lower their pistols, and I could practically see the gears turning in their heads, each of them trying to figure out what plan I had up my sleeve to get Capone, and more importantly, to get out of this crazy place in one piece. As I looked back at the table, I was trying desperately to come up with one.
The person sitting next to Capone was young, although I couldn’t pin down his exact age. Late teens, maybe early twenties. He was male, I was fairly sure of that, but he was clean-shaven and had delicate, almost feminine features. His hair was jet-black and curly, and his eyes were a dark purplish color, although I figured that had to be a trick of the light. I mean, who has purple eyes? Then again, who has goat legs or half a horse’s body? Compared to that, purple eyes didn’t seem so strange.
He wore an expensive-looking, well-tailored tux that fit his lean body like a glove. In one hand he held a glass of red wine, while in the other he held a wooden rod covered in some kind of ivy. The rod should’ve looked ridiculous, but the youth held it in an almost regal way, as if it were some sort of scepter. I had a hard time keeping my gaze focused on the damn thing. Looking at it for too long made my eyes hurt. It was like staring into the sun.
“Please, Mr. Ness,” the young man began, and those odd eyes of his locked with my own. He motioned to the empty chair. “Do have a seat. I must admit, I’ve been quite anxious to meet you. I’ve heard so many fascinating tales.”
His voice was a soft, mellow tenor, single-malt scotch mixed with freshly harvested honey. His words were warm in the ear, and hearing them felt like a shot of fine bourbon going down – smooth and warm, stimulating and relaxing at the same time, but with a bite to it as well. Like life, I thought, not entirely sure what I meant by that.
His movements were languid, almost sleepy, but his eyes were alive with keen intelligence, amusement, and something darker which I couldn’t name.
I glanced back over my shoulder at the boys once more. They’d managed to put their pieces away, but their hands still lingered in their coats like a bunch of damn Napoleons. The kid’s words were in my head again: Use your melon... Only way you’ll get in – and more importantly, get back out… I nodded and made steps toward the vacant seat.
“Sure, what could it hurt?”
“Indeed,” the youth said, his pale hand tightening around that ivy-covered scepter.
A trio of women stood behind him. They were dressed as flappers in short skirts and with bobbed hair, but the style didn’t suit them. They were lean and muscular, and their faces exuded a cruel, almost malevolent beauty. Their features were sharp, their gazes feral. Their lips reminded me of freshly spilled blood.
I took my seat with deliberate slowness. Capone, the smug son of a bitch, adjusted his necktie, then did the same. All around us, the joint’s clientele gradually lost interest, and the debauchery resumed.
“Now this is my kind o’ place,” Capone said with a grin. He took a swig of whiskey from the glass in front of him, then added, “I could become a regular.”
The effeminate youth gave a regal nod in reply.
“From all I’ve heard about this place, I thought it would be, you know, more exclusive.” I glanced over at Capone. “Turns out you’ll let just about anyone in.”
“Better watch your lip, treasury man,” Capone said, still smiling, and then he nodded at his new friend. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with here.”
The bastard had a point. Sure, I knew Capone had been the one to set this up. He’d fed the kid information, knowing it would find its way to my ear and draw us here. The kid was a two-way street, and I’d used him to give Capone false information more than a few times myself. But Al wasn’t the one runnin’ this show. It was Mr. Purple Peepers.
So, I asked him, “You got a name, friend?”
“I have several,” he said, “but I prefer Dionysus.”
He lifted his hand and snapped long, delicate fingers. One of the fanged women behind him — I had no idea what they were at the time, but I later learned they called ’em maenads — produced an ornate vessel. It was covered with ivy, like the guy’s staff, and a crude drawing of a bull adorned its side.
“Allow me to offer you something to drink, Mr. Ness.”
“I’ll pass, thanks.”
Capone laughed. “Against your religion?”
My eyes narrowed. “Against the law.”
“The law.” Dionysus
shook his head, his smooth, effeminate features furrowing. “You gentlemen must realize this Prohibition of yours cannot hold. You, Mr. Ness, seek to deny mortals their passions, and you, Mr. Capone, seek to control who gets to embrace them, and under what terms. But nature cannot be legislated. It cannot be contained. And a flame, once lit, can never truly be snuffed. Zeus learned that lesson eons ago. That’s why he never wanted your kind to have fire in the first place.
“How much fine liquor have you wasted over the years, Mr. Ness? — Just poured out into the ground for Hades to enjoy?”
I shrugged and nodded at Capone. “Why don’t you ask him? I’m sure he’s been keeping score.”
The son of a bitch scowled at me. “You’re Goddamn right I have been. You and your boys have cost me a fuckin’ fortune.”
“Thanks,” Lyle chimed in from behind me. “We do our best.”
Capone leaned back. “Just not good enough to put me out of business.”
“Not yet,” I agreed, “but evidently good enough to scare you.”
Capone laughed. “Me, afraid of you?”
“Why else would you set up this little party?”
“Treasury man, you’re nothin’ but a badge and a whole lot o’ talk.”
“If that were true,” Dionysus pointed out, “you wouldn’t have any issues paying your tributes, and you wouldn’t need me to help you — How did you put it? — ‘rub him out.’”
Capone got to his feet. “Listen, Nancy-boy, you’re the one who wanted to meet Ness.” He waved his hand at me. “Well, here he is. I brought him to you on a silver platter. Dig in! As for me and my crew, we’re back to business as —”
“Sit down,” Dionysus commanded. His voice was a good two to three octaves lower than it had been, almost like a growl, and he slapped his staff down on the table for emphasis.
Capone’s fat face went slack, and he immediately took his seat — a puppy threatened by a rolled-up paper. I have to say, it made me smile to see it, but any little joy I had didn’t last, because I knew that if a man like Capone was that scared of something, then it couldn’t be good for any of us.
“I said that you could return to your pitiful little affairs only after the three of us had shared a drink.” Dionysus reached over and took the decanter from the hands of his follower. “I’m sure you gentlemen have heard that I brew something quite special here.”
“I have,” I told him. “I’ve also seen what it does to people.”
Some people, I reminded myself, not everyone.
“I call it Ambrosia,” he said as he set the container down on the table between us, “the nectar of the gods.”
“Is that what you gave my guys?” Capone asked. “Some kind o’ weird moonshine?”
“Wine,” Dionysus corrected, “The purest wine.”
Another of the maenads brought over a tray of glasses — three, to be exact. She set them down in front of her master, and he uncorked the decanter, filling each one in turn.
“En oinōi alētheia,” Dionysus said as he poured, and his grin was more than a little seductive. “That’s a very old Greek saying. Perhaps you gentlemen know it better in its Latin form? — In vino veritas. Either way, it simply means, ‘In wine, there is truth.’” He looked me in the eye again. “The ultimate truth, Mr. Ness. You can put on a mask of righteousness —” And then he glanced over at Capone. “— give the impression of civility and sophistication, pretend to be something in public that behind closed doors you are not, but wine…” He finished pouring, then held one of the glasses up to the light. For a moment, the vintage actually seemed to glow, an inner radiance that was as beautiful as it was enticing. “…wine dissolves all those airs, drowns away all pretense, and what you are left with, my friends, is the reality of who you truly are.”
He slid one of the glasses across the table to me.
“So, Mr. Ness…are you ready to meet the real you?”
I glanced down into the Ambrosia, my own face reflected as if in a pool of blood. It was the face of a good man, an honest man — a man who had sworn to do what was right. And yet, it was also the face of a man who’d lied to get what he needed, a man who’d killed.
“Don’t do it, Eliot,” Billy said.
“Yeah,” Lyle agreed. “You don’t know what’s in that shit.”
Capone’s men all went mad. But I wasn’t like them.
I pushed the glass away. “Like I said before, I’ll pass.”
Dionysus frowned and those purple eyes of his seemed to darken. “I’m afraid I must insist.”
And then, he brought in the muscle. I heard a loud snort and turned to see huge figures towering over the boys behind me — giant, beefy men with the horned heads of bulls. Minotaurs. Their wet noses glistened and there was hot anger in their huge, brown eyes.
“They say your men are ‘untouchable,’” Dionysus said. “That might be so in the mortal world, but here, in this place, I can assure you that it is not the case.”
I glanced back down into the glass.
“Why?” I asked.
“Why? You’ve made liquor illegal, declared war against it, against me. The last person to do that was King Pentheus of Thebes. I made him drink too, made him take a good, long look at himself. He went quite mad. I certainly hope you fair better.”
“If I drink this,” I said, “no matter what happens to me, you’ll let my boys walk out of here?”
Dionysus nodded.
“Stupid prick,” Capone chuckled. “That giggle juice is poison. You’re gonna drop dead, Ness, or worse, wind up with bats in your belfry.”
“You’d better hope not,” I told him, staring at the remaining glass in front of Dionysus. “I’m pretty sure you’re next.”
I half-turned in my seat to look at my men. “So, what do you think?”
Lyle frowned as he thought. “We’re all seeing the same things, so either we all went mad at the same time, or this is real. And if it is, then the only way to play this – maybe the only way for all of us to get out of this booby hatch alive – is for you to take that drink.”
“Feels real,” Bill said. “My ancestors believed there are many types of spirits in the world. Why shouldn’t there be one in Chicago? But I’d think twice about taking that drink. Spirits have their own agendas, and they only tell the truth when it suits them.”
“Dio-whatsis is hard to read,” Paul said. “It’s like his voice isn’t really there, like I only think I hear it, if that makes any sense. Capone is easy, though. He believes all of this, and he’s positive he’s got you by the short and curlies.”
No real help there, but I nodded to show I appreciated their advice anyway, and then I turned back around to face Dionysus and Capone. The choice was mine, and there was nothing to help me decide which way to jump. In the end, I think it came down to Capone and the smug smile on that sonofabitch’s face. He thought he had me. Maybe I’d chicken out and refuse to take the drink, in which case he’d know I was yellow deep down, or maybe the booze would destroy my mind, and he’d be rid of me forever. Either way, he’d win. That’s what he believed, anyway, which meant there was only one way I could beat him.
I locked gazes with Capone and smiled.
“Screw you, Al.”
I took a deep breath, and then I drank.
You’re going to think I did go nuts when I tell you this next part, but I didn’t taste anything. I didn’t feel any liquid touch my tongue or run down my throat as I swallowed. Instead, I smelled something: baking bread. My father was in the bakery business, and I used to help him out at work when I was young. I’d always associated that smell with him, with home, with being part of a family, but most of all, with being loved. I learned responsibility in that bakery, along with respect, for myself as well as others. I learned the value of hard work there, and I also learned that something simple, like a fresh-baked cookie or a slice of cake, can help soften the rough edges of life, can bring people together and help them forget their troubles, if only for a shor
t time. I understood then that alcohol wasn’t any different when used right, and that was Dionysus’ true gift to the world.
The full effect of the wine didn’t last long, maybe a few seconds, but even after it faded, it was still there, just on the edge of perception. And I’ll let you in on a little secret. To this day, I can still bring that smell back full force whenever I want, still feel that same feelings inside. All I have to do is close my eyes and remember taking that drink.
My hand shook a little as I set my glass down, but when I spoke my voice was steady.
“Thank you,” I said to Dionysus, and the god smiled and gave me a regal nod in return.
Capone leaned forward and squinted his eyes, waiting for me to exhibit the first signs of insanity. I just smiled at him, and after a minute he sat back in his chair with a sour look on his face and a muttered, “Fuck.”
Dionysus slid the remaining glass over to Capone.
“Your turn.”
Capone looked at the glass as if it held hydrochloric acid.
“Hell, no! I ain’t touchin’ that damn stuff!”
“The choice is of course yours,” Dionysus said. “But if you don’t drink, I’m afraid I’ll have to give you over to the less-than-tender mercies of my lovely companions.”
The maenads moved behind Capone’s chair and reached out with red nails that had lengthened into vicious claws. They bared teeth that were longer and sharper than they had been a moment ago, and as Capone tried to stand, they grabbed hold of him and shoved him back down. They held him there, and even though they were slender gals, no matter how hard Capone struggled, he couldn’t break free of their grip.
Streets of Shadows Page 30