Princes of the Lower East Side: A 1920s Mafia Thriller (A Scalisi Family Novel)

by Meredith Allison

  “She is dead,” he managed to finally utter. “My daughter. Tonight. They found her in an alley.”

  Mia and Gloria exchanged a startled look.

  “How?” Uncle Joe said, his hand on his chest. “It’s been a few months since I saw her last, but she looked so strong, so healthy—”

  “The drugs,” the man said tearfully. “The drugs, she got a hold of them. Started using them. I found out, I told her to stop. She promised she would, but I knew she didn’t. Three nights ago, we argued about it. Badly. She left the apartment. I did not see her again until this morning. She said she was sorry, so…I took her in.” He lifted the cup of coffee to his lips in hands that trembled. More tears streamed down his cheeks. “What kind of father would I be to turn my back on my child? She was filthy, and for hours she did not say one word. I begged her to stop the drugs, and she agreed. This evening, she said she would go and fetch bread for supper from here. A long time passed, and she did not return. I went looking, and I found some men who told me they were coming for me, to tell me. They took me to see her, and I—I—”

  A sickly feeling drained from Mia’s heart into her stomach.

  She had overdosed, Signor Bruno’s daughter. On the drugs she’d been taking.

  Heroin.

  He went on, the Sicilian words tumbling over one another as he struggled to get the story out. “Those who witnessed her final moments said she kept crying out, ‘Gems, gems!’”

  Mia froze.

  Signor Bruno shook his head rapidly. “She must have sold the few jewels she had for the poison. Family heirlooms. But those were her last words.” His eyes filled with fresh tears. “Not Papa, not God. ‘Gems, gems.’” He crossed himself. “Let her be at peace now with her mother, while her poor father suffers.”

  Gems. Gems.

  Her stomach soured so much, bile rose in her throat.

  She lifted her gaze to Paolo, finding him already watching her with a look of comprehension in his eyes. Comprehension, and question.

  What now?

  “I come to you tonight for help,” Signor Bruno pleaded.

  “Of course we will help,” Aunt Connie said. “With preparations. Meals. Anything you need. Don’t worry about a thing.”

  “Anything,” Uncle Joe said emphatically.

  “No.” Signor Bruno shook his head and looked straight at Mia. “I come to you for help!”

  “Me?” Mia said, startled.

  “You are a woman of respect, of power,” he insisted. “It is known. The people of the neighborhood, they talk. They know of what befell your brother, how you avenged him so swiftly and mercilessly. They see you talking with Don Masseria. You can help us. Please, will you help me?”

  For an instant, Mia had no idea what to say. She had no idea what help she could offer to either Signor Bruno or to the people of the neighborhood. His daughter was only one victim of the horrible poison that had befallen this community. She wasn’t the first, and she wouldn’t be the last.

  Mia looked down at her tightly balled fists.

  But none of that matters to him. He’s looking for help—from you.

  The same help she had promised to offer him Sunday at church. If you ever need anything, I would consider it a great favor to assist you.

  Those words echoed through her mind. He was calling her to account now in his time of need. He was asking her to make good on those words. And she had only a second to decide. If she refused, she would lose any of the small amount of respect she had gained since coming home—just for avenging her brother. She would be looked at as someone who did not keep her word, who did not repay loyalty shown to her, who was not who she appeared to be.

  That could never happen.

  Don Catalano would never have refused. Nick, certainly, would never have refused.

  And neither could she.

  In the way of her godfather and in the way of her brother, she had to make Signor Bruno’s pain her own. She hadn’t known his daughter. Hadn’t grown up with her, or been girl-chums, or shared confidences.

  But the pain in the man’s eyes touched her. It reminded her of those horrible days when she’d been a child vaudeville performer, witnessing one starlet full of potential after another getting their bright lights dimmed and then snuffed out altogether from the same killer that had taken his daughter.

  Anger lined with sorrow warmed her chest as she lifted her gaze to the hopeful, heartbroken man, and found her entire family staring at her, too.

  “Yes, Signor Bruno,” Mia said, grateful her voice didn’t tremble. “I will help you.”

  Chapter Nine

  The next afternoon, Paolo helped her out of the car after pulling up to the curb in front of the Cotton Club. It was impossible to miss, with its gargantuan sign along the upper façade that would burst into brilliant white lights when nighttime fell.

  At this time of day for a Thursday afternoon, 142nd and Lenox was bustling with people skirting past her on the sidewalk. Mia passed beneath the jutting awning boasting a cheap dinner and no cover charge and walked through the double doors, held open by a doting doorman. She nodded to him and strode into the hall, hardly sparing a glance at the tall columns lining each side underneath the huge, arched ceiling covered with hand-painted murals. Her gaze focused on two men who stood at the back, where her band was set up to rehearse.

  Hyman Goldberg, and an unassuming man of medium build, wearing a plain, dark suit—the bandy-legged Irishman from Leeds, England everyone on the streets called “The Killer.”

  “Ah, here she is,” Hyman said as she walked over to them, holding a hand in her direction.

  Owen “Owney” Madden turned toward her, his boyish face breaking into a polite smile that carried a trace of warmth. He offered his hand, and she took it.

  “Mr. Madden,” she said. “How do you do?”

  “Owney, please. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Miss Scalisi,” he said. His brogue had perhaps been heavy once, but two decades in America had softened it. “I had some dealings with your brother a time or two. Terribly sorry to hear of him.”

  She stretched her lips into a polite smile. “Yes. Thank you.”

  He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I hear you’ll be givin’ me old joint a run for our money. Star entertainment over in Midtown at Goldberg’s new place. You must be thrilled.” His tone was neutral and polite, but a twinkle in his eye told her he understood just how thrilled she might truly be.

  “I am grateful to Mr. Goldberg for the opportunity, indeed,” she replied, feeling Hyman’s penetrative stare upon her.

  Owney studied her for a beat longer, then swept his arm toward the stage. “Aye. Well, it’s all yours. Whenever you’re ready.”

  The pianist, Gene, handed her a sheet of paper with the setlist scrawled down. Mia glanced over it. She’d been given a repertoire of popular songs to familiarize herself with as well as several original songs.

  Gene smiled at her. “We’ll start with a couple you know to get you warmed up.”

  “Sure,” Mia said. “That’ll be swell.”

  They started with “I’m Just Wild About Harry,” then moved onto “I Ain’t Got Nobody” and then “My Man.” She sang tentatively at first, warming up, then let her voice blossom and open up. By the time she finished “My Man,” she was ready for something far more interesting.

  “None of Ms. Smith’s songs are here,” she said to Gene, leaning on the piano.

  “Bessie Smith?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Most of them.” Mia tapped her fingers on the paper. “Let’s do ‘T’ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do.’”

  Gene considered it, then shrugged. “You got it.”

  His nimble fingers plunked out the lazy yet jaunty tune. Mia’s voice skipped through and around the cheeky lyrics, tasting them with relish. The song was one of her favorites—about a woman who did exactly as she pleased in a man’s world and was unapologetic about it. She had alw
ays loved the blues, especially Bessie Smith. Something about the empowered way Ms. Smith put herself out there sang directly to Mia. She would never fully understand what black people experienced in this country, but coming from an immigrant family, she understood what it meant to be treated as a second-class citizen, and she felt Bessie’s mournful lyrics and melodies deep inside her soul. They gave her an outlet for the pain and frustration she’d experienced after the loss of her brother and trying to find success in the dust he’d left behind.

  She shut her eyes and crooned, leaning into the melody and dancing with it and around it, enjoying it. When she finished, she and Gene were both smiling, and Hyman and Owney applauded her.

  A third set of hands from somewhere off to the right also applauded. Mia turned in the direction of the sound.

  “Almost as good as Miz Bessie herself,” the low, velvety voice said, a teasing note laced through it. “Almost.”

  A beautiful, light-brown-skinned woman with extravagantly coiffed hair and dressed in a chic dark-blue dress stepped out of the shadows of one of the columns off to the side and walked toward Mia, one side of her mouth curled into a smile. The stage lights picked out the diamonds in her earlobes, making them shimmer and dance with rainbows.

  Mia felt a matching smile spread across her face. “As I live and breathe,” she said. “Annette Maybelle Elliott.”

  “In the flesh,” Annette said.

  Mia crossed the stage in a few quick strides and tossed her arms around Annette.

  The desire to hug her was an odd one, since they’d never been particularly close, and Annette had come between Nick and Gloria when she’d catted around with him for a while. But Annette had also been brutalized by Kiddo Grainger, the same man who’d pulled the trigger on Nick. Before she’d fled to the South, Annette had been the one to serve up Kiddo to Mia, practically on a silver platter, so she could take her revenge.

  And Mia had taken it—for Nick, and for Annette.

  For a brief moment, she thought of the young woman she’d been, walking up to that abandoned warehouse the night she’d ordered a man’s death for the first time. How far from her she was now.

  And as she pulled back to look into Annette’s warm brown eyes, keeping her arms around the woman’s waist, Mia realized how far they’d both come. Separately, but united in their love for one man and hatred for another.

  The last time she’d seen Annette, she’d been nursing a horrific gash across her face, along with lumps and bruises—all courtesy of Kiddo. She’d been convinced her days in showbusiness were over. Looking at her now, all Mia could see was a faint line running across the smooth brown skin and over her full red lips. It was there, but hardly noticeable. Mia had seen it immediately only because she’d been looking for it.

  “You look swell,” she said softly, touching the end of the scar at Annette’s chin.

  Annette smirked. “I look like I got my face scarred. But it healed better than I thought it would.”

  “What’re you doing in New York? You didn’t want to stay in the South?”

  The other woman shook her head. “I spent a good, long time there with my family and my son. But we can’t live there. White people don’t want us to have nothing—no jobs, no rights, not even our lives. My own cousin got lynched last year because a white woman said he looked at her wrong. Folks down there seem like they forget they lost the war.”

  Mia’s spirit drooped. “Jesus Christ. Annie, I’m sorry.”

  Annette’s jaw tightened as she released a sharp breath through her nose. “So I couldn’t raise my boy there. I’ll be damned if I lose my son that way. So once my face healed, I thought maybe I might still have a chance in a chorus line. I packed up my boy and came up here nigh on six months ago and got real lucky. The Cotton Club is the hottest joint on the East Coast.”

  “Did you know someone here?” Mia asked.

  “Well, yes. I did have an acquaintance up here who helped me get the job. I believe you know him.”

  Mia tilted her head. “Who?”

  Her gaze shifted somewhere over Mia’s shoulder, and she flicked her chin. “That man behind you.”

  Confused, Mia glanced in the direction Annette indicated. Strolling through the back of the club toward Hyman and Owney was a tall, dark-skinned, elegantly dressed man she recognized instantly.

  She turned back to Annette, brows lifted. “Wolfy Harold?”

  He’d been an ally of hers, had helped her find Vinnie Fiore in exchange for Kiddo Grainger. He’d been Kiddo’s boss, and had been planning to off the man himself before Mia had gotten hold of him. He’d considered that a favor done him.

  Annette lowered her lashes. “Yeah. Wolfy.”

  “Wolfy…and…you?”

  Annette’s face remained impassive.

  “Are you…happy?” Mia asked softly.

  “I’m comfortable,” Annette said with soft pointedness. “And so is my son. And that makes me happy. Wolfy, he ain’t perfect. But he treat me good. Real good. He’s real…kind.”

  That lightened Mia’s heart. Annette might not be in love, but she was safe. “And Owney?”

  “Mr. Madden, he a good boss, all things considered. He can be sweet. But oh, so vicious.”

  “Guess they call him ‘The Killer’ for a reason.”

  “They do. But he ain’t nothin’ like Mr. Bellomo.” Her serious gaze turned knowing. “Speakin’ of. Heard he met with some misfortune the day he got acquitted for murder.”

  Mia met Annette’s eyes.

  “I know it was you,” Annette whispered, her hands resting on Mia’s upper arms and tightening. “And I’m glad.”

  She’d spent so much of her time trying not to think about Sal. About what he’d done. About what she’d done to him. She ran from the memories and her thoughts and the picture of his face her brain liked to shove in front of her, because she could escape none of it at night when she slept. Hearing his name would make a wave of hot sludge roll through her gut and burble up into her chest.

  But now, hearing Annette’s whispered words, seeing the intensity in her eyes, feeling the grip of her hands… It was a strange thing to feel proud of ordering a man’s death—of committing murder—but Mia’s heart bloomed with warmth, anyway.

  If anyone understood, Annette did.

  “You ladies know each other?”

  Mia turned. Owney stood behind them, his head tilted and arms folded.

  “Yes, Mr. Madden,” Annette said. “Miss Scalisi and I worked together in Chicago, when she headlined the Stems Supper Club.”

  Owney regarded Mia with a smirk, the twinkle in his eyes returning. “Yeah. Sal Bellomo’s old place. Sad thing that happened to him, wasn’t it?”

  “Downright tragic,” Annette said smoothly with practiced sadness. “Working for him was almost good as working for you, Mr. Madden.”

  Owney smiled and made a humbly dismissive gesture. “Shucks. With talent good as you, ’tis an easy club to run.” He checked his pocket watch. “But you’d best prepare yourself for rehearsal, dearie. You two ladies can catch up later.”

  The words were said with kind deference, but Mia recognized the underlying steel in his voice—there was no room for negotiation. And though she did not work for Owney Madden, Annette did, and Mia wasn’t about to cause her strife.

  “You sounded real good,” Annette said with a smile as she stepped away. “Hope to catch you some night.”

  “You’re welcome anytime,” Mia replied. “Whenever you get a night off, let me know.”

  Annette gave her a little wave, then turned and headed backstage.

  Hyman, Owney, and Wolfy stood beside a table, chatting quietly. Mia strolled over to them.

  Wolfy caught sight of her and flashed the famous grin that had given him his moniker. “Well, well. The rumors was true. The lady’s back in town.”

  Mia gave him a one-sided smile. “Miss me?”

  “Shoot, sure did. Left me dealing with this knucklehead.” He gestured toward Hy
man, who rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “I been filling my speaks with some of your fine booze. Kids go wild for it. You getting back into the racket?”

  “Oh,” she said loftily, “where I’m needed, when I’m needed.”

  “Mia’s hands are full with other endeavors these days,” Hyman said, then held a hand out toward the stage she’d just vacated. “Such as this.”

  “Yeah, you sounded real good,” Wolfy said. “Y’ain’t no Bessie Smith no way, but you ain’t bad.”

  Mia tipped her head back and burst out laughing. “Gee, thanks, Mr. Harold. You’re a real charmer.”

  “Your friend seem to think so,” he said, giving her another roguish grin and a wink.

  Mia gave him a serious look. “Keep her happy and smiling, all right, Wolfy? She deserves that.”

  “And a whole lot more,” he said, and the sincerity in his voice filled her with relief. Annette might not be in love with him, but it was clear he was head over heels for her.

  “So?” she said to Hyman. “What did you think?”

  “You sounded swell,” Owney said.

  “Very good,” Hyman said with a crisp nod. “Keep it up.”

  The praise took her by surprise, but she was pleased. She’d been expecting a thorough critique of how she might have performed better.

  A waiter came by with a drink on a tray. He offered it to Wolfy, who nodded his thanks and took a sip. Then he spluttered and coughed, his face screwed up in severe distaste.

  “My God, man,” Owney exclaimed. “What devils you?”

  “The shit in the glass!” Wolfy replied, slamming the glass on the table. Liquor sloshed over the sides. “What the hell I look like, Owney? Some broke motherfucker in off the street who can’t afford the booze?”

  “Afford it,” Owney said, glancing at Hyman and chuckling. “You freeloading son of a bitch never pay a penny in this place.”

  “Exactly,” Wolfy said sternly. “I’ve invested a lotta money in this joint. I supplied a lot of the talent, including my gal. And this what you serve me?”

  “What is the problem?” Hyman asked mildly.

  “Ain’t no problem,” Owney protested. “It’s liquor, through and through. A fresh shipment I got t’other night.”