The Lost Girl of Astor Street

by Stephanie Morrill

  When Mariano strides through the door, relief sweeps through me. Sidekick’s tail thumps wildly, and I’m grateful God didn’t see fit for humans to have tails.

  “Oh, Piper. It’s always something with you, isn’t it?” Mariano sticks out his hand to Robbie. “Thanks for taking care of her.”

  No name, I notice.

  “Just glad I was there to help.”

  Hmm. None from him either.

  Mariano’s gaze shifts back to me. He offers me a hand, his eyes sparking with amusement. “You really need to stop hanging out with those girls. They’re more trouble than you are.”

  Robbie holds open the door, and Mariano hooks his arm around my waist to help me exit. On the sidewalk, I turn to Robbie. “Thank you for your help, Robbie. Again, I’m sorry for making you late.”

  “No trouble at all. I’ll see you again soon, I’m sure.” Robbie tips his hat and strides away.

  “Where am I parked?” Mariano murmurs in my ear.

  “You’re the Ford by the street lamp. Emma should be waiting for us.”

  “You’ve dragged that sweet girl into this?”

  “Actually, that sweet girl dragged me into this, thank you very much. Can you see her in the car? She was supposed to return when the coast was clear.”

  “See, this is just reckless enough to have your name written all over it.” In a fluid motion, Mariano sweeps me up into his arms. “The car is too far for you to walk. With your bad ankle and all.”

  “You’re a real cad, Mariano Cassano. Do you know that?”

  He grins. “I know I’ve missed you.”

  When we get to the car and Emma’s head pops up from the backseat, I release the breath I’d been holding. Her mouth falls open at the sight of me and Mariano.

  “Hello, Miss Crane,” Mariano says. “Fancy seeing you here.”

  She blinks from Mariano, to me, to my wrapped ankle. “Well. Clearly, I need to be caught up.”

  “Your friend here might be the death of me, Miss Crane.” Mariano plops me into the passenger’s seat and grins. “And I mean that in the nicest way possible.”

  Sidekick hops in, and Mariano shuts the door.

  “I’ll tell him it’s my fault,” Emma assures me from the backseat. “Did you really hurt your ankle?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “It wasn’t her fault, detective,” Emma says as Mariano opens the door and slides in. “I hired her to tail him. This whole thing was my idea.”

  “Even without your aid, I suspect Piper would have eventually found some way to stumble upon a lair of men who would take great pleasure in shooting her.”

  Emma’s mouth forms an O. “Not Robbie. He wouldn’t. I can’t imagine . . .”

  “I didn’t mean Robbie. He took very good care of Piper.”

  “Wasn’t she just brilliant?” Emma’s eyes sparkle. “She comes up with the most creative things.”

  “Piper’s creativity blossoms when it comes to finding new ways to get herself into trouble.”

  I smile sweetly. “That’s because I have such a handsome detective to come to my rescue. A handsome detective who I’m sure knows just the right people to figure out what Robbie is—”

  Mariano slants a glare my way as he pulls out into traffic. “I know what you’re after, and it’s not going to work. For one thing, word is the Prohibition bureau is building a case against the Finnegans, and I don’t want to find you two in the wrong place at the wrong time and wind up in the crossfire.”

  Emma’s hand grasps the Peter Pan collar of her dress. “Do you think Robbie is involved?”

  “What I know is that this is a dangerous neighborhood to be in right now. When you go after these kinds of people, you better have a plan in place, or you’ll wind up six feet under.”

  “You certainly paint a very vivid picture, detective,” Emma says in a breathless voice. “It just seems like if they’re breaking the law, and if you can prove it, that would be that.”

  Oh, sweet Emma.

  “In a perfect world, that’s how things would work. But this isn’t a perfect world. This is Chicago.”

  His words seem to reverberate in the car.

  “Robbie just seemed so nice . . .” Emma’s voice is watery.

  I turn in my seat. “Robbie is nice. It’s possible he’s mixed up in something bad, but I still believe he’s a nice guy. Maybe he’s trying to get out? Maybe that’s the news he doesn’t want to share with you yet?”

  “Maybe.” But Emma’s face retains the kicked-puppy look. “Though that seems awfully optimistic.”

  “That’s the funny thing about Piper. She seems tough. But really”—Mariano winks at me—“on the inside, she’s as soft as they come.”

  “You may think it’s crazy that she would want your help with something like that, but I don’t.” Mariano twists his fork to gather spaghetti. “Who else is she going to ask?”

  “I’ve at least learned he’s not married. So it hasn’t been totally fruitless.” I frown. Unless his wife and kids live in a different town . . .

  “You found a smart way to get up to his apartment. That can be tough.”

  “But I couldn’t figure out how to get back out without blowing my cover.”

  Mariano tilts his head. “Sure you did.”

  After a beat, I catch his meaning. “Well, yeah, technically. But I had to get outside help.”

  Mariano shrugs. “There’s a reason policemen work in pairs.”

  I peek out the window to be sure Sidekick is still tied to the street lamp outside—he is—and then glance about Madame Galli’s Italian restaurant. Tonight, the tables are bursting with young couples and groups of friends, mostly young professional types. I recognize a few judges, whom I met at Father’s wedding. I guess it’s no surprise considering our proximity to the courthouse.

  “Can I talk to you about what happened at the wedding?” Mariano’s question pulls me back to the table.

  “Of course.” I put another bite in my mouth despite my sudden lack of hunger.

  He looks at me with those rich brown eyes of his. “First of all, I want to apologize for lying to you. I told myself I wasn’t lying, but I was.

  “Up until that moment on Clark Street, I honestly thought you knew. I wasn’t thinking about you being a girl, and that maybe your father would try to protect you in some way from the kind of work he does. Because that’s not the kind of house I grew up in.”

  Mariano takes a long drink of his Coke. “My father has always been very open about what he does. There was no reason not to be. While it may seem strange to you, being a mafiasi family is a proud thing in my culture. My father is the third generation of Cassanos to serve, and I would have been the fourth.”

  My heart leaps with that beautiful phrase—would have been.

  Mariano takes several deep breaths, and his face seems to darken with each one. Then, quietly, “For as long as I can remember, my father has chided me for being too soft.” When he looks at me, his face is boyish and vulnerable. “I’m built lean, like the men on my mother’s side. Not like Father and Uncle Lucas, or my brothers. And I always enjoyed reading, which my father considered a hobby better suited for a girl. Because there was an expectation that I too would cut my own path in the mafia, Father would find ways—activities—to help toughen me.” Shadows seem to cross Mariano’s face. “Things I won’t tell you about.”

  My hands reach across the table, grasp for his.

  He smiles at the sight and raises his gaze to me. “Maybe, had I been of Father’s generation, I would have stayed in the family business. But with Prohibition and bootlegging, the stakes have only gotten higher. Things like omertá don’t hold the weight they once did.”

  “Omertá?”

  “It’s a value we hold as Sicilians. We protect our own. But with all these new players in the mix, like the Finnegans and Capone, and the obsession with territory, omertá is a dying ethic.”

  Mariano is silent for a bit, his mind clearly else
where.

  “So you are—and I mean this in the best way possible—just a detective?”

  Mariano grins. “Yes, Piper. Just a detective. Though it doesn’t make my family as happy as it does you. Becoming a civil servant is equivalent to betraying the family name. I’m not a real man. I don’t have what it takes. Etcetera.” He shrugs, but I can read the hurt on his face as clearly as a bruise. “It’s only gotten worse this year. They thought . . . Well, they thought my job could work to their advantage.” The sentence tumbles out of him in a rush. “Don’t judge them for that, please.”

  I squeeze his hands.

  “They didn’t ask for anything at first.” His voice has dipped quiet and thoughtful again. “And then one of Doherty’s men got gunned down. It wasn’t us—not that time—but Uncle Lucas thought it could be a chance to expand our territory, to run the Finnegan brothers out. They wanted me to ‘help’ with the investigation, and . . .” Mariano shook his head. “When I wouldn’t, there were a lot of words about family loyalty, my priorities. I thought Zola would understand, would be on my side, but when she gave me back the ring, she said she couldn’t marry a traitor to the family. That was last fall. And I haven’t been invited to a family event since.”

  “Oh, Mariano.” The pain on his face has me itching to do something, to fix this for him. But there’s nothing that can be done. “I’m so sorry.”

  He drains the last of his Coke. “It was hard at the time, especially when Zola walked away, but I see now that it was good. How much worse it would’ve been to marry someone who disapproves of me.” For a moment, he stares into his spaghetti. “I suppose that’s why I got so angry at the wedding. To Zola, I wasn’t mafiasi enough. To you, I was too mafiasi.”

  “I shouldn’t have assumed the worst. I’ve just never . . .” The options sit on my tongue.

  I’ve just never cared about someone like this before.

  I’ve just never been so vulnerable. So aware of how easily you could hurt me.

  “This is all very scary to me,” I hear myself say instead. “I don’t want to be wrong about you.”

  “I don’t want that either, Piper.” His thumb rubs over the back of my knuckles. “And so long as you believe that I’m a detective who’s too straight and narrow to make much money, who will never satisfy his family’s expectations, and who values your safety above all else, then I can promise you won’t be.”

  “I like that answer. Mostly. I think that safety thing might interfere with my hopes of going after the Finn—”

  Mariano puts his hand up to halt me. “Could we fight about that tomorrow? Tonight, I would really like to just enjoy being together and pretend that I’m not going to have to stop you from putting yourself in harm’s way.”

  “Okay. Tomorrow. But that’s it.”

  Mariano holds up his glass to cheers. “To tomorrow.”

  “To tomorrow,” I echo.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-THREE

  Would you like milk or a Coca-Cola?” Emma calls from the kitchen.

  “Coca-Cola, please.”

  I clasp my hands on my lap so they’ll stop trembling. What a silly thing to be nervous about, dropping in on a friend for a social call. I had claimed my visit was about discussing Robbie and our next move, but really, I hoped to talk to her about Mariano and just . . . be together. Have fun. Connect. Like I would have with Lydia if she were still alive.

  I like Emma, and I can’t keep holding it against her that she isn’t Lydia.

  When Emma returns to the living room, she balances a tray with two bottles of Coca-Cola and a plate of lemon bars that match the pale yellow of her dress.

  “Maybe he doesn’t have much money, so he never decorated.” She settles the tray onto the coffee table, her skirts swishing around her calves. “Robbie is a very simple man. Which I mean in a good way.”

  “Maybe.” I run my locket up its chain and back down again as I visit Robbie’s place once more in my mind. “But no piles of mail? No old newspapers?”

  “Perhaps he’d just cleaned them away. Robbie is very neat.” Emma perches on the edge of the mahogany armchair, her back straight, her ankles crossed.

  I take a bottle of cola and a lemon bar, and I sit up in a way that would please Joyce. “No photographs?”

  “Do bachelors keep photographs?”

  “I don’t know. Robbie’s is the only single man’s apartment I’ve ever been in.” The lemon bar is creamy and buttery. Crumbs scatter across my white linen dress, and I do my best to discreetly brush them into my napkin.

  Emma nibbles at her lemon bar, somehow not creating a single crumb. “Does Mariano have his own place?”

  “He has a roommate, but I’ve never met him. I think his name is Jack.” I take a smaller bite of lemon bar this time. “When you meet under the circumstances that Mariano and I did, it’s strange how you skip over ordinary details like roommates.”

  “It was dreamy, seeing him carry you out of Robbie’s place. Like some great knight. And the way he looks at you.” Emma grins. “He clearly thinks you’re the bee’s knees, Piper.”

  Coca-Cola fizzes down my throat. “Robbie too. He looked as though he might float away as he talked to me about you.”

  Emma’s cheeks pinken, brightening her entire face. Seeing her like this makes it seem impossible that I ever thought her plain. “I suppose I’ll just have to be patient now, won’t I? With Mariano warning us away from the neighborhood, it hardly seems prudent to return.” A frown flickers on her face. “I wonder if Robbie is safe there.”

  “I could ask Mariano, if you’d like. But I agree that we should do as he says. He’s not the overprotective type.”

  “Well, I never thought I’d see this day.” Jeremiah’s words draw a gasp from both me and Emma, and he smirks in the doorway. “Sorry to startle you.”

  “What day is that, Jeremiah?” Emma’s voice is edged with impatience.

  Jeremiah removes his trilby from his head as he strides into the room. He swipes a lemon bar from the tray and selects the rocking chair across from me. “The day Piper Sail allowed herself to be stifled by a man.” He shakes his head, making a tsk, tsk sound. “What would Zelda Fitzgerald think?”

  I lock my gaze on my bottle of Coca-Cola.

  “Don’t be a sore loser, Jeremiah,” Emma says. “It’s not an attractive feature in a man.”

  But Jeremiah seems intent on ignoring his sister. “Are you sure about this, Piper?” The rocking chair creaks as he leans forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped, and with something undefinable in his gaze. “I’m working on a story about the Cassano family for the Daily, and I’m worried about what you might be getting yourself into.”

  I’ve done some reading myself on the Cassano family, consisting mostly of trumped-up stories in the archived newspapers at the library. The articles had been what I feared I might find—territory battles with other families, gin joints being raided and shut down. And the story that had my father’s name peppered throughout, when Lucas Cassano was accused of gunning down his own moll outside of her swanky Michigan Avenue apartment.

  “I appreciate your concern, Jeremiah. But Mariano is on a different path than his family.”

  “Is he?”

  My mind goes to the restaurant last night, to Mariano’s earnest eyes as he assured me that he was just a detective. “Yes.”

  “What kind of story?” Emma’s voice is low and fearful, her eyes wide.

  Jeremiah looks to her. Takes a breath. The silence stretches tight between them.

  “You’re not doing anything foolish, are you?” Emma sounds like a scolding mother rather than a little sister.

  “I’m fine, Emma.”

  Emma doesn’t seem convinced. Perhaps it’s because Jeremiah keeps twisting his hat in his hands. Or the way his smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

  He looks back to me and changes the subject. “Where have your father and his wife gone for their honeymoon?”

  “Paris. Jane ha
d never been.”

  Emma’s plate clatters onto the end table. “Jeremiah Crane, what is your story about?”

  Irritation gleams in Jeremiah’s eyes. “Don’t trouble yourself over it. I know what I’m doing.”

  “Do you?”

  “I should go.” I stand, and hope neither notice when crumbs sprinkle to the ground.

  Emma jumps to her feet. “Piper, please don’t.”

  The rocking chair creaks as Jeremiah rises as well. “Yes, don’t let my rudeness drive you away.”

  “It isn’t that. I’m having dinner with Nick and his girlfriend tonight, and I had better get dressed.” I set my plate and empty bottle on the tray and pivot toward the front door.

  “I think we saw them together in the neighborhood,” Emma says as she follows. “Tall girl? Auburn hair?”

  “That’s Alana.”

  I reach for my cloche hanging on the entry rack, but Jeremiah’s hand intercepts me. He lifts it from the hook and offers it to me without a smile.

  My cheeks heat under his somber scrutiny. “Thank you.”

  “Neither of us recognized her,” Emma says. “How did they meet?”

  The question makes my heart ache a bit, like pressing on a bruise before it’s completely faded. “She was one of the reporters who covered Lydia’s story.”

  Emma frowns. “A woman?” She looks to Jeremiah. “Who in town has women doing such macabre articles?”

  “She’s from Kansas City, actually.” My cloche pushes out one of my hair pins, and I tuck it back into place. “Because of the connection between Matthew and the organized crime down there, The Kansas City Star apparently felt it would interest their readers enough to send a reporter of their own.”

  Jeremiah leans against the wall, tucks his hands in his trouser pockets. “But a woman?”

  “Someday, the two of you may be colleagues, actually. Her father owns The Kansas City Star. I suppose that is why she has the freedom to take on a story like this.”

  Jeremiah blinks, slow and considering. “Are you saying her father is Irwin Kirkwood?”