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Mama pursed her lips, but then she shrugged and stood. “Your father undoubtedly tells her about his family. After so many years of hearing stories, she probably feels as though she knows everyone.”
Maybe that explained it, at least in part. Maybe that was why she seemed to…care. But clearly it wasn’t something Mama wanted to think about. She moved to Sabina’s door. “I will bring up your dinner tonight. But you can’t avoid your father forever, cara. For all his sins, for all his faults, he loves you more than life itself.”
Sabina just hugged her pillow to her chest and tried not to wonder what “life itself” really meant to a man who would snuff it out so easily.
It didn’t take but a New York minute for Sally to determine that the man called Topsy Nosotti was about as far from the top as a man could get and still be walking. She ran a hand up his arm and gave him the smile that always made men go stupid, but mentally she was calculating how many bars of Ivory it would take to feel clean again.
More than she had the coin to buy, that was for sure. And the count went up every time he ran his eyes down her figure.
She hoped he was as broke as his outdated hat promised, that he wouldn’t fork over the fiver for more than a look. “No kiddin.” She said it in the drawl that half the folks back home used to stretch their vowels. “Baltimore? I’m a Maryland girl myself, but from the western side.”
He gave her an ugly little smile that revealed three missing teeth. “Yeah? I thought they was all hicks in that part of the state, but you sure don’t look like no redneck.”
She laughed and trailed the tips of her fingers over his shoulder. It seemed smarter than using them to paint a couple of claw marks down his face, which was what she’d have preferred. “Won’t say there aren’t some of those, sure. But my family—we come from good German stock. My opa came over…gosh, back in the fifties, I guess. He and Papi ran a little brewery there in the hills until Prohibition shut ’em down.”
She made her face fall, even though the idea of her high and mighty father ever making a living from “the devil’s drink” made her want to giggle instead. “I think I tasted beer before my own mother’s milk—or so the joke in the family goes.”
He laughed like it was real funny—and slid an arm around her waist. “German, huh? I was over there in the War, you know. I bet you’d look real cute in one of those—whatda-ya-call-ems.” He dropped his gaze to her décolletage.
She bet she would too, but he’d never see it. And she wasn’t here to talk about costumes. “Did I hear the bartender there say you were a brewer too, before the sauce stopped flowing?”
“Before? Sure.” He reached for the shot of bathtub gin sitting by his elbow on the bar and tossed it back. It dimmed a bit of the caution in his eyes. “Master brewer. Eddie Weisenheimer brought me out here from Baltimore special. No one knew hops or wheat like me.”
Yes. On the right track, finally. She put a little extra appreciation in the hand she moved to the back of his neck. “Oh, Papi would love to talk to you. He can go on about it all forever. Not that he ever worked for an operation as big as Weisenheimer’s, of course. That stuff was popular even in Cumberland and he always—say!” She pulled back a little, trying not feel every single particle of filth she’d picked up from him. “Guess that was your brew we were drinking. Ain’t that something?”
His eyes went bright. Brighter still when he tossed back another shot. “Yeah. Really something. You know, doll.” He leaned closer, pulled her tight again. “I could get you some, if you wanted to reminisce. The good old stuff, not this swill they’re brewing now.”
She held the smile tacked in place. Ivory might not cut it. She might need some old-fashioned lye. She made a show of looking around, leaning closer. “I heard they’re still brewing. And that it’s under new management. But didn’t they keep you on? A master brewer like you?”
He hiccupped right into her face, and she nearly lost her measly dinner. His face contorted into three different expressions before finally settling on something he no doubt hoped looked like pride. “Course he did. Eddie—I was his right-hand guy, you know. Heard him…the night Manny came. Made him promish me a…a place. And ol’ Manny, he knew my repertu…my repatate…my reputation, see? He wanted me on board. But me—I’m loyal to Eddie. I heard things get heated, and when he turned up dead, I walked away. Loyalty, see.” He pounded a fist onto his chest.
“Wow.” She toyed with the hair at the nape of his neck. It was greasy, and she could only hope he didn’t have lice that were leaping even now onto her hand and marching their way up her arm. Her shudder wasn’t put-on. “You heard them that night? When Mr. Weisenheimer was killed? If I were you, I’d a high-tailed it out of Chicago after that. Wouldn’t want that gangster coming after me next.”
Topsy patted her hip, as if that would provide her with some comfort. “I ain’t no coward.”
“Obviously. Still.” She shook her head, making sure a blond wave touched her face just so. “Seems like if that Manny fella knew you’d heard them out there right before Weisenheimer got himself dead…”
“Manny don’t know nothing. I didn’t broadcast I was there listening.”
“Oh good.” She pressed a hand to her chest, widened her eyes, and then leaned over to press a kiss to his cheek. “That makes me feel better.” She was going to need a new tin of tooth powder too, if she had to do that again.
But he was grinning like a gap-toothed fool. “Say, doll, wanna get that beer? I got a whole stash back at my place.”
She just bet he did—or the empties, anyway. “That sounds great, Tops. Just give me a minute to freshen up, will ya?” She nodded toward the hall that led to the water closets and, the very second his arm loosened around her, beat a hasty path through the early crowd. She kept half an eye peeled behind her, so when he turned back to the bar—either for one more gin or to settle his tab, she didn’t much care which—she darted toward the exit and didn’t stop hoofing it until she was ducking into an alley a block away.
Shoulda gone to the water closet first though, to wash her hands. She wiped them on her dress, but that didn’t help a bit.
“Well?”
She jumped, then cursed herself for it. She wondered if Roman would take it personally if she tried to spit the taste of Topsy’s cheek from her mouth. Better not risk it. She didn’t trust him to buy her freedom if she wasn’t both useful and attractive. So she smiled and put some extra sway in her sashay as she moved to where he waited in the shadows. “He was there that night. Heard Eddie and Manny talking over the purchase. He says they didn’t know he was there. Also tried to convince me that Manny offered him a job, and that he refused out of loyalty to Eddie.”
Roman snorted. “Manny doesn’t hire drunks to work at breweries. But he was there. He heard them.”
“He heard them.”
With a low laugh in his throat, he picked her up, squeezed her, spun her in a circle. Maybe it would have sent her head spinning in laughter if the squeeze didn’t make her hiss in pain first.
He put her back on her feet, hands gentle on her hips, and turned her into the streetlight. “What? Did I hurt you?” Then his face went hard. “Let me guess—the door caught you in the ribs this time.”
