My Funny Valentine, or
Saint Valentine's Day Massacre
By "Matrix Refugee"
Author's Note:
This sequel to my previous RtP outing would not be possible if I hadn't got so many glowing reviews from so many people. Thanks! (I strongly suggest you read the prequel to this just so you can get an idea of the history of the anything but ordinary couple that figures in this.) I also figured a little more Maguire mayhem was in order, especially because I ain't too keen on St. Valentine's Day…and I thought it might be interesting to see "the Reporter" in love.
Disclaimer:
I don't own Road to Perdition, its characters (certainly NOT Maguire), concepts, or other indicia, which are the property of Sam Mendes, Max Allen Collins, David Self, DreamWorks SKG, 20th Century Fox, et al. I also don't own the song "My Funny Valentine", which was composed by Moss Hart and Richard Rodgers, lines from which appear as the titles of the chapters.
I: My Favorite Work of Art
A slack night. The chilling cold that had settled on the Midwest was keeping the denizens of Chicago indoors out of the biting winds, huddling together for warmth. Sooner or later, though, tempers would start to flare over empty coal hods and wood boxes and someone was likely to start a brawl.
Only two shots to develop tonight: a drunk run over by a freight wagon and another of a fourteen year old rape victim huddled on a stoop screaming (probably covering for seducing her "attacker"; he'd noticed something decidedly crocodilian about her tears); too graphic for the Herald, but just right for True Crime.
The radiators barely worked in Maguire's flat, but a few kicks in the right places on the iron monstrosities could coax a little extra warmth from them. He gave the radiator a good clout before he set to work developing his shots.
Too quiet. Something big was bound to happen soon. He could feel it in his bones. Just might be the cold, he thought, sourly.
The radiator banged to life in the front room, but he detected some odd offbeats in its usual steady rhythm as he stepped out of the dark room on his way to reheat some coffee while the prints dried. He realized the extra bangs came from the front door.
He shot back the bolt and opened the door, keeping the chain on, and looked out.
A tall, dark-haired girl in her early twenties stood out there in the hallway, her black fedora tilted over one ear. The light from the room glinted on her wire-rimed glasses.
"Hey, there any guys in there lookin' for some company?" she asked in a squeaky falsetto.
"Not any that are interested in you," he replied, and slammed the door shut.
He went to the kitchen, checked the coffeepot on the dresser to make sure no ice had formed on the contents and set it on the gas ring on the end of the table under the one small window. He was just about to turn on the gas and light it, when the knocking at the front door started again. He went back to answer it.
Bridie Rooney again, her hat centered and tilted back.
"My dear gentlemun, would you kindly consider making a kind charrritable donation to the Good Samaritan House?" she asked in a fruity alto.
"What do you want?" he demanded.
"Just a place to spend the night. I'll be out in the morning," she said. "You'll never know I was here."
He undid the chain and opened the door for her. She stepped into the room, bringing in a suitcase and a large leather haversack that bulged with hard angles like the corners of books.
"Now what brings you out on a night like this?" he asked, closing the door behind them.
"Mrs. Campanini threw me out, said I'd failed as a governess for her daughters. She's really cut up after Angelica disappeared," Bridie said. "I tried around, but no one wants to give me a room for the night for love or money."
"So what made you come here?"
"I saw your light on and I wondered if you'd let me sleep on your floor. You're the last person I know in the city who I haven't bothered tonight."
"The floor's too cold to let a dog sleep on it, but you can have the couch," he said.
"Thanks, chief, I knew you had a heart hiding under your shabby-genteel exterior—and I mean that 'shabby-genteel' as a compliment."
"Well, er, thanks," he managed.
She started taking off her coat, then paused. "Is it cold in here, or is it me?"
"No, it's cold. My landlord's a cheapskate, barely keeps the furnace lit, never mind letting it run hot enough to actually heat the place," he said. "I was just warming some coffee. You want some?"
She left her coat on. "Sure, thanks."
He headed back to the kitchen, thankful to get away from her for a moment.
He prided himself on maintaining a polite if cool detachment around women, but he had to admit to himself that Bridie did something to him. Since their first encounter on Christmas Eve, they'd met on the street a few times, but they'd only exchanged polite greetings.
But, as the coffee warmed on the gas ring, he caught himself peering out through the kitchen door to the hallway, watching this strange, slim creature that had just traipsed into his digs. He could hardly remember the last time a dame, other than his sister Lily, had crossed that threshold; if he had a date, he didn't bring them home, not after one dame had turned her nose up at his work. A hotel room for the night or the back seat of his car would do just as well for that…
But just as Bridie's presence was getting on his nerves, looking at her caused other sensations to arise in him. He'd rather have a blue-eyed blonde who didn't know a flashbulb from a light bulb than a brunette with a dictionary in her pretty head, but he could already feel his stomach rub itself against the inside of his shirt.
As cold as it had been for most of that winter, he'd largely been celibate, but that was starting to get to him. He wasn't a man of huge appetites, not like some of his esteemed colleagues (ha, ha, ha.). Buchner, the photo editor at the Herald, had described him as the sort who "ate little, never drank or smoked, and fornicated little". The first three were true, but that last was nobody's business except his own and his girlfriends'.
When was the last time anyway? he asked himself. Oh yeah, the girl with the harelip who'd complained about his nails being dingy and who wouldn't overlook it even when he explained they were stained from the developing chemicals he used.
He ventured back into the front room to find her studying some of his framed prints, which hung on the walls of the front room, looking at them intently, studying them as if they were French lithographs in the Art Institute: The dismembered body of a showgirl, still clad in her now blood-soaked feathers and spangles, stuffed into a steamer trunk abandoned at the railway station…a wealthy bank president lying sprawled face down on the pavement outside a bordello, gunned down by a "jealous rival"…the autopsy of an actor who had OD'ed in a hotel room.
"Has anyone ever told you you're an artist?" she said, looking up at him.
"Yeah, you just did."
She looked at him. "Besides me, I mean."
He shrugged. "It's what I do to pay the rent," he said. What the h—l did she mean by that? Was she saying that to get around him, or did she honestly mean it?
"Granted, the subject matter is bound to generate a lot of controversy, but the way you've shot the photos is excellent. You capture mankind at its most vulnerable moment, when a man has slipped over that great divide."
"I thought art mostly had to do with beauty," Maguire said.
She wagged her head. "Not necessarily. Maybe to Maxfield Parrish, but to me and to a lot of other critics these days, real art has to do with truth. I don't have to tell you that the truth can be anything but beautiful."
"That's quite true," he said, chuckling at his own joke. She smiled at him and he felt his insides somersault.
The coffee pot chuffed, so he went to take care of that. He rummaged in the back of the top shelf of the dresser and found an extra mug.
A board creaked in the hallway. He looked up as Bridie stepped into the kitchen.
"Quite a gallery you got there," she said. "You do that with all your shots?"
"No, just the ones that were especially challenging to get, or happened to depict prominent citizens," he said.
"I noticed our princess wasn't among them," she noted.
"Don't remind me," he said, with a shiver not caused by the cold.
"Must have been hard, even for you, finding her like that."
"One of the worst shots I ever took," he said, getting the tin of sugar cubes down from the shelf. "You take sugar?"
"Me? No, thanks. I scandalize people this way. Women are supposed to be sweet and all that."
He handed her the less battered mug. "Not a bad thing to defy the stereotype a little, create some contrast."
She took the mug in both hands. "Create some contrast: you sound like an artist," she said, holding her cup against her chest, as if to warm herself.
He dropped his usual four lumps of sugar into his cup and stirred it in. he sensed her watching him.
"I was tempted to ask, how much bloody sugar are you gonna put in that?" she said, bantering.
"One of my worst habits," he said.
"Well, if that's your worst, I'd say you aren't so bad off as some," she said, sipping her coffee.
"So, where you planning on going from here?" he asked, nonchalant.
"I'm not quite sure yet," she admitted. "I'll probably head back to Rock Island and stay with my uncle John, at least till I can get my feet back under me—and as long as my crazy cousin Connor doesn't start doing more than just giving me the ol' hairy eyeball."
"I imagine a looker like you must have to deal with an awful lot of that," he said, bantering.
She rolled her eyes. "More than I care to. One reason I dress the way I do, just to blow 'em off. But nothing deters Connor. He's been looking me up and down since I stopped putting my hair in braids and I had it whacked off…With your looks, I imagine you get some similar treatment from the fair sex."
"To some extent, I do. But when they find out what I do for work it's 'Oh, you're a crime photographer for the tabloids. Oh, how interesting'. And then they excuse themselves to go to the powder room."
"Does it bother you?"
"Hey, if they can't handle it, that's their problem."
"So what got you into it, news photography, I mean?"
"Long story, but I'll try to keep it down to a reasonable length…My father died when I was fourteen; he made the mistake of mixing some rat dope while eating lunch, so I leave the results to your imagination…My mother wasn't right in the head after that, so us younger kids—there were eleven of us that lived, and I was number nine, number thirteen if you count the four others that died—us kids got farmed out to live with relatives. I went to live in Des Moines with my aunt Clareen and her husband, got a job as an errand boy for a photographer's studio when I was sixteen. The boss noticed that I had an eye for details when I looked at things, so he offered to teach me. He told me there wasn't a lot of opportunity for a young man doing portraits, and I wanted to do some traveling, so he recommended me to a few newspaper editors he knew."
Now just why was he spilling all this to her? he wondered. Must be the damned sugar he'd put in the coffee. Some guys snorted coke, but with him, coming as he did from a dirt-poor farm family with few luxuries, sugar was his drug of choice. Or maybe it was just the fact that the presence of a dame in his apartment was getting his blood up and unhinging his tongue.
"I hate to sound like an ungenial host, but I have a few prints drying that I have to get to my editor," he said, setting aside his empty mug on the sink ledge.
"That's quite all right," she said. "Go about your business as usual. I don't want to be underfoot. Like I said, I'll be leaving in the morning."
On that note, he excused himself and headed for the darkroom, closing the door behind him.
He set his back to the door, leaning his shoulders against it, breathing slowly and deeply, trying to refocus. God, what she did to him without trying!
After a moment, the pungent smells of chemicals cleared his head and he set to work. He selected the usable prints and labeled them on the back in soft-lead pencil: date, location, a few identifying details, then in the lower right hand corner, he added his signature: H. Maguire.
He stepped out into the front room to find Bridie had parked herself on the end of the sofa with a kid's paperbound composition book, jotting something in it with a stubby pencil. She glanced up at him as he passed through to collect his topcoat and hat from the hall closet, but no other exchange than a polite nod or two passed between them.
As he headed out into the night, he flipped his coat collar up against the wind that gnawed at his bones.
His latest material was too graphic for the Herald, but True Crime over in the 2000's on North Clark Street would appreciate his contribution, though Needaker, the raffish bohunk in charge would whine about the fee, Maguire knew. But with the kind of copy he provided, he kept the rag going. After all, his shots really were "art".
When he came back to the flat, he found Bridie already curled up on the couch, dozing, her coat spread over her for a blanket, not quite covering her feet.
He went to the bedroom and, feeling a bit concerned for her, got a spare blanket from the shelf of the closet. He brought it to the front room and nudged her shoulder a little. She opened her eyes and looked up at him.
"It's not right for you to freeze there," he said, unfolding the blanket and covering her with it.
"Gee, thanks, fella," she said, sleepily.
"You're welcome," he said, shutting out the lamp and heading for the safety of the back bedroom.
He gave the radiator a few good kicks before taking off his shoes and unfolding the creaking Murphy bed folded into the wall. With one less blanket, he'd be a little colder, but the sensations she inspired in him just might compensate.
To be continued…