Dollface: A Novel of the Roaring Twenties (20 page)

THE HANDSHAKE AND THE SIN CAKE

I
t was the tenth of November. I was in my eighth month, sitting comfortably in the front parlor, when I heard a car door slam. Parting the drapes of the bay window, I saw Izzy coming up the walkway. He’d left the gate open behind him. It was eleven o’clock in the morning. Shep wasn’t even awake yet. What was he doing here? My old fears began to surface. He was coming to tell Shep about Tony and me. That was the thing about a guilty conscience: It always expects the worst.

I waited for Izzy to knock or ring the bell, and after a few moments, I got up and opened the front door. Izzy stood on the threshold looking confused, as if he couldn’t remember why he was there.

“Izzy?”

The blank expression on his face didn’t change.

“Izzy, are you okay?” Whatever it was, I knew it wasn’t about me and Tony.

He was pale and his eyes looked sunken.

“What’s wrong?” I reached for his arm, trying to coax him inside.

“Get Shep for me, will ya,” he said, stepping into the foyer but not bothering to close the door behind him. The cold winter chill rushed inside, skirting about my legs.

I went upstairs and woke Shep and by the time I came back downstairs, Izzy had fixed himself a drink. A few moments later, Shep came downstairs with his bathrobe flapping open, his dark hair rumpled.

“What’s going on, Iz?” he asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“It’s Dion,” Izzy said, staring into his drink, shaking his head, a deep line furrowed along his brow.

“Dion? What happened?” Suddenly Shep was wide awake.

Izzy glanced up, his lids heavy and dark. “They got him, Shep. They shot him. Dion’s dead.”

I let out a gasp as Shep’s legs gave way. He practically collapsed, but Izzy dropped his glass, stepped in and held him up.

“No! No! Not Dion! Jesus Christ. No!” Shep squeezed his eyes shut and grabbed onto his hair, tugging so hard his fingers turned white. His face was racked with anguish. It was the first time I’d ever seen him cry.

I knew then that we’d crossed a line that Shep wasn’t prepared for. Even before I understood the ramifications of Dion’s death, I had a sense that everything had just come unhinged and I was frightened down to my bones.

•   •   •

I
was too young to remember my father’s murder, but what happened to Dion left me numb. Maybe I was reliving my past. All I knew was that the cold, heartless act of murder was beyond my comprehension. Anyone, anywhere could be taken from you. It would have been better if I could have cried, gotten it out of my system, but the fear was lodged so deep within me, I couldn’t bring it to the surface.

I didn’t find out what had happened to Dion until later that night. Basha had telephoned me after she’d gone to see Viola and told me to come over. “The guys are going to be out all night looking for Capone. No reason why we gals should be all alone worrying. I just called Dora. She’s calling Evelyn now.”

I was the first to arrive. Basha opened the door with a martini in one hand, a cigarette propped between her lips. She sauntered into her living room in her stocking feet.

“How’s Viola?” I asked, unbuttoning my coat. I felt like it was ready to burst open, the buttons were straining so against my belly.

“She’s a mess. Just destroyed. Help yourself,” she said, pointing to the bottle of gin and a bucket of ice as she wandered over to the settee. “I’m almost out of vermouth, but at least there’s plenty of olives.”

I went and sat beside her.

“You don’t want a drink?”

“Just tell me what happened.”

“It’s pretty much because Mike Merlo died,” she said, shaking out her bracelets.

“Who’s Mike Merlo?”

“He was a big to-do with the American Italians. He just passed away two days ago. Cancer.” She shrugged and took a long sip from her martini. “Supposedly Merlo was the only one who’s been able to keep Capone in line. Rumor has it that Capone blamed Dion for the Sieben Brewery raid—remember? That was what landed Johnny Torrio in the slammer. Anyway, Merlo told Capone to take the high road, but as soon as Merlo was gone, Capone was set loose.”

“So Capone did it?” I asked.

“They’re saying he hired Frankie Yale—some big-time New York gangster—to come into town and take care of Dion.” She paused for another sip and danced her olive through her martini. “Apparently right after Merlo died, Capone sent Frankie Yale and another guy over to Schofield’s to order flowers for the Merlo funeral.”

“Why would Capone get his flowers at Schofield’s?”

“You gotta understand how it works,” Basha said, taking a puff off her cigarette. Her ashes were growing longer and longer, but she didn’t seem to notice. “If you’re a gangster and you need funeral flowers, there’s only one place to go in Chicago. And that’s Schofield’s. Doesn’t matter if you’re a South Sider or a North Sider. Doesn’t even matter if you’re the one who whacked the guy.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Doesn’t have to make sense. Gangsters have a way of doing things. Especially when it comes to whacking someone.” Basha dropped her cigarette ash on her settee cushion. She looked at it lying there and just went on talking. “So like I was saying, everyone went to Dion for funeral flowers, and Schofield’s was working ’round the clock to fill all the orders for Merlo. For the really big orders, like the one Frankie Yale placed, Dion always made up the arrangements himself. He always liked Merlo and Viola said he wanted the flowers to be real nice, see. So this morning Dion goes to mass at Holy Name like he always does, and then goes back to the flower shop to put the finishing touches on the wreath for Merlo. At about ten o’clock this morning Frankie Yale and two other greaseballs go into Schofield’s. Dion—you know how friendly he always was—went over to welcome Frankie Yale. He holds out his hand and that’s when Yale grabbed him and held him in place. Dion didn’t have a chance. They put six rounds in him.” She looked at her martini glass and popped the olive in her mouth.

Basha was so icy cold in her delivery, like she was talking about a stranger, not Dion.

Does she not feel anything? At all?

I got up and fixed myself a drink.

•   •   •

D
ion O’Banion’s wake was a two-day citywide event. Reporters hovered outside Sbarbaro’s Funeral Chapel in the chilling wind and rain, hoping for a comment or photograph. They hounded Shep when we arrived at the chapel that morning, practically chasing us up the front stairs. Aside from the first few rows of pews reserved for family and close friends, all the chairs were taken, leaving lines of people standing in front of the stained-glass windows along the back wall and out in the hallway. Everyone came to pay their last respects: union leaders, city clerks, aldermen, judges and cops. I glanced about the room: ministers and churchgoers sitting side by side with bootleggers, gangsters and hit men. It was a strange ensemble of mourners, and I wasn’t sure if I was in the safest place in the city or the most dangerous.

It was all over the newspapers that Viola O’Banion had spent ten thousand dollars for Dion’s casket. Some said it was nicer than most automobiles. Nicer than some homes. I didn’t doubt it. That casket was made of solid silver and bronze, lined in white satin, with fourteen-karat-gold handles.

I’d never seen an open casket before and my first glimpse of Dion frightened me, sending a chill down my body. I turned away and nearly gasped. But then, when I looked back, when I really looked at him, I saw something I wasn’t expecting. If ever I believed in a soul or an afterlife, it was in that moment. Dion looked like a wax figure, and all his life force, that jovial, dynamic spirit that defined him, had left his body. It wasn’t Dion lying there; it was just a corpse.

The shell of him was laid out inside the coffin, dressed in a beautiful black three-piece suit, a silk necktie, and a rosary in his breast pocket. Next to that, resting on his chest, was an odd-looking cake the size of a silver dollar.

“What is that?” I whispered to Basha as we stood side by side in front of the casket.

“Some Irish tradition,” she whispered back. “From the old country. I think they call it a sin cake. They say whoever eats it takes on the dead man’s sins, so that way he can go to heaven with a clean slate.” She sighed and shook her head. “He sure was a walking contradiction, wasn’t he?”

I nodded. Dion O’Banion was a bootlegger who didn’t drink, a devout Catholic who as a child had been an altar boy by day and a petty thief by night. . . .

“How many men you know who carry two short-barreled Bolos, a revolver
and
a rosary?” Basha smiled as if she’d always admired him for that. “He really loved the Church. And God, too.” She ran her tongue across her front teeth and made a sucking sound. “You know that’s why he never got into the whole cathouse racket. He thought prostitution was immoral. God wouldn’t have approved.”

“Apparently he didn’t worry what God thought about murder. All the newspapers said he killed more than sixty men.”

“Aw, he probably bumped off more than that. To him that was just business.”

I glanced again at Dion’s casket. I wouldn’t have believed he was capable of murdering even one man if I hadn’t seen what he’d done to Buster that night.

And then there were his flowers. Everywhere I looked I saw carnations, lilies, tulips and American Beauties, all of them in huge arrangements, oversize bouquets, baskets and gigantic wreaths with satin ribbons and glittery bows. The room had that waxy, mossy smell, just like Schofield’s.

“Don’t you think some of these flowers are a bit garish?”

“Nah,” said Basha. “Not for Dion O’Banion. And I’ll tell you, Squeak ain’t impressed with the arrangement from Capone. He says it’s too chintzy.”

“I’m surprised Capone sent flowers in the first place.”

“Ah, that’s just the gangster way. First they kill you, then they send you flowers.”

•   •   •

W
e’d been at the wake all day and my lower back was sore, my feet swollen. The baby was restless that day and I rubbed my stomach in big lazy circles until it found a place and settled. Wearing the only black maternity dress I could fit into, I felt like a whale sitting next to Evelyn. How was I going to handle another month of this?

I glanced over at Evelyn with her stylish hairdo, dressed in a smart tailored dark suit and a fur stole. She’d never looked better. In what came as a shock to us all, Evelyn had finally managed to rope in Izzy. They were playing house, and according to Evelyn, he was being a good boy. You had to hand it to her: She’d hung in there and put up with more baloney than any woman I knew, and in the end, she got her man. And at least she was able to quit her typewriter job. I was beginning to think I’d underestimated Izzy. Ever since he’d taken those slugs to his gut, he appeared to be a changed man. As long as he was good to Evelyn I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

When the service began the priest called Shep to the podium to give the first of what turned out to be a series of eulogies and memorials.

Shep gripped the sides of the stand and took a moment to collect himself before he began speaking. “Dion practically raised me,” he said. “He was like a brother to me. Deanie taught me everything. He appreciated art and music, especially opera. He always believed in surrounding yourself with good books. He taught me the important things—that you always open a door for a lady, you always shake a gentleman’s hand.” He paused for a moment, his eyes filling with tears; I knew he was remembering that it was the handshake that had done Dion in. He covered his eyes and took another moment. “I loved Dion. He was my family and he will be missed.” He took his hand away as tears slid down his face.

Then Shep walked over to the casket and picked up the piece of cake resting on Dion’s chest. A lump collected in my throat. I didn’t know if I believed in the notion of sin cakes or not, but I looked at that cake in Shep’s hand and I felt afraid for him.
Don’t do it, Shep!

“And so, Deanie,” he said, raising the cake to his mouth, “this I do for you. May you rest in peace. May God bless and keep you.” Shep bit into the sin cake and tainted his soul.

•   •   •

I
t was late, going on midnight, and most of the visitors had already left the funeral home. Drucci and Cecilia had taken Viola home hours before, and so there was just a handful of us left when Al Capone showed up.

Dressed in a pale yellow overcoat and bold matching necktie, he waltzed in accompanied by a short, stocky man with a pockmarked face. As soon as I saw the sapphire pinkie ring and the stub of a cigar in his hand, my blood went cold. He was the cigar man, the one who’d asked me about Tony the day he’d run out on me at the Hotel Twenty-nine. I lowered my head and held my breath, trying to be invisible. I hadn’t been showing when that man saw me last. Now I was fat and hardly recognized myself so there was a chance that he wouldn’t recognize me, either. But still, my palms were damp, my throat was dry.

Shep and Hymie stopped Capone and the cigar man just inside the doorway. “You got some nerve showing up here.”

“Well”—Capone motioned toward Dion’s casket—“I had to come by and make sure he’s not still breathing.”

Hymie lunged forward but Shep stopped him. “Not here,” Shep said, keeping his eyes on Capone. “Not now.”

I buried my face inside my pocketbook and waited it out with my pulse ready to jump out of my skin. As soon as Capone finished viewing the body, Hymie and Shep escorted him and the cigar man out of the funeral parlor.

“What was he doing here?” Evelyn asked.

“Oh, I’m not surprised,” said Basha, toying with her bracelets. “You wait and see, all those South Siders’ll be at the funeral Friday.”

“Even though they killed him?”

Dora nodded. “Makes no sense, but they think it’s an act of respect. Go figure.”

When Hymie and Shep came inside, the men huddled together in the back of the room. We girls were standing well within earshot but for once the men didn’t seem to care.

Hymie lit a cigarette and exhaled two thick streams of smoke from his nose. “The day those greaseballs
went into Schofield’s to whack Deanie,” he said, picking a fleck of tobacco off his tongue, “was the day Capone gave himself a death sentence.”