Yesterday's Stardust (6 page)

Vito met her in the parking lot on Thursday afternoon, Agatha’s keys in hand.

“She’s purring like a spoiled baby.”

Dani gave him his keys. “Thank you, Vito.” She kissed his cheek. “You’re my angel.” She pulled her checkbook out of her purse.

“Angels don’t come in packages like this one. Put that away. You want to pay me, come have supper at my house.”

“How does your wife fixing supper for me make us even?”

“It makes her happy. And when Mama’s happy…” Dark eyes sparkled.

“Everybody’s happy.” She laughed. “Fine. But I’m doing dishes.” “Deal. Monday night, six o’clock. She’s got the menu figured out already.”

Monday? Not Saturday? Or Sunday? She didn’t question, just thanked him and got in her rusty oven of a car. “Glad to have you back, Aggie.”

“You don’t have to do this.”
Ignoring the little voice in her head that sounded like Evan, she drove to the neighborhood where seven was not, as described in the Bible, a perfect number.

She parked in the alley several doors down from the apartment where Miguel had put a bullet in his head. The place where her story would begin. She’d follow the ripples, the concentric circles lapping out from the house on the corner.

In a skirt and blouse, with sunglasses on and hair down, no one who’d seen her on Tuesday would recognize her. She stashed her wallet in the glove compartment and locked it. Taking only her phone and keys, she got out and walked past the back of the shabby gray house on the corner.

The mound of trash had doubled in size. Clear garbage bags full of canned and boxed food teetered on boxes of clothes, an old dresser, chair and—her stomach lurched. The stained pillow sat between a smashed television and a stuffed yellow rabbit holding a felt carrot.

Eyes focused on the gravel beneath her feet, she turned right and let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. As she walked toward the corner, pulse tripping, she pulled out her phone and punched a listing she’d called at least a dozen times in forty-eight hours.
Answer, China. Answer.

“The number you have dialed is unavailable.”

Suddenly not wanting to feel so alone, she punched Anna’s number.

“Hi! This is Anna’s phone. Leave a message because, whoever you are, if you have this number, you’re im—” Dani pushed the red button. What good was a girlfriend if she spent all her time with her boyfriend?

Three doors down, two long-legged boys of fifteen or so sat on a front porch.
Hi guys. Name’s Dani. I work for the
Times.
Either of you know Miguel Reyes? How has his death affected you? Does it make you appreciate each day? Make you want to change the way your life is going? Does it scare you to think how quickly his life was snuffed—

One of the boys waved. “Nice skirt. Nice…”

She quickened her steps, pretending not to hear his assessment of her body parts. Not the place, nor the outfit, to start interviewing.

A woman on a ladder, paint can in hand, nodded to her.

Dani waved. “Nice color.” Her face pinked.
The house trim, not you. Please don’t take that wrong.

“Thanks.” The woman did a double take. Or was it her imagination? Did a pale blond seem as out of place here to anyone but her?

As if in answer, two girls in short shorts giggled past, arms and legs as white as hers. Except for the tattoos.

“Nice shoes,” one whispered. The other giggled.

If she had any hopes of mingling, it wasn’t going to happen in stilettos.

On the opposite side of the street, the Italian restaurant anchored the far corner of the block. Without a single explanation in her head, she crossed the street. She passed three houses in various shades of white and disrepair and then an old two-story building with two wide garage doors. A grassy area, maybe twenty feet wide, stretched between the building and Bracciano. Green space. Did neighborhood kids flock there to play kick ball? Would his highness, King of the Universe, allow it so close to his kingdom?

A bell chimed. She looked up and blinked twice as the king himself stepped onto the sidewalk with a white-haired couple. The couple kept walking. Dominick turned.

Shiny black hair drifted over one eye. He shook it away. One hand landed on narrow hips, displaying tanned muscles under a tight white T-shirt. A white apron, folded in half, wrapped his waist and hung at an angle. Dark eyes squinted. He nodded and held the door open. “Coming in?” His strained tone might almost be called civil.

“No. Just out walking. Thank you.”

Eyebrows rose. His head tilted to one side. “Seriously?” He said it with as much disdain as could be squeezed into four syllables. “You really don’t get it, do you?”

Fingers choking her phone, Dani folded her arms across her blouse. “It’s the middle of the afternoon, and it’s a free country.”

He took a step toward her. “Really?” He swept his arm toward the restaurant. “Notice anything unusual? Do you see bars on the windows at Mangia or Ray Radigan’s? It may be a free country, sister, but there isn’t a lot of freedom in this neighborhood. I can point out two drug houses on this block alone. You think their customers feel free? You think…”

Dani’s temperature rose with each word. Spinning away from him, she marched two yards. And slammed her heel into an iron grate. Swooping forward, nose to outstretched knee, her hands hit the sidewalk, stopping her momentum. Before she could right herself, Dominick Fiorini knelt at her feet.

“Are you all right?” Genuine, or deftly faked, concern drenched his words. Dark chocolate eyes intensified the heat on her face.

He smelled of warm bread and sandalwood.

Broad hands lifted her foot from her shoe and yanked at her stiletto. Freeing it, he slid it onto her foot. “There you go, Cinderella.”

Swallowing wasn’t an option. Her tongue fused to the roof of her mouth.

“Now go home and stay safe.” His soft words slid over her like butter on fresh-baked rolls.

She nodded and turned away. Five steps toward the corner, her tongue loosened enough for a hoarse “Thank you.”

A yellow-tinged newspaper clipping floated out of the diary as Dani set it on her kitchen table.

July 29, 1928

Two A
RMED
M
EN
S
HOT IN
J
EWELRY
S
TORE
H
OLDUP

She picked it up and read the lead.

Now that was good journalism. She’d love to see the look on Mitch’s face if she worked the word
absconded
into a piece. She set the clipping aside, took a sip of Tazo Calm tea, and reread the inscription inside the cover. On the opposite page, perfect penmanship spelled out
Francie Tillman, Osseo, Wisconsin.

She turned to the first entry.

“Who are you, Francie Tillman?” A quick calculation told her there wasn’t a chance she’d still be alive. Turning the book over, she opened it from the back. Just to look at the final date. She didn’t want any more of a spoiler than that. On the inside back cover was a sepia-toned picture of a young woman with a brimless hat pulled low over her forehead. A sash, darker than the hat, was tied on the right with a massive bow.

“Love your style, girl. You were lucky. Fashion got off track in the fifties and never recovered.” Had Francie lived through any of that fashion nightmare era? Dani set the book down and got up to fill the tea kettle. While waiting for it to boil, she remembered a call she’d ignored earlier. She took a deep breath and listened to her voicemail.

“Glad you liked the flowers, honey. Dad and I are so proud of you. Soon you’ll be writing for the
Sun Times
or the
New York Times.
This is just the beginning. Love you.”

Rubbing her right temple with one hand, she dialed her best friend with the other.

“Hi! This is Anna’s phone. Leave a message because, whoever you are, if you have this number, you’re important to me.”
Beeep.

The second number got her a real human. “Hey, you okay?” Once again, Evan’s concern brought her close to tears. “Any word from China?”

“Nothing.”

“Just as well, maybe. So how are you doing with the fame and fortune side of your life, Miss Chase Award? Feet on the ground yet?”

A flash of her three-point landing, butt in the air, hands on the ground, with Dominick Fiorini kneeling at her feet, started a hard-to-squelch giggle. “No more head in the clouds. Just listened to a message from my mom.”

“Always good for a reality check.”

Resting bare feet on the coffee table, Dani settled back on a giant black couch pillow. “I’ll be a nothing until I write for the
New York Times.”

“Keep strivin’.”

She sat up and plucked an olive from what was left of her supper salad and stuck it in her cheek like a piece of hard candy. “I called to get… What’s the opposite of a reality check?”

“A lie.”

“Yeah, that’s it.” She chewed the olive.

“No prob. You’re an average writer, a mediocre dresser; you’ll never be really successful, but you’ll be relatively happy; you drive like a girl, but you’re supposed to. People don’t mind inviting you to par—”

“Stop!” The olive lodged halfway to her esophagus. She hacked it up. “I said lie to me!”

“I did. You are a seriously brilliant chick, and if I wasn’t just swamped with girls my own age wanting to date me, I’d fall head over heels for your brain.”

“Just my brain? Don’t answer that.” She picked up the diary. “I found something. In the trash behind China’s apartment.”

“Perfect place to get story material. And rats.”

“Thank you for that picture. Now shut up and listen to this.” She told him about the book.

“Wonder how it got here from up north. What’s the date of the last entry?”

“September 14, 1928. I didn’t read it, but she stopped in the middle of a sentence. How mysterious is that?”

“Read me something.”

“Here’s January 2, 1924: ’Mrs. Johnson gave us her Marshall Field’s catalogue. All the models look like Suze, at least the way I remember her. If I only drank water for a month and did calisthenics all day long, I could never look like her. It’s not fair, but doesn’t stop me from working on it. Maybe someday styles will change again and curvy girls will be the bee’s knees.’”

“Hmm. She’s a workout freak like you. That really could be story material—how ‘what a girl wants’ hasn’t changed all that much in a hundred years.”

She sat up straight, nerves tuned to the low hum of adrenaline racing to ignite with an idea spark. “You could be right.”

“I am, generally. Hey, the guys are coming for study in a few minutes.”

“Okay. See you Saturday? You’re going to the funeral with me, right?”

“Unless some big story breaks, I’ll be there. Against my better judgment.”

“I don’t need your better judgment. Just your camera.” The teakettle whistled and she lunged to stop the noise. “I don’t want to go alone.”

“I’m amazed you’re going at all. You’re the bee’s knees, girl.”

September 15, 1924

Francie spit out a word forbidden by Miss Ellestad and threw her empty syrup pail at the ground. “One more month. Just one more month.” Four more weeks of sitting in front of Earl Hagen and his nasty mouth and she would be gone. She had her Christmas money. Four more Saturday nights of minding the Huseby children and she’d have enough for a train ticket. There’d be no Christmas presents for anyone this year, but Suzette needed her. Hugging her books to her chest, she ran down the hill, away from the laughter.