The Trouble Girls

by E. R. Fallon

  Sam waited patiently for the women to finish talking.

  “We have a reservation,” Sam told Gina when he saw they were done.

  “Name?”

  “Paul.”

  “Yes, I see it. Right this way.” Gina smiled at Violet and Sam.

  “Who are those guys she was talking about? You mentioned Kevin was your ex, but Vito and Billy, I think she said?” Sam asked her once Gina had seated them at a lovely table by the window with a view of the street, one of the best tables in the restaurant.

  “They’re Kevin’s business associates,” Violet told him, which was sort of the truth.

  She couldn’t stop her mind from wandering and thinking about that meeting, and she debated whether to excuse herself right then to call her mother and inform her what Gina had said, but knew it would be rude to leave the table so soon after they’d sat down. She planned to tell her mother when she arrived home.

  Sam placed the wine list between them so they could both read it.

  “Gina seems nice,” he said.

  “Yeah, she is.” Violet sensed he wanted to know more but she didn’t want to give too much away about the nature of Kevin’s business.

  “You’ve known her for a long time?”

  “Just from visiting Kevin here.”

  “Is he here now?” Sam asked, looking around.

  “God, no,” Violet said with a laugh, and Sam chuckled. “Kevin’s boss owns this place, and Kevin comes here sometimes to help out but not often. He used to come more years ago, when we were together, but now he’s higher up at the company.” Higher up at the company. Violet smiled to herself. That was one way to put it.

  She opened her menu although she already knew what she wanted to order. Anthony’s might have been known locally for its steaks but as far as she was concerned, they made the best cheese ravioli in the city. Sam opened his menu after she did and then closed it quickly.

  “I think I have to get a steak,” he said, “How about you?”

  Violet shook her head. She liked Sam. A lot. She found him charming and funny and handsome, and she wanted this to work out. But she also knew that she’d never be able to fully be herself around him if he didn’t know the truth about what she and her mother really did for a living, and she didn’t know whether Sam would accept the truth once she told him.

  “They have fantastic ravioli,” she said.

  “Okay, then that’s what I’ll get.”

  “I thought you wanted a steak.”

  “I changed my mind,” he said with a smile.

  The waiter came over and recognized Violet and she went through a similar song and dance as she’d had with Gina. They ordered a bottle of red wine.

  “I enjoyed meeting your mother,” Sam said as they waited for their food to arrive. They had been served their wine right away.

  Violet smiled. “You’re too polite, Sam. You don’t have to like my mother. It’s okay. Even I don’t like her sometimes.”

  “But I do. She reminds me of you. She has that same toughness to her.”

  “Toughness?” Violet asked as though he’d insulted her a little.

  “Yes, you know, you’re a New Yorker. We don’t have women like you in Ohio. I like that about you,” he said when she frowned. “You’re strong. I admire that.”

  Violet relaxed when she understood he was complimenting her. She took a sip of wine. She realized that in many ways she and Camille were similar, and in that way, she was frightened because she sensed how far Camille was capable of taking things.

  “Everyone at your pub is like a family, that’s really nice,” he said. “They’re quite a welcoming bunch for New York.”

  Violet couldn’t tell him that the patrons of their pub feared them as much as they respected them and that was part of the reason they wanted to please Violet and her mother. As far as Sam knew she and her mother were pub owners with a loyal clientele. “They really are,” she said.

  “Have many of them known you since you were young?”

  “Yeah, I was practically raised there, and a lot of them knew my grandfather, who, as I mentioned, started the place.”

  “That guy who patted me on the back and basically warned me to treat you well,” Sam said with a smile, “who is he?”

  “His name is Max.”

  “Is he your . . . uncle?” Sam seemed to be keen on guessing Max’s relation to her.

  Violet shook her head. “He’s an old family friend. I’ve known him my whole life. He is like an uncle to me in a way.”

  “I can tell that he cares about you,” Sam said.

  Violet had trouble hearing him above the noise in the restaurant.

  Sam raised his voice. “What does he do at the pub? I’m assuming he works there since he came down from upstairs.”

  “He does. He’s the bookkeeper,” she said, because it was true in a way.

  Violet found herself sitting there in a dress she hadn’t worn since she was with Kevin and thought how everything about Sam was the opposite of Kevin. Kevin had been a good man to her and to Tommy when he was around but Sam had a real job and was a lawful man, but while she could be honest with Kevin about who she was and what she and her mother did because he shared her lifestyle, she’d never be able to be honest with Sam. Violet wondered if she should just leave right then since she and Sam would never go anywhere and what was the point? She sat there, filled with anger, anger at how she couldn’t have the happiness she felt she and Sam were capable of having, how she couldn’t be honest with him without risking losing him.

  “You can ask me questions, too, you know,” Sam said, bringing her back to reality, but she couldn’t respond with the truth, that she’d been avoiding asking him questions because she didn’t want him to ask her too many.

  “What do you think of me, really?” she asked him. “Why are we even here?”

  “What do you mean? I think you’re great.”

  “Yeah, but we’re so different from each other. I mean, I can’t help but wonder why a banker like you would be interested in someone me. Are you just looking to have some fun with one of the locals?”

  “Absolutely not. I like you, Violet. Honestly. I don’t judge people based on what they do. My parents weren’t wealthy. They were working class. Some of the guys I work with might be like that, but I’m not. I take it a lot of the new people in the neighborhood treat you that way?”

  Violet nodded. “Although we haven’t exactly been welcoming of them either.”

  “Why do you think there’s so much resentment on both sides?” he asked her.

  “The people who have lived in this neighborhood for a long time don’t like how the new people, people like yourself, are changing the neighborhood and making the rents go up. I’m not sure why the new people don’t like us, but it’s probably because they can tell some of us resent them. This was a tightknit neighborhood before it started changing. People like things to stay the way they were.”

  “But we’re not like any of them,” Sam said to her with a smile. “We get along.”

  Their food arrived and they had a light conversation as they ate. After they finished eating, including dessert, Sam wanted to pay for the meal and wine, but Violet insisted on paying for half of it because she didn’t want to feel like she owed Sam anything.

  “I’d like to see you again,” Sam said to her outside the restaurant. By then it had stopped raining. Would he try to kiss her?

  Violet wondered if he’d feel the same way if he knew the truth, that she and her mother ran the Irish mob and Camille O’Brien was now after them. And that cop was hounding them for a murder. But she did wish to see him again and she wasn’t going to deny herself some enjoyment even if it wouldn’t ever become serious because she couldn’t be sincere with him.

  “Yeah, let’s do this again soon,” she said.

  “Great. And I’d love to meet your son, when he’s ready.”

  Violet found Sam’s eagerness and acceptance of Tommy sweet, but she didn
’t want to introduce Tommy to a man who might not be in her life for very long.

  They walked to his car and Sam drove her home. There were no spaces in front of the building, so he pulled up alongside some parked cars and stopped.

  “Would now be a good time for me to meet your son?” he asked. He seemed eager for Tommy to like him, as though he needed Tommy’s permission to continue to see Violet, which she figured in a way he did.

  Violet checked the time. “It’s a little late,” she said, but even if it had been earlier, she would have come up with an excuse to say no. It was simply too soon for them to meet each other.

  “You’re right. Sorry,” Sam said, looking at the car’s clock. He leaned over and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, and she found his inhibition endearing.

  She looked straight at him and placed her hands at the back of his head, weaved her fingers through his soft hair, drew his face close to hers and kissed him. Sam blushed when she pulled away.

  “That was nice,” he said with a grin.

  “I like you,” Violet said. “I needed to show you that. Goodnight, Sam.” She started to exit the car and he touched her sleeve and she stopped.

  She looked back at him and he gave her a more assertive kiss.

  “Goodnight, Violet,” he whispered.

  Sam waited to leave until she went inside, and from the street, she could see that the light was on in her apartment and assumed her mother was up watching TV, but she hoped that Tommy would be in bed. Sometimes her mother allowed him to stay up past his bedtime, and Violet let it slide because she had a hard time standing up to her mother.

  She heard Sam driving away as she closed the entrance door to her building and entered the hallway. She went up to her apartment and unlocked the door herself instead of knocking in case her mother had drifted off to sleep in front of the television.

  “How was your date?” Catherine asked her as soon as she stepped inside, clearly not tired, before Violet had time to shut the door.

  Violet closed the door. She was somewhat relieved to find her mother sober, but Catherine was reliable when it came to Tommy. “It went well. He took me to Anthony’s.”

  Catherine was sitting up on the couch, watching what looked like the news. She turned off the TV. “Oh, no,” she said. “I hope you didn’t run into Kevin there.”

  “No, thank goodness. But of course, I had to explain why everyone knew me there.”

  “I hope you didn’t tell him the truth,” Catherine said.

  “No, I didn’t. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to be honest with him, that’s part of the problem. How’s Tommy?”

  “He should be asleep. He didn’t want to go to bed but I told him you’d be happy if he did, so he went.”

  “Thanks,” Violet said.

  “That’s part of the problem with dating a regular guy,” Catherine said about Sam. “You don’t know if they’ll accept who we are until we tell them and find out, and it could go badly. You can’t trust them like you can trust another gangster, and you don’t know if they’ll run to the police as soon as you tell them.”

  “I know. I like him but I might not be able to be honest with him. And what kind of relationship would that be? He thinks we run the pub, he doesn’t know the whole truth, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to tell him the truth.”

  “You don’t trust him?” Catherine asked.

  “Not in the same way I could trust Kevin,” Violet replied. “That’s why I almost never date guys who aren’t in the ‘business’.”

  “You never know, he might be different, you might be able to trust him eventually. When the time is right maybe you can tell him.”

  “Yeah, but what if he goes to the police?”

  “If he does that, nothing will happen. The police can’t just arrest you because they suspect you’re a mob member, they have to charge you with a crime. Speaking of that, I asked Max to see if one of his police contacts could give us information on our Detective Seale friend.”

  “And?”

  “Max’s contact told him the guy is serious and we should be careful. Seale is a straightforward cop. He’s not going to go away and trying to bribe him would be risky because he would probably charge us for bribery.”

  “We have no choice but to wait and see?” Violet asked. “Shouldn’t we do something?”

  “Like what, have O’Rourke taken out? If we do that, it’ll only draw more attention to ourselves. O’Rourke isn’t reliable and I just have this feeling that the district attorney won’t bother charging either of us. I just know that Seale’s going to end up being disappointed.”

  “Yeah, it could work out that way. But it might not. Then what happens? This thing goes to trial and we’re screwed? You know as well as I do that you don’t need a wholesome witness for a jury to convict someone. Anyway, I can’t think about this right now, because I think we have a bigger problem on our hands. Gina, you remember her from the restaurant?”

  “Yeah, I do. What about her?”

  “When I went there with Sam, I talked with her and she told me that Kevin had a meeting there earlier that day.”

  “That’s not unusual.”

  “Yeah, but it was who the meeting was with that was unusual. Vito Russo and Billy were there also. A woman met them.”

  “A woman?”

  “Yeah, and I think it was Camille.”

  “The leader of the Russians is a woman, her husband is in prison,” Catherine stated.

  “Gina didn’t mention anything about an accent.”

  “You really think they would meet with Camille?” Catherine asked.

  “Sure. Why not? Her stepfather is one of them.”

  “You’re the mother of Kevin’s child. He’d never betray you.”

  “He’d never betray Tommy, but me? We aren’t together anymore. Besides, Vito is Camille’s stepfather and she used to date Billy.”

  “She ended things badly with Billy, I doubt he likes her,” Catherine said.

  “Vito’s going to be loyal to her because of her mother.”

  They were getting louder and Catherine motioned for them to quiet because Tommy was in the other room.

  “I can’t imagine them ever working with Camille. What does she have to offer them?” Catherine asked Violet.

  “I’d ask Kevin, but he’d never tell me. You know how secretive he can be about business.”

  There was an unspoken rule amongst men like Kevin that you kept details of a meeting private between only those who needed to know, even lovers were excluded, and so even if she and Kevin had still been together, she doubted he would have told her what happened during that meeting.

  “She doesn’t have any guys on her side, as far as we know,” Catherine seemed to muse aloud. “It’d just be her against us. She’ll never win.”

  “Who knows what she has planned. I wouldn’t be so dismissive of her, sometimes all it takes is one person to ruin something.”

  “What are we going to do about it, then?”

  “Are you suggesting we eliminate her? I thought you liked her.”

  “I’m fond of her, sure, but if she’s going to be a problem then we can’t take that risk.”

  “I don’t know,” Violet said. “With that Detective Seale onto us, I think we should lie low for a while. We shouldn’t do anything that draws too much attention to ourselves and getting rid of Camille would do just that. Besides, her mother would be devastated, and her stepfather would be angry, and we don’t want to upset the Alfonsis. We could lose them in the process.”

  “We might end up losing them anyway,” Catherine replied. “Who knows what Camille has planned?”

  The phone rang, and since in their line of work there was no hour that was too late or too early, Violet answered it without so much as a thought.

  “Hello?”

  “Violet? It’s Simone.”

  Simone was Kevin’s mother, who often called to check on Tommy, but it was odd for her to ring Violet at the late ho
ur.

  “Hi. Is everything all right?” Violet asked her.

  Catherine got up from the couch and asked her who it was and Violet mouthed, “It’s Simone.” The look on Catherine’s face intensified, for she, too, knew it was unusual for Kevin’s mother to call at that hour.

  “Violet,” Simone said on the phone. “I hate to do this over the phone. It’s Kevin. The police came by my house.”

  “He was arrested?” Violet asked.

  “God, I wish that’s all it was. Kevin’s dead, sweetie.”

  14

  Violet clutched the phone and felt like all the life had been drained from her. “How?” she asked, her voice faint.

  “He was shot. In the head. Billy’s here now. He told me that there was an altercation with a rival family and Kevin ended up on the wrong end of it. It was an argument over something trivial, and now Kevin’s dead. It happened in a pub of all places, and you know how Kevin hardly drank. Yet he died in a pub.”

  Simone started sobbing and Violet did her best to comfort her over the phone. No one from the restaurant must have known about Kevin yet. Violet stood there, listening to Simone wailing over her son and thought about how she would tell Tommy his father had died. Kevin hadn’t been in Tommy’s life much after he and Violet ended things, but he was still Tommy’s father and Tommy would be very distraught. Violet had lost her own father young, but she had never really known him like Tommy knew his father.

  Simone and her husband still saw Tommy regularly, and Simone put Kevin’s father on the phone and Violet spoke to him and offered her condolences. By the time she hung up, Catherine had figured out what happened.

  “I don’t know how I’ll tell Tommy,” Violet whispered to her mother.

  “I’ll help you,” Catherine offered.

  “Do we wake him up now and tell him or wait until he gets up? I don’t think he should go to school after he finds out. He should be with us.”