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She ran her fingers along the cloth cover, smiling again at the joy that had been on Little G’s face. Maybe someday he’d be printing copies of this book, or others like it. Maybe her table would be filled not only with books given as gifts, but ones pieced together by her own brother. It was a dream she hadn’t known to dream for him, a prayer she hadn’t known to pray. But she knew now. She’d light a candle every day if she had to—maybe this time it would make a difference.
Lorenzo had said God was there, at work, whether she felt it or not. But was He? For her? For him, yes, she could see the Lord at work. But maybe God just didn’t regard her as highly as He did Enzo. Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated, right? How was she to know who she was in the Lord’s eyes?
Flipping open the cloth cover, Sabina sat at the desk chair and read the careful inscription on the end leaf.
To Bean, on your 16th birthday. They say that poetry is the language of the soul; Hopkins has always spoken deeply to mine. My prayer is that as you read these words, a chord is struck in your heart and you come to see, as I have, the glory of the Lord through the eloquence of man. Enzo. P.S. Read them out loud—trust me, it helps.
She had sat down that very night to delve into these lauded verses—and had fallen asleep less than halfway through the fourth poem, the daunting “The Wreck of the Deutschland.” Either out of intimidation or forgetfulness, she had never delved into it again, even if she had given it a place of honor by her stationery and her favorite fountain pen.
Maybe it was time to read the words he so esteemed. Maybe she’d find the meaning in them that he obviously had. This time, she decided to forego the beginning and that too-long “Deutschland.” She opened the book to the middle, surprised to see a piece of paper stuck in the page written in Lorenzo’s script. How had she not noticed this when she first opened it five years ago?
There were two poems on the page, the first called “The Leaden Echo” and the second “The Golden Echo.” Before reading them, she scanned Enzo’s note.
When I look at you, I see a young woman whose beauty surpasses any other. So you may find it strange that I think of you when I read these two, at least if you were to stop after the first, which tells about how mortal beauty fades into nothingness, even encouraging you to despair. But I think you’ll understand once you read the second and see how it echoes every cause for despair in the first with hope—hope in the Lord, who offers an “everlastingness” of youth. Your true beauty is in your heart, Bean, and it will be eternal so long as you entrust that heart fully to the God who grants us peace in our days and holds eternity in His hand.
How had he…? He couldn’t have known, of course, that she would wait so many years to read this. That they would have had a conversation about beauty and peace on the very night she decided to open it. He couldn’t have known—but there it was. Proof of…what? Something bigger than her, bigger than him. Sabina’s hand shook as she put the note aside and read. Her voice echoed softly into the room; and long after it faded on the last word, she sat there wondering who this man really was that she had determined to marry. A man who could praise her beauty and see beyond it—a man who spoke of Almighty God as easily as she spoke of her father.
She read the poems again, becoming increasingly certain that she was not what Lorenzo hoped her to be. In the five years since he wrote this, what had she become? An empty husk. A woman so desperate for affection that she’d turned to another man. A sap who believed every lie he spoke. A daughter who nearly brought down her own father. A fiancée who had broken the heart she should have been working all these years to know.
She slid the book onto her bedside table and reached for her rosary, but even the words she’d learned as a child wouldn’t come to her lips. He’d wanted her to be that golden echo, full of light and truth and virtue. But she’d proven herself leaden indeed.
“This place gives me the creeps.”
Roman smiled at Cliff’s observation as they sidestepped a street cleaner. They were otherwise the only people out and about so early in the morning in this part of town. Which was the whole point—maybe if they showed up at Ava’s Place early enough, the staff would still be hung over from the night before and too groggy to see through his cover story.
He glanced around as they walked. The Levee had always struck Roman as a strange part of town. Traditionally, it was filled with the cheapest housing and the filthiest businesses—the underworld at its worst. Upstanding folks would take care never to be seen here, though as home to most of the city’s bordellos, many of the men made their way to its dubious charms after nightfall. But then a few mafiosi had decided to bring some class to their operations, and the result was a confused neighborhood that had dilapidated shanties on the same street as Colosimo’s, a bordello, restaurant, and gaming house known nationwide for its solid gold chandeliers, gold and silver paneling, and velvet drapes.
Trying to operate on the paltry salary given him by the Prohibition Bureau, an apartment on the Levee’s fringes was the best Roman could afford. And when he was working undercover with the Mancari operation, he had gone often into the heart of it with one young mafioso or another, out to prove himself. He had never succeeded at reconciling the ostentatious with the shoddy. But he had gotten pretty good at ignoring it.
His partner, on the other hand, who had not been undercover here for the past six months, had no such blind eye.
Roman elbowed his friend playfully in the ribs. “Aw, come on, Clifford. You’re a man of the world.”
“Not this world,” Cliff muttered. “I can’t believe you’re dragging me down here. Why can’t you be content with the bootleg charges, anyway?”
“Because,” Roman said slowly, “Mancari is a snake. If he can slither out of them, he will. I want to be ready with more ammunition. Right now all we have solid evidence of is one speakeasy. I want to pin him down on the cabaret house we all know he owns, the brewery that is more than likely his, the other gin bars, and anything else he’s tied to.”
Cliff released a blustery sigh and looked up into the clear June sky. “Roman, we’ve spent six months trying to get all that information. When are you going to face that he just covers his tracks too well? When are you going to let it go and be content with what we’ve got?”
Roman clenched his teeth for a long moment before responding. “When we get called off, that’s when. As long as they keep us in Chicago, I’m going to be hunting this guy down. If the bosses in Washington don’t like it, they can send me somewhere else.”
“You’ve let this get way too personal, O’Reilly.”
Roman snapped his head in his so-called friend’s direction. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” The other agent lifted his brows in a challenge, his blue eyes glinting like a stormy sea. “This isn’t about justice for you anymore, if ever it was. It’s about bringing down the people that bested you and proving to Sabina that you’re the better man.”
Roman pivoted and poked a hard finger into Cliff’s shoulder, halting his forward movement. “Hey, this has nothing to do with her.”
“Yeah, right.” Cliff brushed off his jacket as if it had been soiled by Roman’s anger. “That’s why you’re so set on bringing down Lorenzo Capecce, who you were always willing to admit had nothing to do with anything?”
Roman shook his head and started walking again. “He has something to do with it now. He’s defending the man, isn’t he? And his father and brothers are even more involved. Bet we can get quite a few citations on them.”
“He’s a defense attorney!” When Roman didn’t reply, Cliff mumbled a mild curse and rolled his eyes. “You’re obsessed. You know that, right? Obsessed and spiteful. There’s no reason in the world to go after his brothers except spite—we all know they’re of no interest to the Bureau. They want the guys in charge, not the barkeeps or bouncers.”
“Val’s a runner, too.”
“You’ve got no proof of that.”
