Ralph brushed off rogue droplets of gin from his jacket and released a deep belly laugh. Norma didn’t know what to do next. A train going a hundred miles an hour was no match for how fast his temper changed.
Did Ralph still expect to have a kiss for the mint julep? Didn’t he already steal a kiss? Isn’t that what started this big fat mess? She shuddered.
“Now where is that kiss?” Ralph confirmed her suspicion and grabbed her shoulders, pulling her closer. His lips puckered and her heart quickened, not in a good way.
Henry Chapel approached as if he were chasing a taxicab. His face was twisted up and brooding. But still insanely gorgeous. Could he ever be anything but that? Something gleamed in his determined eyes. Concern? Anger? Norma couldn’t be sure under the dimmed lighting.
No time to assess what Mr. Chapel’s eyes meant while she was in Ralph’s dangerous grip.
“Miss Hill?” Henry closed in, legs planted firm and wide, his date followed close behind. The blonde held on to her cigarette for dear life, clearly not happy her handsome date came to another woman’s rescue.
Mr. Chapel’s eyes clouded over as he drew in the sight. His gaze locked on Ralph’s fingers, and his jaw clenched more the longer he studied the assaulting fingers on her shoulders.
“Miss Hill, is this gentleman bothering you?” His tone deflected what brewed underneath.
She’d heard that tone before, and it usually was the start of a bad conversation.
Licking her dry lips, she attempted to say something, not just sit there like an idiot. But again, her voice gave way to an even faster heartbeat.
Ralph didn’t lose his senses. His vein reappeared with a vengeance when he caught an eye-full of his perceived competition.
Still, Ralph didn’t release his hold, even with Mr. Chapel’s loaded question.
Mr. Chapel remained polite and waited for an answer before he dared to plant a firm, large hand on Ralph’s broad shoulder. He asked again, “Norma, is this man bothering you?”
The room spun, and for once she was reduced to a silly girl with nothing to say. Nausea overcame her—not the first time she wanted to vomit around Mr. Chapel.
“Uh...” She couldn’t scrape up the right words. Her gaze lifted to his very green stare.
“What’s it to you, sir?” Ralph shoved off the intrusive hand with a sharp shoulder movement.
Mr. Chapel retracted his hand at the gesture, though he didn’t seem bothered by Ralph’s growing fury.
“Miss Hill is my employee, and I want to be sure she’s not...distressed.” Henry stepped toward Ralph. His ability to look determined increased by a thousand fold.
Norma hadn’t seen him look that intense, and she was the best candidate to decipher his levels of anger. But somewhere in the chaos, the realization hit her like a bullet from a Tommy gun. He was rescuing her!
“I don’t think you need to worry about Miss Hill,” Ralph snapped. Other veins popped up on his neck and hands.
“I think you need to let her go,” Henry threatened.
“Are you going to make me?”
“I think I might.” Henry still sounded like a gentleman.
“Please stop!” Norma had found the strength to jump to her feet, breaking away from Ralph’s hold.
He jumped up as well.
She stood between the two men as they stared daggers into each other—good thing a stare couldn’t cut the skin or else it would look like a mob hit. A small crowd had formed around them at that point; however, the band played on while most patrons strained to hear the debacle over the music.
“Let’s be civil about this,” Norma finally said when the men refused to let up. Their eyes had already gone ten rounds—neither was giving up.
“You’re right, sweet lips. Let’s go; we have to square up.” Ralph tossed a smirk to Mr. Chapel.
Square up?
Lust colored Ralph’s eyes, his rage long forgotten. What did he have in mind? Something told her she now owed him more than just a kiss. He grabbed her around the waist, hands softer and coaxing like he was putting on a show. She didn’t budge.
“I don’t want to go with you!” Her head pounded with the cry of the brass section, and the toxicity of the mint julep finally hit her hard.
“Doll…” Ralph cajoled her. His saccharine voice was loaded with promises he intended to keep.
She still didn’t move.
“You and I had a deal.” The timbre in his voice changed once again. One second angry, next second charming, the man was dangerous.
“I’ll stay with Mr. Chapel,” she concluded, not truly realizing what she said or the implications of what those words meant.
“You jest! You’re not going to stay with this pansy paper man.” Ralph spit, stepping back from Norma. His eyes narrowed and shifted to Mr. Chapel. “Yeah, I know who you are, Chapel.”
When she couldn’t be persuaded by his less-than-honorable words, Ralph looked at Mr. Chapel. He threw his head back, laughter from the pit of his belly billowing over the orchestra music. He laughed as if her resistance to him was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.
“You missed out, doll.” His words were less than gracious. And even worse, he gave her the up-down with the full intention of insulting her.
Ralph didn’t take another look at Henry, who had crossed his arms and had the faintest glint of victory in his narrowed eyes. Ralph pivoted on his fancy Italian shoes and walked with innate finesse through the crowd—a loss to the paper man didn’t steal his swagger. Following close at his heels was the driver in the dark suit.
Norma hadn’t seen him since the ride to the Jazzy Cat. He must have been lurking in a dark corner until his master was ready to leave. What perfect timing.
Moments passed, and she didn’t dare look at Mr. Chapel or his blonde lady friend. One thing was for sure. The blonde definitely wasn’t happy about the turn of events. Especially since she was practically invisible throughout the fiasco—she may as well have danced a couple songs of the Charleston. Norma didn’t intend to ruin Mr. Chapel’s date, but she also certainly didn’t want to see what Ralph had in store for her.
“I don’t know where to begin.” Mr. Chapel raked a
hand through his sleek ebony hair.
“I was brought here by a friend,” Norma explained, careful not to mention Ingrid. She didn’t want to soil her name or worse, get her fired.
“I figured as much.” He rolled his eyes. “I doubt you have it in you to come to a place like this on your own.”
If Ralph didn’t insult her with his once over, Mr. Chapel did a bang-up job bringing her simmering blood to a full boil. She was certifiably insulted. Was he suggesting she couldn’t take care of herself? Most likely, he was suggesting she was a bore and didn’t know how to have fun. The blonde snickered at his comment.
“Excuse me, Chapel,” Norma snapped. She’d never just used his last name before and should have been a little scared, but the adrenaline kept her bold and barreling forward. “I’ll have you know that I do frequent speakeasies, and I am not a stranger to petting parties!” she shouted over the orchestra.
It would have taken a lot more than a juvenile tantrum for that to be true. Truth was she’d only been to a speakeasy once and had never been to a petting party. Her kissing experience consisted of one man, Jerrod Banks, a former Chicago Daily reporter, who was just as inexperienced as she was. His kisses didn’t nearly have the lightning bolt affect that Henry Chapel’s touch gave her.
“Is that so, Miss Hill? Then why did I have to save you from being mauled by that sap?” His lips pressed together; clearly he didn’t buy any of her lies.
“You are pompous, aren’t you, Mr. Chapel? You didn’t save me. I could’ve taken care of it.” Every part of her face radiated heat; even her ears were on fire. How was this man able to get under her skin like no other, and why did he always look at her mouth that way?
“Then why didn’t you go home with that brute?”
She didn’t
know how to respond. They stared deeply in each other’s eyes, neither of them blinking.
Norma’s hands pressed against her slender hips again, as they always seem to when he was around, and her heart raced a million miles a minute. In all honesty, he did save her from Ralph, but she wouldn’t admit to that. “Maybe I was going home with him, but that, sir, is none of your affair!” She looked for the nearest exit. “I,” she began with one last piercing look at him, “am going home...alone.”
Worse exit statement ever said.
Not only did she lie about going home with Ralph, but she admitted she was going home alone, which proved Mr. Chapel’s point. She was indeed a prude and a bore who wouldn’t go to a place like the Jazzy Cat on her own.
A groan escaped her in response to his amused snort, which was full of unspoken judgments. And after feeling so buzzed around him, she needed to put her pride aside and escape while partially on a high note. If possible.
With a snort of her own, she snapped her shoulders back and sliced through the crowd with ease like a knife through a glob of butter, leaving Mr. Chapel to hopefully gape in her wake. Luckily, the spectators of the confrontation had dispersed, and gliding toward the shadowy exit was effortless, which is what she needed—quick, easy.
The alley was dark, and the cold bit at her face in the most painful way. Her arms instantly wrapped around her torso, trying to keep the warmth inside. Chicago’s icy breath had a way of sucking it out of a person. A few loose newspaper pages somersaulted down the alley. The sounds of loose papers seemed eerie and odd because just ten feet away, guys and gals were properly lubricated with gin and clumsily dancing the Charleston inside the bare brick building.
If she could only get her mind wrapped around what had happened. So many emotions bounced through her; she was tortured to say the least. Thoughts of the ridiculous nature formed and quelled quickly in the midst of her tipsy mind. She couldn’t make sense of them. Faint white spots fell behind her closed eyelids like a group of shooting stars exploding across the night sky. She felt woozy. She didn’t drink that much.
A breath of something cryptic whipped around her. Perhaps it was the mint julep doing its worse. The urge to run took precedence, but her legs felt like jelly, and her pinched feet didn’t give much promise to go any real distance. Panic ensued and filled her to the brim. She looked for a place to hide, although she didn’t know exactly what she was hiding from. Some other sense kicked in, telling her things were about to get thick.
Screams pierced her ears as she crouched behind some cardboard boxes away from the flickering street light. In the distance, a dark figure struggled with a woman in full flapper attire. They must have been in the Jazzy Cat, although she didn’t recognize them. Of course, how could she after the debacle with Ralph and Mr. Chapel. The man pulled the redhead by the throat to the side of the alley, suspiciously looking around.
The screams quickly turned into loud toe-curling sobs and muffled words that may have been, stop and help, but they were too low to penetrate the brick building or get the attention of party goers inside the Jazzy Cat. It got her attention though. The long strand of white pearls around the woman’s throat snapped from the force of the strangling and ruptured like hundreds of marbles let loose from a bag.
Norma’s legs turned from jelly to mush. She wanted to help but didn’t know how. She shivered as cold saturated her bones. But fear made the shivering worse. The sound of her teeth chattering boomed between her ears—surprisingly it didn’t get the attention of the assailant. Her hand instinctively went to her mouth to muffle the scream in her throat, and her eyes shut so tightly that they watered. She dipped her head down for a second, still hearing the faint scuffle and then stretched her neck to peer over the large box, hoping she didn’t let her presence be known.
The woman tugged at the man’s wrists, pulling and yanking but unsuccessfully as he strangled her. Kicking her legs didn’t do much either to lessen the iron-clad hold the man had on the poor woman. Her dress hiked up with each kick, a sturdy garter belt exposed on the left thigh. A breast found its way out of the chiffon dress during the struggle as well.
The scuffle seemed to last for ages. It looked like something Norma had seen at Balaban and Katz Chicago Theater for the Shakespeare Week. Was it real or a game? The woman was ruthlessly manhandled and neither laughed. It couldn’t have just been horseplay. Norma had the urge to jump up from behind the boxes. Could she possibly spook off the man? The urge to do so was fleeting. Instead, she ducked down lower behind the cardboard, still knowing she had to do something.
Her heart raced faster every moment until she decided to act. With all the courage she could muster, she rose to numb feet in a wide-legged stance, knees ready to buckle at any moment. Her intention was to yell stop or leave her alone or any coherent statement that escaped her fuzzy mind, but it was too late. She could’ve said anything, but no one was there to hear it. She was completely alone. The redhead and the dark man were gone—like it never happened. She heard only the soft whispers of Chicago breathing in her ears.
Chapter Five
Norma didn’t know how long she stood there, but it seemed like a lifetime. The sky didn’t break light, so it was still night—or very early morning. Her legs quivered as the realization hit her. She’d witnessed an assault and then a very cleaver Houdini disappearing act. She attempted to run back to the Jazzy Cat’s backdoor entrance. Walking in gelatin would have been easier because the sinews in her legs failed to work as they should.
The desolation enveloped her like the wool coat on her back but was much heavier. Silence echoed between her ears, and every few seconds she heard the faint residual screams of the redhead in the dangerously quiet alley; not even sounds of motorcars dashing down the street could be heard. Once her legs gathered strength, she stood before the thick door, trying to remember the secret door knock, knocking anyway when she couldn’t. Broken thoughts swirled through her mind. What should she do first? Find Mr. Chapel? Call the police? No, she couldn’t do that.
The door creaked open, and the same doorman nodded her in. She entered with a quick nod and ran through the squat hallway to where the party was still in full swing. The room spun with laughter—music and madness; it made her dizzy. She could hear cigarettes being puffed, the cubed ice in highball glasses clanking, and the smack of kisses in the petting room nearby. All the same sounds as before, but for some reason they now had a sinister edge.
It didn’t take much time before Mr. Chapel emerged from the crowd—it seemed to part for him. With a tight grip, he grabbed her bicep and swung her around so she could see the anger in his eyes. He definitely wasn’t happy to see her, but she couldn’t be bothered with that.
“What are you doing here?”
“Henry.” Norma lost the formalities. Forgetting herself, she pressed her body against him and collapsed in his arms. “He…hurt…her.”
“What?” Henry held her up like a rag doll. His eyes narrowed with consternation. He shook her lightly when she didn’t answer right away.
“The man...” The warmth of his body pressed out the chill in her bones from the unkind Chicago night. She didn’t think she could ever be warm again.
“Easy, Norma. What man?” His forehead crinkled. She probably wasn’t making any sense. She didn’t make sense to her own ears.
“The man outside. He strangled her…they’re gone...have to call the police.” The words came out in choppy syllables barely above a whisper. It hurt to talk louder than that.
“Are you sure?” Henry shook her a bit. He had to knock some sense into her—she willed him to do it with her eyes.
“Call the police.” She struggled to raise the decibels in her straining vocal cords. The orchestra exploded again into the highest notes of the brass section. She could hardly hear herself think, not that she could think after what she witnessed.
“We can’t call the police.” He glanced around for an audience, though no one seemed interested.
&nb
sp; It was no secret the Jazzy Cat was an illegal establishment hidden behind an innocent storefront. If she called the police, a whole crop of dangerous people wouldn’t take too kindly to the bulls bum-rushing the joint—not that the local police wasn’t on some mobster’s payroll anyway. Either way, Norma didn’t want to be on the explaining end of that conversation.
In one fell swoop, he wrangled both of her wrists in one of his large hands and dragged her toward the exit. He nodded at the doorman who nodded back with a half-smirk curling his lips. What must that doorman think? Mr. Chapel brought in a blonde bombshell and left with a mousy brunette. Norma couldn’t let that bother her. Other things crowded her brain—more pressing things.
Once they stood outside in the thick, icy air, her body went limp again. Taking in the numbing cold that lay like a blanket atop the dark alley, she felt Mr. Chapel’s tight grasp around her shoulders. Catching her again. Protecting her. Again. She inhaled deeply; musty all-male scent enveloped her. All of it was too much to take. Mr. Chapel’s arms. The screams of the redhead. She was on sensation overload and couldn’t handle it. When did she become such a damsel in distress? Her knees weakened further, and his arms tightened around her.
“Where?” He looked in all directions. “Where is this man?”
She didn’t like the way he said this man.
“Over there.” Getting the words out took more energy than she had to give, though somehow she managed to lift her jelly arm and point toward the end of the alley near the turned over tin cans.
Nothing was there. Her heavy lids closed and opened, still nothing. Gliding blurry eyes over the alley once more, she searched for signs of the scuffle and still saw nothing. No evidence to suggest any sort of foul play. The flipped tin cans rolled on their sides, tossed about by the cold wind that blew through at times, usually bringing speckles of ice with it. No shreds of clothing—not a shoe, a headband, and not even a cigarette holder. No blood staining the frozen ground or foot prints stamped in the mud and snow.
She frowned, not daring to make eye contact with Mr. Chapel. His breath grew choppier as he turned his head and scanned the alley. Groaning, she couldn’t have felt loonier than if Freud himself hung a board on her chest that said You’re A Nut Case. Her head still pounded—a consequence of drinking the mint julep. She must have been doing it wrong. Where was the feeling of freedom and courage? Where was the release of inhibition? What about the heightened sense of pleasure? Yes, she definitely was drinking wrong.
Love Easy Page 5