Dollface Read online

  Dollface

  Rosen, Renée

  Penguin Group, USA (2013)

  * * *

  America in the 1920s was a country alive with the wild fun of jazz, speakeasies, and a new kind of woman -- the flapper.

  Vera Abramowitz is determined to leave her gritty childhood behind and live a more exciting life, one that her mother never dreamed of. Bobbing her hair and showing her knees, the lipsticked beauty dazzles, doing the Charleston in nightclubs and earning the nickname "Dollface.”

  As the ultimate flapper, Vera captures the attention of two high rollers, a handsome nightclub owner and a sexy gambler. On their arms, she gains entrée into a world filled with bootleg bourbon, wailing jazz, and money to burn. She thinks her biggest problem is choosing between them until the truth comes out. Her two lovers are really mobsters from rival gangs during Chicago’s infamous Beer Wars, a battle Al Capone refuses to lose.

  The heady life she’s living is an illusion resting on a bedrock of crime and violence unlike anything the country has ever seen before. When the good times come to an end, Vera becomes entangled in everything from bootlegging to murder. And as men from both gangs fall around her, Vera must put together the pieces of her shattered life, as Chicago hurtles toward one of the most infamous days in its history, the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

  PRAISE FOR DOLLFACE

  “Dollface is as intoxicating as the forbidden liquor at the heart of it. Rosen’s Chicago gangsters are vividly rendered, and the gun molls stir up at least as much trouble as their infamous men. Fans of Boardwalk Empire will love Dollface. I know I did.”

  —Sara Gruen, New York Times bestselling author of Water for Elephants

  “Gun molls and the gangsters they love spring to life in Dollface, Renée Rosen’s lush novel set at the height of the Roaring Twenties. Her skill at maintaining the balance between thrilling plot turns and rich character development is evident on every page. Pour yourself a glass of gin, turn up the jazz, and prepare to lose yourself in the unforgettable story of a quintessential flapper.”

  —Tasha Alexander, New York Times bestselling author of Death in the Floating City

  “Renée Rosen has combined her daring and vivid imagination with the rich history of Prohibition-era Chicago. Dollface is a lively, gutsy romp of a novel that will keep you turning pages.”

  —Karen Abbott, New York Times bestselling author of Sin in the Second City

  “Dollface sheds a new light on Prohibition-era gangsters when we see them through the eyes of the women who kept their secrets and shared their beds. Rosen’s Chicago is bursting with booze, glamour, sex, and power.” —Kelly O’Connor McNees, author of In Need of a Good Wife

  PRAISE FOR THE WORK OF RENÉE ROSEN

  “Quirky and heartfelt.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “Beautifully written, and with larger-than-life characters, this book will remain in readers’ hearts for a long time to come.”

  —School Library Journal

  “A heartfelt coming-of-age story, told with the perfect combination of humor and drama.”

  —Chicago Sun-Times

  “Absorbing. . . .As Rosen evokes her setting with a wealth of details . . . [readers] will empathize with the narrator’s unique situation as a concentrated form of universal worries about finding acceptance, dealing with loss, and leaving home.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “An astonishingly deep and thought-provoking debut novel.”

  —Young Adult Books Central

  New American Library

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014

  USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China

  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  First published by New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  Copyright © Renée Rosen, 2013

  Readers Guide copyright © Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 2013

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

  Rosen, Renée.

  Dollface: a novel of the roaring twenties/Renée Rosen.

  p.cm.

  ISBN 978-1-101-61771-7

  1. Nineteen twenties—Fiction. 2. Young women—Illinois—Chicago—Fiction.

  3. Organized crime—Illinois—Chicago—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3618.O83156E94 2007

  813'.6—dc23 2012051794

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Contents

  Praise

  Title page

  Copyright page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  BOOK ONE

  THE ESCAPE HATCH

  DIAMONDS AND GEMS

  ENTER IZZY SELTZER

  STARSTRUCK

  THE BACKFIRE

  THE CHASE

  WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

  THE INTOXICATING LIFE

  THREE-DIAMOND LEGS

  A GANGSTER’S GIRL

  BEHIND ENEMY LINES

  THE INDOCTRINATION

  AND BABY MAKES FOUR

  I DID AND NOW I DO

  MARITAL BLISS

  A BLUFF OR THE BULL’S-EYE

  JUST LIKE NORMAL

  A BREED APART

  THE HANDSHAKE AND THE SIN CAKE

  BOOK TWO

  THE WAR HITS HOME

  SMALL WORLD

  THE BALANCING ACT

  MADAM CHAIRMAN

  TRIALS AND ERRORS

  FOR EVELYN’S SAKE

  GUN MOLLS ON PARADE

  FINDING OUT WHAT YOU’RE MADE OF

  CHANGING OF THE GUARD

  MAKING DO

  SUPPLY AND DEMAND

  HAULING THE WEIGHT OF THE WORLD

  THE MARKED RIG

  WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU CAN’T SEE STRAIGHT

  THE ACCOMPLICE

  THE HOMECOMING

  MORE SECRETS TO KEEP

  PAYBACK TIME

  RETURN TO MOUNT CARMEL

  THE HATBOX TRICK

  ROOTING FOR BOTH SIDES

  BOOK THREE

  EVERY TIME WAS THE LAST TIME

  SOUTH SIDE BLUNDERS

  THE HOLIDAY BLUES

  A NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION

  THE KISS OF DEATH

  MY VALENTINE

  THE DRY SPELL HAS BEEN BROKENREPEAL, 1933

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  About the Author

  Readers Guide

  For Joe Esselin, teacher, playwright, poet, and dear friend.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I offer my heartfelt thanks to my friends and colleagues for their support while I was writing this novel: Jill Bernstein, Irma Bueno, Dennis Rosenthal, Chris Lee, Lauren Baratz-Logsted, Jonathan Santlofer, Craig Alton, Karen Abbott, Brian Wilson, Javier Ramirez, Stefan Moorehead, Suzy Takacs, Tasha Alexander, Andrew Grant, Nick Hawkins, Kelly O’Connor McNees, Amy Sue Nathan, Andy Gross, Jhanteigh Kupihea, Rick Kogan, Chuck Osgood, Beth Treleven, Stephanie Nelson, Lis
a and Mark Fine, Lisa Kotin, Karen Call, Ron Plass, Bill Lederer, and David Lewis.

  Along the way, I had the good fortune to work with Peternelle van Arsdale, who provided invaluable editorial guidance and said the magic words, “Move the men to the sidelines and give your women their due.”

  Had I not taken that step, my book never would have landed in the skillful hands of my editor, Claire Zion, who helped me take this book further than I ever thought possible. I’m a better writer today for having worked with you. And special thanks to my agent, Kevan Lyon. You continue to amaze me with your dedication and patience. All writers should be so lucky as to have an agent like you.

  My love and gratitude to Pam and Andy Jaffe; Jerry and Andrea Rosen; Joey Perilman; Devon Rosen, my father, whose memory will never fade; and especially to my mother, Deborah “Pyack” Rosen, who has been my rock and has encouraged me every step of the way—“thank you” doesn’t begin to cover it.

  Last, a special thanks goes to Mindy Mailman for always bringing the funny and always being there. To Brenda Klem, my “frem,” for your patience and countless brainstorming sessions, for reading and always cheering me on. To Sara Gruen, my critique partner and sister separated at birth, thank you for believing and for not letting me give up on this novel. You told me so! And to Joe Esselin, this one’s for you.

  “We find many things to which the prohibition of them constitutes the only temptation.”

  —William Hazlitt

  BOOK ONE

  Chicago 1923–1924

  THE ESCAPE HATCH

  “You don’t smile much, do you,” said the man next to me.

  “Smiling gets me into trouble.”

  “I’m sure it does.” His eyes wandered the length of my body, from my shoulders to my shoes. I wondered if he could tell that I’d faked my stockings and that my seams had been drawn on with an eyebrow pencil. I tucked one leg behind the other, hoping to hide my ingenuity.

  It was Friday night and I was at the Five Star, sitting next to this nameless man who’d just bought me my second bourbon. Glancing at my fingers, peppered with paper cuts and ribbon stains, I closed my eyes, trying to ease the headache I’d had since Tuesday. A chorus of Smith Coronas striking letterhead and the ping of two dozen carriage returns going back and forth nonstop echoed inside my head. I had just survived my first week as a typewriter for the insurance offices of Schlemmer Weiss & Unger. The job was dull—a real flat tire—and the pay was lousy. Of the twenty dollars I got in my weekly salary envelope, eight had already been grabbed by my landlady when I stopped by the rooming house to change out of my work clothes. I didn’t know how twelve dollars would carry me until my next payday, but I refused to admit that my mother was right. I was eighteen years old. Other girls my age got jobs and lived on their own. They managed. I’d find a way, too.

  I took another sip of bourbon. It went down easy, smooth as Coca-Cola. I’d been in only a handful of speakeasies but I could see why they were so popular. Everyone was smiling and laughing, having a swell time. From the get-go, anyone with half a brain could have told you Prohibition wasn’t going to prohibit a damn thing. It only added to the allure of that forbidden fruit. People who didn’t even like to drink before 1920 now knocked on unmarked doors, whispered their way inside and lingered over rows of gin and whiskey bottles lined up like tin soldiers. If the Volstead Act had outlawed chewing gum instead of liquor, what do you think we would have chomped on with our friends, spent our last dollar on, and kept hidden in our garters? We always want what’s just outside our reach.

  But Prohibition and speakeasies aside, I was no stranger to liquor.

  “Good lord,” the man said, shaking his head, “how the hell can an itty-bitty dame like you drink so damn much?”

  I wasn’t all that itty-bitty, not really. If I’d been standing, he would have seen that I was five-foot-three. But I was skinny. My body was as straight and sleek as my hair, which I wore bobbed to my chin with a thick row of bangs. Between my jet-black hair and dark eyes, made even darker thanks to my kohl eyeliner, I had that modern look, and it wasn’t lost on men like the one sitting next to me.

  “I’m serious,” said the man. “How’d a little lady like you learn to drink like that?”

  “My mother,” I said, swirling my bourbon in my glass. “She soaked my pacifiers in schnapps when I was a baby so I’d fall asleep.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned.” He knocked back his drink and fished a cigarette from the crumpled package peeking out of his breast pocket.

  I finished that round with him, slid off my barstool and went looking for Evelyn. I was bushed and ready to go home. As I teetered across the wooden floor, I knew it was too late to rethink that second bourbon or the meager bowl of soup I’d regarded as dinner. I perched my hand on the wall to keep the room from tilting.

  The Five Star was packed, everyone sardined in, standing shoulder-to-shoulder. Couples filled the dance floor, doing the bunny hug and the Charleston while the South Side Jazzers played onstage. I went upstairs and found the second floor was just as crowded. Cigarette girls roamed the room in their short skirts and top hats, peddling trays of Lucky Strike cigarettes and White Owl cigars. Clouds of smoke floated above the blackjack tables manned by dealers dressed in red vests and matching bow ties.

  Off in the corner, I spotted Evelyn by the slot machines, standing alongside a man with an unlit cigar jammed in his mouth. She’d been end-of-the-week beat when we’d arrived but not anymore. Each time the man pulled the one-armed bandit, she jumped up and down, her long brown spiral curls bouncing as she clapped, hoping the cherries lined up.

  I accidentally bumped into a man at the craps table who had a floozy on either side of him. I apologized without really looking at him. It wasn’t until after he threw the dice and his girls gave off an exaggerated round of “Awwwwwwws” that he got my attention. Tall, fit, and with his necktie askew and shirtsleeves rolled up, he had a slightly rumpled look about him that only truly handsome men could get away with.

  “Can’t win ’em all, can you?” he said, giving me the once-over along with a mischievous grin, a kind of wonky, self-assured smirk no doubt prompted by the scores of innocent hopefuls who’d preceded me. It was men like him who ruined it for the next guy who came along. And there’d be the next one and probably one after that, because men like him were never anyone’s last stop on the road to happily ever after.

  I was exhausted and not about to give him the satisfaction of knowing he was as good-looking as he thought he was. “Better luck next time,” I said, and turned to walk away.

  “Hey, not so fast, doll.” He grabbed my hand, and it touched off a spark I wasn’t expecting. “I was winning until you showed up. What’s your rush?” He flashed that smile of his just as a few locks of hair fell forward onto his brow. Soft brown, the color of chestnuts. “If you don’t mind my saying”—he leaned in closer—“you’re a beautiful-looking woman. You must be a model.”

  “Oh, c’mon.” I laughed and rolled my eyes. “Can’t you feed a girl a better line than that?”

  “Okay, then how about an actress?”

  “Please—do girls actually believe you when you say things like that?” I crossed my arms, hoping to stop my urge to reach over and brush that lock of hair aside with my fingertips.

  “C’mon,” he said. “Let me buy you a drink. What’s your name?”

  “Vera.” I looked over at Evelyn. She was still with that man at the slots, and there was no way she’d be ready to go. She’d no sooner leave his side than he’d leave a hot machine.

  Even though I’d had those two bourbons already, I agreed to let him buy me a drink. He introduced himself as Tony Liolli and boy, I could tell right off he was some operator.

  We had almost made it to the bar when a red light overhead flashed and an alarm sounded. I flinched, it gave me such a start.

  Tony put his arm down like a crossing gate in front of me. “Oh, goddammit!” The alarm sounded again, longer this time.
<
br />   “What is that? What’s happening?” I gripped his arm, sobering up fast, thinking the place was on fire. My heart was racing.

  “Raid!” someone shouted. “It’s the feds! Raid! Everybody clear out!”

  All at once people began hollering as they shoved past us, rushing toward the stairs. A dealer rammed into me, nearly knocking me over, while he and another barkeeper raced around, trying to get rid of any traces of liquor. I saw one of them pull a handle on the side of the bar and all the bottles on the shelves went whoosh and disappeared through a trapdoor. Two other men bolted past me, grabbed hold of the bar and flipped it upside down, making it look like an innocent hutch. Within seconds all the slot machines were spun around; their flip sides were disguised as bookcases.

  “C’mon, we gotta get out of here.” Tony grabbed my hand and weaved me through the crowd, heading for the doorway. The alarm blasted again and again while everybody charged toward the staircase, knocking tables and chairs out of the way. I trampled over someone’s lost fedora and nearly tripped on an abandoned pocketbook.

  “Wait!” I turned around, my heart pumping like mad. “Where’s Evelyn? Evelyn!”

  “Who the hell’s Evelyn?”

  “Evelyn. My roommate.”

  “Forget Evelyn,” Tony shouted back, “unless you wanna see the inside of a paddy wagon.”

  “Evelyn? Evelyn!”

  “C’mon. Now!”

  After one last look for my friend, Tony and I were on the move, working our way toward the front, when the direction of the crowd suddenly reversed and people started backing up, rearing into one another. The feds were heading in, and everyone who’d been trying to get down the stairs rushed back to the main room. A heavyset man wearing too much cologne stepped on my foot just as the agents burst inside with their whistles blowing shrill, high-pitched chirps.

  “C’mon,” Tony said, pulling at me. “Over here.” He moved fast, yanking me toward the back of the room. When we dead-ended into a concrete wall, I froze. But Tony grabbed hold of a brass knob and turned it, and the wall slid to the right. It was just a facade concealing a rickety staircase. The dealers, barkeepers, waiters, and even the cigarette girls crowded in behind us.