it was a murder, but not a crime.
starring. buttloads of characters. this is why kind of hate ffn's two character filter.
notes. Chicago!'s Cell Block Tango, het!alia-fied.
ratings/warnings. well. it is a song(fic) about 'six merry murderesses'. also, jazz-era chicago!au and all it entails, such as booze and language and sex and foxy flapper chicks (okay, the last one not so much), and don't forget the abundance of het!pairings. proceed with caution.
(the america/belarus is my favorite :9 just so you know.)
summary. if you had been there, i bet that you would have done the same.
. . .
he had it coming.
. . .
i. i fired two warning shots.
(pop.)
When her family heard that Tiantian Wang was now in prison, none of them were surprised.
she had always been that way, crinkly-eyed aunts and grandmothers would whisper with a knowing, jaded tone; her mother hanging her head in shame. always the troublemaker, that girl. Restless since birth, with thin arms and fingers that would always give her siblings painful pinches behind her mother's back, rapid hop-scotches and double-dutches on the street where no one could ever outdo her — joke's on them if they even dare to try, because Tiantian was as quick to anger as she was quick on her feet. A punch and bleeding gums would be more than enough to put them in their place.
That's why she enjoyed lighting matches and watching the fireplace, and how the those red blossoms moved almost as fast as she did. Tight-lipped, her mother would tell her aunts and grandmothers stories of her convicted daughter's childhood; Tiantian had once set one of her brother's mattresses alight, and while everyone else screamed in shock, all she offered was a grin; i'm sorry, mama, baba, yong-soo, i swear it was an accident. Brown eyes glinting, a flame flickering in them not unlike the ones lapping that mattress, and Tiantian had been branded at once — sick, vicious, sadistic.
And now, murderess.
None of her family came to visit her in Cook County Jail. Of course, they must've heard the news that she blew a man's head off only because he had chewed some gum — no, not chewed. popped. But that was always Kiku's fault, though, Tiantian would reason angrily. That bastard of a boyfriend always knew how to be tactful unless he didn't; and it didn't matter what his habit was — tea-slurping, foot-tapping, pen-chewing, gum-popping — he had plenty to spare and she still would've shot him. A lean face with cool, dark eyes; a useless tangle of limbs on the couch listening to a White Sox game and drinking cheap beer.
He'd been an aspiring baseball player once, she knew. He used to be hopeful in the most frigid way, like a glacier of ice that hid treasures underneath, and Tiantian was enamored because she was fire and she could melt him, burn him. She burned his dreams away with bitter laughs and porcelain hands, so when she asked him to marry her Kiku chuckled condescendingly in her face — no.
pop.
you think that's funny? she snarled at him, rattled and flushed and still picking fights. Corners of her mouth trailed curses and smoke, and her hair — never her best feature, soot-brown and puffy instead of the sleek, midnight locks her family wanted, he wanted — constantly escaping from her pins. He eyed her with disdain and shook his head and then — bastard, you pop that gum one more time...
The shotgun she took off the wall did its' job and he fell over, dead.
. . .
ii. i fixed him his drink, as usual.
(six.)
Bel Johanssen was made to be stared at, a vamp that looked best in red and black.
It was a lovely contrast against her wheat-yellow locks, of course; and her long legs and sultry feline smile. She was like a walking flag that everyone would stop to admire, she'd been so since she was young. She could flick her hair in a way that made every boy on the street buy her anything she wanted and she could lean on a lamppost like she was doing it a favor. She was a fille fatale in the most literal sense and she was never ashamed of it.
When she had been charged guilty of murder, the Chicago press figured that Bel must've been something of a black widow, or a scarlet woman, as well. They were convinced of it the same way they wanted Tiantian to be crazy and Jeanne to be guilty, but unlike those two, the press may have been right, for once, about her.
Bel's mother was one, that is, a professional widow. The phrase my husband, Lord bless his soul was uttered so many times with the same solemnity and vehemence that when news came in 1918 that the man had a bad run-in with a grenade somewhere in Belgium, Bel donned her black dress and held her brothers' hands tight. Lars was stoic and Lucas was in sobs, but Bel merely sighed and smiled and decided to run away with her boyfriend Antonio early the next year.
The relationship didn't last, but it started Bel on her long career of men. Lovino Vargas used to be Antonio's old friend and was now dubbed in Bel's head as that bastard, that asshole, that son of a whore. He was everything she thought she wanted — handsome, intelligent, and rich, very much so. Things were easy when one was the son of a mafia capo that answered directly to the godfather Al Capone himself. Lovino's temper left something to be desired, of course, but Bel thought she could overlook that and surely, this time it would be permanent. Mrs. Bel Vargas.
But six other women had thought the same thing, and had the rings to prove so (not only was he married, oh no. he had six wives.) What did she have? All Bel Johanssen had were shot glasses and liquor and a pretty face and a head full of murderous thoughts. And a trademark, catlike smile that is deceptive as it is red. That night, Bel's green eyes were framed with a hint of black liner as she murmurs as she always does; here, baby, have a drink, like usual.
Some guys just can't hold their arsenic.
. . .
iii. then he ran into my knife.
(squish.)
Vivienne Nguyen is stoic and threatening because she needs to be.
Neither she nor Yao were ever completely welcome in the city of Chicago. Immigrants from the East never were, much less those from the blacklisted Asian, God-forbid countries such as Vietnam and China. They met on the boat smuggling them to the alleged Land of the Free, world-weary and alcoholic and much older than their physical appearance would suggest. She had snorted when Yao told her that he was approaching forty; no, honey, really? really.
Experience comes with years, Vivienne guessed, because despite his faux-ingenuity Yao was slick and sick and he broke her carefully crafted walls with sweet words and burning gin; and yes, that meant she slept with him, yes (yesyesyes). She demanded he marry her when she became swollen with grief and dishonor and a child, and he did because that is what little Asian values he still held in his now cold, calculating eyes.
She wasn't made for child-rearing, so Vivienne did not weep when her daughter passed away before reaching her second birthday. Yao shrugged, blowing a puff of smoke and said simply, a son, next time, maybe; and Vivienne seethes silently because what next time? She did not want this, married like a disgraced girl to a man old enough to be her father but looking young enough to be her brother, a man that refused to fix the heater even after his daughter had fallen sick and now she is dead, you goddamn bastard, dead.
Vivienne would be lying if she said she missed her daughter, the squealing brat with large, mournful eyes, but she knew she could have done more to look after her, so thinking of the child made her guilty and thus Vivienne didn't think. She kept to herself, even though a part of her wanted to tell it to her attorney, make the jury sympathize so she could get out of here, this shithole of a prison; but no. After all, she was guilty, and she was not sorry, and if this is what she had to bear just because she killed the deserving son of a bitch, then so be it.
you've been screwing the milkman! Yao had screeched. She thought she might've felt flattered that the man cared enough to storm in with a jealous rage, even though it wasn't true (that she was flattered, that he was jealous, that she was screwing the damned milkman enough to break his rimmed glasses with one fist). Vivienne's kitchen knife flew by its' own accord, guided by a tranquil fury that ended up with spoilt chicken and a murder of a poor Chinese immigrant by his Vietnamese wife (a revenge killing for the daughter never wanted). The cops found her drenched in red and coolly detached and she didn't bat an eyelash when she gave them an exact number — he ran into my knife ten times.
The only thing Vivienne regretted was the chicken, really.
. . .
iv. but did you do it?
(uh-uh.)
Jeanne Ardante's voice was always shaky in Cook County Jail, but what else do you expect from a woman who is innocent?
She tried to make them understand, she did. The blonde girl called Bel had a basic grip of rudimentary French, but she was more fluent in laughing at Jeanne with her honey-dipped soprano and a flick of her dainty, poisoning wrist — get lost, cupcake, you know no one'll ever understand a damn word you say.
Jeanne shook her head and clasped her hands no, please, no kill, not guilty! but she let forth a stream of frantic, heavily-accented French and forced herself not to cry when her attorney asked her, in butchered grammar, if you didn't kill him, then who did? She prays to the Lord and tells them honestly, i don't know, i don't know. Because she does not. Why does she need a defense when she has done nothing wrong?
They say her famous lover Arthur had been an accomplice in her alleged crime, holding down her husband Francis as she chopped off his head. But Francis had been dead when she found him, and Jeanne felt all her life burn down before her eyes, before her husband's dismembered, bleeding neck. They had an age gap that meant nothing in the farmlands of France but everything in the streets of Chicago, and whispers followed both of them, that one Frenchman with the perpetual stubble who had a short-haired, wide-eyed nineteen-year-old child-bride.
Francis had married her to keep her safe, he told her, true to her religious routes; she was innocent and idealistic even as his hand sneaked past propriety, to the sacred region between her legs. He laughed when she told him instead — i want to protect you. He came home like clockwork without smelling like gin nor whiskey, smiling languidly when he turned on the radio to dance with her in their dinky little home with her tripping clumsily all over his feet — ma cherie, you dance like you're going to war. His hair smelled like another woman's perfume, butternut and exotic saltwaters.
Jeanne decided that the Lord must've taken him away because she loved him too much. She was willing to overlook his affairs, renounce Arthur in a way that was most cruel, it's as if she was even willing kill for him — Jeanne meant that as a figure of speech, she did, but only the matron answered her pleas with a stunned sort of silence and a sad smile. The other inmates just laughed with indifference, putting cigarettes back into their mouths and dragging as if Jeanne was nothing but tiresome ash. She might as well been.
So she sits on the edge of her mattress, hands folded, eyes wet. Her case was lost, and she would hang tomorrow.
. . .
v. i can't remember a thing.
(cicero.)
Never before had Chicago seen such a vicious and cold-blooded double homicide, until Natalia Arlovskaya came along.
Born to a mail-order-bride-turned-showgirl mother and a father that was nowhere to be found, Natalia and her sister — Yekaterina, she now spit out the name like it was poison; bitter and deadly; fucking Yekaterina — grew up among satins and laces and dancing shoes, growing tall and slender and gaining perfect curves in all the right areas, and glossy locks that were tossed along with coy smiles amidst twenty acrobatic tricks in a infamous double act. They sang songs of sin upon a liquor-stained stage, always telling each other in a chuckling whisper that drove dumb-ass johns wild, i just can't do it alone.
Natalia's Alfred was such a john, an all-American bootlegger with a million-dollar grin and laughing eyes that were trained to pack a gun as well as shoot one. He used to chase after her like a dog in heat, showering her with affection that was befittingly superficial, but he piqued her interest when he told her once — a killer show like always, baby, but i think one of you's was outta time to the music last night.
Natalia eyed him and blew smoke from her delicate lips, which one of us? He grinned and said, told'ja, i can't remember, sweetheart. So she turns to him and flicks her hair, popping her hip the way she knew was the most fetching, uncrossing her legs with bejeweled garters. let's see if i can refresh your memory. If the bastard was here (alive) now, he would probably quip that she looked just as seductive even when glaring from behind bars. Well, fuck him.
(and guess who did?)
Cicero was aptly-named, a hotel with too many stars than necessary staffed with pert suck-ups in ironed uniforms, thinking themselves above their guests who happened to dabble in the world of speakeasies and nightclub joints. Her blonde-haired husband had too much to drink when he threatened to shoot one particularly smart-mouthed waiter, and Yekaterina had urged him gently to take a breather, alfred, honey, you must be exhausted, now let's get you to bed. Natalia should've seen it coming, but she was always apathetic and reserved to a fault, seeing only when things were happening before her eyes — her husband and sister in a tangle of naked limbs and scattered, drunken lust; number seventeen, the spread-eagle.
Natalia came to Cook County Jail with frigidly feigned forgetfulness, blood-crusted nails, and one of Alfred's guns held as evidence; and Chicago's press swarming, nipping at her heels — gasping, she plugged her husband and her sister! She smirked for the cameras and appointed herself as the queen bee, the most infamous girl that dominated over lesser beings. She joined the lazy camaraderie of Murderess' Row, trading cigarettes over poker games where Tiantian deals cards with soot-covered fingers as fast as lightning with Vivienne and Bel at her sides. Natalia tapped a staccato rhythm with the heel of her shoe; Charleston, ragtime, jazz — which one of us was out of time?
Must've been her sister. Natalia was always the better dancer.
. . .
vi. and i saw him dead.
(lipschitz.)
She'd had always been a romantic, but being a murderess was Liesl Zwingli's first.
Her face was always doll-like and rosy like a child's, she was always mistaken to be at least five years younger than her actual age, and sometimes even passing for thirteen under certain lights. Her hair was cut in the bob that was the fad nowadays, but truthfully, it was home haircut that she did on a whim. Liesel was sick of her pigtails — long and sweeping like flags of blatant immaturity. Her brother was an uptight man, disapproving of everything that he considered worldly — booze, Chicago, jazz; what, liesl, in the name of all that is holy, did you do to your hair? Liesl had held up a hand defensively, you don't think i look good in this?
oh, baby, of course you look good, Feliciano had purred, untying her ribbon from her locks. Liesl had loved him more than she could possibly say, he was artistic, sensitive — qualities befitting a young, Italian painter. His brushstrokes formed scenes of the pieta, the Blessed Virgin and her Son, and his lips stained Liesl's heart a renaissance red. baby, he murmured into her ear, you're beautiful.
He was a reformed sinner, he had confessed into the curve of her jaw. His ties to his mafia family were cut, his older brother dead (poisoned); he said it was because he wanted to live a honest life, and not at all because he had swindled countless flows of cash from his father's account, or that he had helped the cops jail several of his uncles-twice-removed in exchange for looser gun control. He would sit at the window, the very picture of a moody, contemplative artiste; or he would drape his arms around her while sighing piteously, i just need to find myself. And she believed him.
He claimed he stayed out late to visit art museums and galleries, Feliciano would goad out a reluctant consent from Liesl by sweeping her off her feet, can i get a kiss from my lady luck? He came home later and later each night - she'll question him and he'll tell her the same thing over and over again, his breath smelling like silly indulgence; fifty-dollar bills falling from his tawny hands like things from a dream. But Liesl was a good observer — reformed sinner, my ass.
She watched as Feliciano stumbled into the room one night, his face smeared with coral lipstick and wearing a different man's shirt (he found ruth, gladys, rosemary, and irving. or was it ludwig?) Didn't even bother to hide it, and Liesl's head spun; the bastard, it screamed, the bastard! She was barely hysterical in her act, calming herself by counting the time it took him to die. Her ribbon proved surprisingly effective in its' deed, or maybe it was because she was pulling it too tight around his neck. His lips turns a morbid shade of blue from the lack of air in his lungs, and even his dying gasps sounded like cherubs. She ran home to her brother, her only sanctuary before his grandfather clock struck in time to the police siren coming to arrest her. i guess you could say feliciano and i broke up because of artistic differences, you see.
He saw himself alive, and Liesl saw him dead.
. . .
vii. you're a son of a bitch.
(roxie.)
Elizaveta Hedervary had always dreamed of becoming a star.
Gilbert had promised that to her, amidst kisses that tasted like cheap grog and rough, soldier's palms on the small of her back, ha, i'll make you a star, kid. It was a flimsy sort of excuse, she knew he'd always wanted to get into her garters since they were still in school together, but an excuse nonetheless, and Elizaveta grabbed it — say it again, gil. The bed broke that night, and thankfully ever oblivious Roderich assumed it was because of his tendency to crash into the mattress after a particularly long night at work.
Roderich was a sweetheart, but he was also aloof; giving up his jazz-pianist profession though that was what attracted Elizaveta to him in the first place. He never says no, but he was a little detached at points where a husband shouldn't be detached; no, not tonight, honey. i'm completely worn out for the night. And Elizaveta would've understood, she would've; but this was the age of jazz and liquor and it was somehow permissible to cuckold a husband, especially when you have a not-husband taking you to clubs and speakeasies and vaudeville acts, giving you a glimpse of what you wanted your life to be like if it was glittering and glamorous. say it again, gil.
She used to sing and dance in her old town's chorus, but nowadays Chicago wanted more than just a pretty face with a mediocre amount of talent. They wanted scandals, proved by the infamy of scintillating sister act that Elizaveta had seen on her last night as a free woman. Natalia Arlovskaya had been alone without her sister, for once, and the act ended with her getting arrested; but it was one all the same, if not more so. Even murder proved to be an art in the Windy City.
Honestly, she should've detected Gilbert's half-assed lies a mile away — the bastard was a dog and an asshat since he was still in school, and if he was any good with connections as he claimed he should've had a job a little more prestigious than a furniture salesman. But the fact was he was a lying son of a bitch, and Elizaveta told him so with shaking hands and furious, teary eyes; pulling the trigger five times. She'd been using him as a ladder to get into her life of vaudeville, but it turns out he was using her first, and goddamn if it didn't hurt, a little, a lot. A little wannabe, he called her. i'd say anything to get myself a piece of this, he snarled, grabbing her ass. you son of a bitch.
what the hell is going on, Roderich cried when he came home. Elizaveta pawed on him desperately, spewing nonsense about burglars and self-defense and goddamit, roderich, help me in my fucking hour of need! He stepped in with a bewildered brow but a cool disposition, his eyes clearly asking her who the dead man covered in a sheet was, and she clenched her teeth, avoided the glare of the cops, tucking into herself with fragile, deceitful arms.
the deceased, gilbert beilschmidt; the cop declared for the papers and Roderich's half-assed chivalrous act dropped like a hot stone. He ratted out on her, disbelieving in his stammers and denial, and Elizaveta was immediately cuffed and sent to the slammer. She glared at her husband who glared at the floor while the prosecutor sneered, this here's a hangin' case.
The sweetest jazz-killer ever to hit Chicago, and it started with the murder of a lying son of a bitch.
. . .
he only had himself to blame.
. . .