Author's Note: This is sequel to Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Conscience is but a word that cowards use, devised at first to keep the strong in awe: Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law. If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell.-Richard III
It started, like so many things do, in the most unlikely of ways. Arnold Rothstein had grown annoyed at a great many things during the heated summer of 1921. A small and yet quite persistent annoyance was the way his shirttail rode up over the course of the day at Saratoga and bunched unattractively under the waistband of his linen trousers. Rothstein spent a lot of money, a lot of time, and a lot of effort to look well-tailored. The extra fabric around his middle ruined the line.
His tailor tried to various ideas, but nothing solved the problem effectively. So the man spoke to his friends in the garment district, and it came to pass that many men spent many hours trying to devise a solution.
Finally, someone finally hit upon the answer, and in the early days of autumn many trial versions were crafted out of bits of suspender elastic and stray leather in a Seventh Avenue workroom before the two or three most promising were deemed ready to be shown. Rothstein's tailor was contacted and the man picked up the samples to show his most discerning client.
The tailor tried not to stare at the young man who escorted him to Rothstein's study, whose face was half-hidden behind a metal pantomime mask and whose dark green suit was not quite the done thing for the men in Rothstein's circle. In retrospect, the tailor wasn't certain if it was the mask or the suit he found more shocking. Rothstein was his most profitable client, however, so he brought his focus back to the task at hand.
Rothstein liked the efficiency of the pair that would also serve as sock garters. He didn't mind taking time while dressing, but really how much did he want going on under his clothing? And besides, the second option looked almost like a cage.
Without his conscious permission, his mind's eye imagined another man's legs wearing the second prototype. These stays practically begged for taut, firm legs with rippling muscles. The straps were meant to frame...well. Rothstein stroked the leather, the plan coming together quickly in his mind.
After all, his serious little Meyer was in need of a treat. Whatever the transgressions of the summer had brought, Rothstein had put them behind him. After all, hadn't he come out ahead in the end? Thompson was still logistically crippled and growing ever more dependent on Rothstein's assistance. Thompson's beloved princess resided in an apartment Rothstein owned and was required to do his bidding, her husband worked for him, and Thompson's ward now worked for Charlie and Meyer. However angry Nucky still was at both his wayward children, Rothstein was sure in the end the man's love for them would overcome his fury.
And whenever Thompson realized this it would be too late, since they were both now firmly under Rothstein's control.
Unfortunately, James Darmody continued to be a complication. Clara submitted to the requirements of a princess exiled to a foreign court, but Darmody struggled to find his footing. Taking orders from men he'd considered his equals was apparently particularly hard on the chap.
And perhaps even harder on Meyer, whose job it was to keep him in hand. Those little paper packets Darmody loved so much (that Rothstein wasn't supposed to know about) weren't helping anything either.
AR knew two things for certain as he turned the second prototype in his hands. Those straps were made to circumnavigate the powerful thighs of Charlie Luciano. And Meyer was seeing quite a lot of Charlie's thighs these days, not that either of them were ever anything less than circumspect. Friends since childhood, and therefore everyone overlooked the lingering looks and simmering energy between the two.
But AR had watched that energy change around the time of the attempt on Thompson's life. The way they looked at each other in the stables at Saratoga that hot summer day. A lot of it, yes, was their anxiousness to keep their part in the assassination attempt on Thompson from him. But that day it was as if their bodies were made of liquid energy that flowed towards each other, like every moment until they could once more shut a door between the rest of the world and what went on when it was just the two of them was an annoyance.
Rothstein didn't rush these little treats. He bided his time, and then one day, when Meyer was a little looser than normal, the Yiddish falling effortlessly from his young lips, Rothstein dropped the stays in front of him.
"Charlie has been so well-dressed as of late, has he not?"
Charlie was always beautifully dressed, Meyer thought. There was neither Rockefeller nor king (and by Meyer's estimation there was slight difference between the two) who wore clothes with Charlie's grace.
"My tailor had these made. They'll be available at Gimbel's soon, but for now, there are only a few in existence."
Meyer picked them up, but the strips of leather and elastic added up to nothing in his mind. "What is their use?"
AR picked them up and showed Meyer. "They are made to hold Charlie's shirt down."
Meyer took them and thoughtfully turned them in his hands. He had a masterful poker face, but AR didn't miss the way his tongue darted out to lick the corner of his mouth as he considered just what the leather and elastic would look like on Charlie.
"I'll let him know you sent them."
December 1921
Clara frowned at her typewriter, attempting to will the machine to write without her physical intervention. Not only was The Bobbsey Twins at the County Fair due to Mr. Stratemeyer soon, but she also had been hired to write an article for Smart Set about the growing trend of parents sending their children to preschools. It was a subject Clara was quite familiar with since she'd spent weeks touring the city to find somewhere to send Tommy.
She wasn't particularly proud of the fact, but the idea of being cooped up with Tommy alone in the apartment all day every day made her want to scream. Had that come to pass, she feared she would have ended up like the woman who pulled the yellow wallpaper from the walls of her prison-home. It was good for Tommy, the structure in his day, being around other children, she told herself. And it allowed her to structure her own days so that she could spend most afternoons with him.
Rothstein made many demands on her, and Richard's, evenings, albeit in different ways. Still, she tried to make sure one of them put Tommy to bed. Most social engagements didn't begin until after Tommy's bedtime, and if she often read bedtime stories wearing an evening dress with her shoes and headband waiting in the hall, so be it. They were all doing the best they could. Kaity was a godsend, someone whose trustworthiness Clara could depend on.
Without Kaity, there was no way Clara could keep up with the demands Rothstein placed on her, much less the demands of running the apartment and her own writing.
Clara twisted in her chair, considering her surroundings as she put off placing her fingertips back on the typewriter keys. The morning room was her favorite, besides their bedroom, of course. Richard had built the window seat. Most of the furniture from the beach house had been destroyed or sold, but the green and plum-colored armchairs Angela had ordered for the living room survived and now sat across from the window seat. The deep green curtains, window seat covers, and pillows had all been made by a seamstress recommended by Mrs. Levitz. Economize if you must, Mrs. Levitz had told her, but never on your seamstress or your laundress.
Along with the refectory table she used as a desk, a round table was an important part of the room. Since the kitchen was largely Kaity's domain, it had been important to find a space where Richard could have privacy to eat. The living and dining room were much nicer, but those rooms were where the more public part of their private lives took place. This room was where they actually lived together as an odd little family.
Not that their family was together at the moment. Richard was out of town with Rothstein, but she wasn't privileged to know where they were or what they were doing. She had kissed him goodbye lightly, not wanting to add to his burden. Clara knew darkness, and she could still see it wafting from time to time over her husband. This was the longest they'd been separated since they married and Clara's uneasiness grew nightly.
And, as usual, she had very little idea where Jimmy was.
How many times since they'd moved here had Jimmy been the one to tuck Tommy in at night or walk him to school or take him for new shoes? Clara thought she could count the times on one hand. She wasn't sure Jimmy even knew where Tommy went to preschool.
Jimmy came and went from the bedroom down the hall like he was a man with no responsibilities, beholden to no one, Tommy ecstatic at whatever moments of time Jimmy managed to spend with him. Like Jimmy was the family friend, the fun uncle. Not the boy's father.
And she knew it wasn't just alcohol that made Jimmy's eyes hazy on the mornings he managed to eat with them. She feared Charlie's paper packets were behind a lot of Jimmy's frazzled edges.
Clara sighed in frustration. She'd managed to write less than three pages on this, a rare evening where no one was making demands on her.
A thunderous pounding reverberated through the apartment. Clara sighed again. Somehow she'd gotten most of what she wanted-Richard with her, Jimmy alive, Tommy away from Gillian, all of them out of Atlantic City-and yet once more she was trapped in a tower. Richard oversaw the staffing for Rothstein's buildings, but Clara wasn't naïve enough to believe these men wouldn't report their movements to Rothstein if asked. Or even simply as standard procedure.
It was almost ten o'clock. There was only one person who the men working the door and the elevator would allow up to her door unaccompanied this late when they knew Richard wasn't home. Clara rose with a groan, knowing the peace of her evening had just shattered.
Charlie Luciano was in a mood. Hadn't he put in a good day's work? Didn't he deserve the evening that they'd had planned? He'd laid around in the tub for a while, then dried off and put on the things he knew Meyer liked best. The shirt stays Rothstein had for some reason gifted to him. The silk shorts. He'd been slapping on the aftershave Meyer always commented on when the phone rang.
"Charlie," Meyer had said on the other end.
"God damn it, Meyer," Charlie had responded, knowing his evening was about to be blown up.
"It's my mother, Charlie. She doesn't ask for much."
Meyer was so good at all he turned his sharp little mind to, and Charlie damn well knew that included lying to himself. That donna brutta in a babushka regularly asked Meyer for the moon and then applied the screws when Meyer could only give her everything else in the farshiltn world.
Charlie'd banged around with Benny for a bit, and then when Benny went off with some skirt before dinner-before fucking dinner-Charlie had had it. He'd hit up some broads. Nothing made him happy. So why should he be the only one unhappy? He hailed a cab and headed uptown to 57th Street.
Clara opened the door wearing the nuttiest night things he'd ever seen on a broad. Fucking pajamas. Looked like they were made out of scraps of different colors of pink satin. The matching jacket had some sort of scarf. Ridiculous. Well, he wasn't here to screw her. If Harrow liked bedding a princess in pants that was his business.
"Get dressed," he growled at her. "We're going out."
"Why, I'm fine, Charlie, thank you for asking. It's Kaity's night out so-"
"I ain't interested in your domestic problems. It's your job-"
Clara took his arm and yanked him into the apartment, shutting the door behind him. He'd fucking kill any man who grabbed him like that, Charlie thought.
"I understand the arrangement," Clara said, and Charlie could hear the anger in her voice, "but I'm not your damn slave. I have other responsibilities. Every time you whistle I can't be expected-"
"You and Darmody got the same damn problem. Fucking rich kids. You ain't calling the shots here, Princess. This pretty apartment, the money Rothstein gives you, it's to do a job."
Clara stared at him silently, but he didn't miss the furious blush that spread across her face. "Silly me. Fine, unfortunately since I wasn't aware I was needed to work tonight I'm hardly in any shape to go out. I'll need some time. Please make yourself at home in this apartment that, as you so graciously pointed out, is mine on sufferance, while I get ready."
Just what he needed was Clara Harrow in a terrible mood when he wanted to go find some fun. For a minute he considered leaving and going off on his own, but instead, he walked into the dining room and headed for the cabinet where he knew they kept the hooch.
The apartment pissed him off. No sets of anything. Little was new. Charlie much preferred the furniture he'd ordered for his new place. Italian influenced, the furniture guy had told him. Not any Italy Charlie remembered, but he liked the idea of it all the same. But fancy fuckers, he knew somehow Clara's apartment they'd consider right and his wrong. Damn Puritans. His was nicer, but this mismatched spazzatura was considered better by the people Rothstein always told him mattered.
Clara dressed with ruthless efficiency. Burgundy velvet evening dress, gold jewelry, gold lace headband, a swipe of dark lipstick. A quick check on Tommy revealed that his cow was on the floor, so she tucked cow and boy back in, told Kaity she was leaving and to listen out for Tommy, and rejoined Charlie.
"I'm here at your service, sir," Clara said while shrugging into her evening cloak. Charlie didn't bother asking if she needed help.
"Great," Charlie muttered. "Wanna go to Paradise?"
"Not with you," Clara retorted, "but whatever Master wishes, I suppose."
Instead of waiting for the damn doorman to hail a cab, Clara turned left and started walking down 57th Street. Charlie bit back a groan. It was only a couple of blocks to Reisenweber's joint, but a block was a long crosstown one and he was wearing new shoes.
By the time they hoofed it over to Eighth Avenue Charlie had cursed Yetta Lansky for interfering with his night, Nucky Thompson for fathering Clara, the man who sold him the shoes, and roughly half the people he'd ever met in his life. God damn it, next time he took Clara somewhere he'd bring a car and driver so she couldn't do to this him again.
Clara noted they weren't asked to pay a cover charge when they entered the Paradise room, a waiter appearing with some amber-colored liquid for Charlie and a dreamy, frothy pink concoction for herself without prompting. She took it gratefully. Walking seemed a good idea when she stormed out of the lobby angry at Charlie and the world, but halfway down 57th Street she remembered the shoes she'd tossed on weren't her most comfortable. It wasn't like she could ask Charlie, who looked frankly murderous, to hail a cab so she'd been forced to press on.
"Would you like to tell me why you in such a sour mood or would you rather simply torture me to make yourself feel better? As the hired help I know it's your choice, but I'd like to prepare myself for my employer's requirements," Clara asked in her brightest social voice.
"Do you know what your problem is?" Charlie asked.
"My problem?" Clara answered incredulously. "The way I see it-"
"Harrow needs to take you over his fucking knee!"
Clara gasped. "Are you suggesting my husband spank me?"
"He kisses you all soft, don't he, 'cause he don't see what a klafte you are. He thinks you are a delicate little..."
"Is this because I told you what a terrible kisser you are?"
Charlie laughed and lit another cigarette. "Probably wouldn't even work on you 'cause you'd just like it." He turned and looked back at her over his shoulder, thrusting his hips back and forth while speaking in a painfully high falsetto. "Oh Richard do it again. Harder..."
"Please stop imagining that our private life is anything like yours!"
"My goodness, what an unexpected scene," a dry, deep voice said from behind them.
"Mr. Levitz," Clara said.
Charlie took perverse pleasure in the fact Clara was so flustered.
"My mother always says her granddaughters and their friends are the greatest amusement available," the man continued. "As usual, I see she is correct."
Clara laughed, a trilling sound Charlie only heard her use in these situations. "Mr. Levitz, may I present Mr. Luciano?"
Charlie realized the famous Lady Rose was this cocksucker's niece. Darmody talked about what dish she was.
"Pleased to meet ya," Charlie responded.
They were shown to a table (a good one, next to the stage) and over the course of a couple of drinks, Charlie realized Clara had worked Mr. Levitz's profession (looking after daddy's money, sounded like) into the conversation and had the man promise to come to tea. She'd let some hints drop about Charlie's line of work, too. Smooth as fucking silk, Charlie thought with some admiration.
Eddie Cantor stopped by their table after squawking out another number, eager to pay homage to Thompson's daughter. Charlie noted that the man also was careful to pay attention to him, which made Charlie preen a little. Cantor might be a puffed-up crooner but the man was a celebrity. People knew who the little fucker was, and here he was, paying court at Charlie's table.
That's when he heard a tinkling bell. Jesus Fucking Christ, he thought, and started making a plan so that they all didn't end up in the slammer. No matter how much he and Meyer stashed in the Pay Me bank for bribes, he didn't need the headache.
"Cantor, get back up on that stage and sing your damn heart out. Clara, dump the drinks in that palm behind you."
"Shouldn't we make a run for it?" Levitz asked, and Charlie noted the sweat along the man's brow.
"Only if you wanna grace the front page of the World tomorrow," Charlie said forcefully. "We's are just two nice gentlemen taking our married lady friend out to hear Cantor while her husband is away, as long as we sit here all peaceful like."
Charlie forced himself to stay loose as the waiters left water glasses on the table, and Clara kept murmuring to Levitz about some cottage the man's mother owned in Rhode Island. From the dining room below them was the sound of shattering glass and thumping feet. Fucking Prohies, Charlie thought.
When the Prohies breached the Paradise Room, they found a selection of New York's bright young (and not so young) things sipping water and listening to their favorite singer.
Not a drop of alcohol in sight.
"You all right?" Charlie asked, realizing just how annoying he found this silence as he escorted her off the elevator.
"When you are introduced to someone, the only acceptable response is 'how do you do,'" Clara said instead of answering his question.
Charlie scowled at her.
"It's utterly ridiculous and trivial, but isn't that why you roused me from my writing? Isn't telling you things like that my job?" she asked.
"Nah, I wanted to have some fun and thought since Harrow is out of town you might need some too. I won't make that mistake again."
Clara left the front door open so he followed her inside.
"My special talent in life is mucking things up. I was already in a mood before you came," Clara said while hanging her cloak up.
"Rip your favorite stocking?" Charlie teased her.
She didn't turn around, taking her time smoothing her cloak down. "It's hard not knowing. I don't know where Richard is or what Rothstein has him doing. And he's doing it for me. For Tommy."
"Oh, fuck, Clara," Charlie said. This was why Rothstein told Carolyn nothing and Capone told his Irish lassie even less. What was it his ma used to say? Thompson and Darmody had worked it so Clara wasn't either fish or fowl. She knew too much, but she was a woman. And the dangerous fucking thing about her was she put things together like life and its secrets were a jigsaw puzzle laid out for her pleasure.
"Why were you such a pleasure to be around earlier this evening?" Clara asked, remembering Charlie's stormy face when he had appeared at her door.
"Meyer and me, we had plans tonight and then he broke him because of his mother," Charlie finally answered.
Clara looked over at Charlie.
Oddly enough, she'd first noticed because of the kiss. Her heart had been ripped out and she'd turned her face so she didn't see Richard, but Meyer was standing next to the car. And at the time she hadn't understood the look on his face.
Simple, cold fury.
Friends since childhood. Clara knew all too well how easily that could be misconstrued. Her father never saw what she felt for Richard because he was so convinced she and Jimmy harbored feelings for each other. And her father was hardly the other one. So she didn't think anything about all the meaningful looks and obvious private jokes and intense vibrations between the two of them, because weren't she and Jimmy the same?
Besides, Charlie was giving it to Gillian, wasn't he? And although Clara was no innocent in the woods, and she certainly knew men could love men, her mind didn't intuitively go there.
Until she glanced up one day as she sat at Lindy's toying with a chopped egg and onion sandwich, waiting for her appointment with the king the way she'd watched so many people wait for her father's notice, and saw the briefest look Meyer shot at Charlie.
It wasn't heavy with innuendo about the people in Lindy's Deli. It was heavy with carnal hunger. It was the sort of look she'd fought to keep out of her eyes, when she was trying to keep her feelings from her father.
At first, she thought perhaps it was just Meyer. Maybe he had a crush on Charlie. After all, Clara could see Charlie was a handsome enough fellow. So she watched quietly. And she saw. The way Charlie leaned towards Meyer, the feeling that time spent with other people was time wasted. Time away from their real life, the one that was just them.
Clara also recognized that feeling.
"You never mocked Jimmy about Angela," Clara answered because that was also the truth, and one that made her fonder of Charlie.
Charlie turned back to look at her and she shrugged.
"It's really hard to hide loving someone."
"I don't know what the fuck you think you're talking about," Charlie responded and moved, which resulted in Clara being trapped between him and the closet door.
The danger was forgetting that people in your life, people you liked, people you even loved, were hazardous to your well-being. Eli should have taught her that lesson, Clara thought, trying to settle her breathing. Instead, she forgot, lulled by the ordinariness of most of her days.
"I ain't gonna hit you," Charlie said, taking a step back, recognizing the flash of fear that went over Clara's face. "If I did, who would ruin my night telling me I don't know how to get introduced to people?"
She should let him leave, Clara reasoned, except then they might part enemies and she was in desperate need of a friend. "Want a drink?" she finally asked.
What the hell, Charlie thought. Clara'd already diced up his life like a puzzle, might as well get drunk. It'd be nice to have somebody to talk to.
At some point, when Clara's head already felt like it was in a vice, Charlie announced he was hungry. God only knew where she'd left her shoes. She and Charlie hadn't had a drink. Between the two of them, she was fairly certain they'd drank everything in the apartment.
Up to and including the cooking sherry.
Charlie's head was deep in the icebox. "You got no rosemary, no oregano, not even fuckin' parsley. The fuck is wrong with you."
"Would you mind being quiet?" Clara hissed at him. "Kaity's room shares a wall with the kitchen."
"Well next time Tits O'Malley goes to the market tell her there ain't no Volstead Act restrictions against buying herbs."
"I don't send Kaity to the market. She has enough to do. I call in the order to the corner grocer and they deliver it."
"One of youse don't go smell the tomatoes?"
"No, I ...What?" Clara asked, his words hitting her.
"My ma always does. She says they're supposed to smell like the earth. Like the sun."
Neither of them spoke as Charlie pushed meat and leftover bread through the grinder.
"You left," a little voice said behind her, and Clara turned quickly.
Tommy stood in his pajamas, holding his cow by one ear, glaring at her with a look that was so much Jimmy's angry expression that it tore at her heart a little.
But what absolutely ripped at her was that she could see the tear stains on his face.
"Tommy," she said, kneeling down in front of him. "Baby?"
Tommy wiped at his eyes. "You left. I been in your room and you weren't there," he said, and Clara heard the accusation in his voice.
"Kaity was here. Why didn't you get her?" Clara asked.
"'Cause you said you was gonna be here," Tommy replied.
Clara groaned. Of course. She'd put Tommy to bed thinking she would spend the evening writing. When she checked on him before she left she should have told him he was leaving, but she hadn't wanted to wake him up. And Kaity's room was far enough away that she didn't hear him get up.
"I'm so sorry, kiddo. I had to go out. I should have told you. But I'll always come back."
"Mama didn't."
Oh god, oh god, Clara thought. She pulled Tommy to her and rocked him, not knowing what to say.
Charlie watched, shaping the meatballs and then plopping them down into the fat without saying anything. Amazingly, there was some decent dried pasta in the pantry, so he tossed it in some boiling water and got out the butter.
"Kid," he said when it all came together. "Wanna eat?"
Tommy looked at Charlie over Clara's shoulder. "Smells like my mama," he said.
"Your ma picked out her own tomatoes," Charlie answered and Clara shot him a look.
Clara ate silently, desperate to soak up some of the alcohol in her system. She couldn't remember the last time she drank this much.
"Whatcha think?" Charlie asked.
Charlie liked to be told what a good job he did at-well, basically everything, Clara reflected.
Before she could answer, Tommy spoke up. "My mama's were best."
Charlie started to pout but then thought of his own mother smelling each tomato. "Your ma's meatballs are always the greatest, kid."
He'd been tired a lot in his life, but this kind of tired made him long for the exhaustion of sitting in a blind. Also, he was starving. Rothstein was constantly surrounded by food, but Richard rarely had the privacy needed to eat.
Darkness and quiet blanketed the apartment. Clara's shoes lay in the doorway to the dining room. Odd. Something from the kitchen smelled good. He'd meant to walk back to look in on Clara and Tommy, but hunger won out.
He was surprised to find a messy kitchen. Clara must have cooked, because it was Wednesday. Kaity's evening off. It wasn't like Clara to leave this much of a mess, though. He helped himself to the leftover meatballs and noodles before going into the dining room since the kitchen was so close to Kaity's room. It was delicious. Clara's cooking was improving, but a little strange she'd cook for the two of them. Usually, she and Tommy ate chop suey when alone.
Walking down the hall he noticed Tommy's door was open and the room was empty. Tommy must've climbed into bed with Clara.
Jimmy's room was also empty. Richard's jaw tightened. The apartment was secure. He still would have preferred Jimmy to come home while he was out of town. Jimmy was a gnawing worry. But Angela, dead. Of course, Jimmy was struggling. And Richard was used to taking orders, to navigating within others' boundaries. Jimmy had grown used to being his own man. It was a difficult adjustment to be an underling to men who had been your partners.
Tommy was indeed asleep in their room. What Richard hadn't expected was for the boy to be asleep on top of Clara, who was half leaned against the headboard and still wearing a dark-colored evening dress. Her pajamas were tossed on top of her vanity.
His hand grasped the valise more tightly before he set it down. Clara had been upset that night in the beach house when she realized he'd agreed to work for Rothstein, but then she'd been swept up in the excitement of the apartment and in sorting out a life in New York. Soon he realized he hadn't just married his Clara, who was content writing in his room while he cut the grass. He'd married Society Clara, and in New York, she came out often. Usually on Rothstein's command, which meant she was spending a lot of time with Luciano.
He wished he knew exactly what Rothstein's overall plan involving Clara was. He didn't like that she'd become a part of Rothstein's collection of useful young people, like the Attorney General's son who reminded Richard of Darcy Blaine.
Looking at Clara (who honestly looked a little worse for the wear) and Tommy he was grateful, but this wasn't any life he'd ever imagined. He'd never expected marriage to look like a duplex in Manhattan, with his best friend down the hall, or to have the responsibility of a child who wasn't theirs.
The apartment was as lovely as anything in one of his books, and that was partly because he and Clara had spent some of their savings carefully picking out furniture. He'd even made some things when they hadn't been able to find anything the right size to fit the spaces.
But it was also because Lady Rose's grandmother, the fearsome Mrs. Levitz, had swept in from Rhode Island in early September, not long after they'd arrived from Atlantic City.
"Don't be silly, darling," she'd told Clara. "Dorothy is in San Francisco, Rose and Mr. Malley for some reason had to return to drafty old England. I have absolutely no one to fuss over. Besides, I have attics full of things I really must clear out."
And so rugs and tables and pictures and all manner of housewares flowed into the apartment. All of their bedroom furniture came from her attic. Clara wanted to paint it green, to match the dark green curtains they'd hung. That's when he learned Clara's enthusiasm for certain projects far outweighed her skill.
He had been working on the window seat when Mrs. Levitz walked in one day. She'd stood watching him until he felt rather like an animal in a zoo.
"My goodness, I bet our sweet little Clara just climbs you like a tree, doesn't she?" Mrs. Levitz had said appraisingly.
He'd hit thumb with a hammer just as Clara came back into the room.
"Clara, I'm wrong," Mrs. Levitz announced. "You need a bench for the end of your bed. It will give you both a place to sit to put your shoes on, straighten your stockings...it will be useful in all manner of ways."
Richard cast a guilty look at the bench. It had come in handy, just not in the ways Mrs. Levitz expected.
Clara startled awake. "You're home," she whispered in a froggy voice and reached one hand toward him. "I missed you."
Sometimes when he was away from her it made him shy when they were first back together. Even now uncertainty warred with the desire to let her pull him down on the bed with her, but he finally succumbed to the pull of her hand.
"Are you. Okay?" Clara smelled like the floor of Jimmy's distillery and her eyes were almost the same dark red as her dress. Richard moved to take Tommy, but Clara didn't let go.
"I made a mistake," Clara whispered. "I wasn't going to go out, but then Charlie showed up. Kaity was already back from her night out, so I told her to watch Tommy. But I didn't wake him up to tell him I was leaving..."
Richard understood at once what happened. Tommy woke up to look for Clara and found an empty bedroom.
"Why did. Luciano show up. Unannounced?"
Clara shifted Tommy to lay next to her, realizing the velvet dress was unbearably sticky and hot and would probably need a lengthy going over to save it. "He and Meyer had a spat."
"So not. On Rothstein's orders?" Richard asked.
"I've been ordered to socialize Charlie and introduce him to everyone I possibly can. That's what I was doing." Clara looked at him sharply, sick from booze and from the stress of worrying while he was gone.
Without saying a word Richard walked into the bathroom to get ready for bed. Clara stumbled to her feet, snatched her pajamas off the vanity, and stalked down to the hall bath to once more prepare for bed. Her fear and guilt gave way to anger. Did she guilt him about working? No.
Clara was rearranging Tommy when Richard came out and sat on his side of the bed.
"Are you not going to say anything else to me?" she hissed at him.
"Goodnight," he answered.
"Goodnight? You've been gone for days, I had no idea where or if you are okay-"
"I was. Working. You knew that," Richard answered.
"As was I."
He stared forward, his hand clenching and unclenching.
"I don't like. You having to go out with Luciano. To keep Rothstein happy. " he finally responded.
Clara walked around the bed and sat next to him.
"I don't like you working for Rothstein either, but here we are," she said and cast a guilty look back at Tommy.
We are caught in a trap I set, Clara thought, and I'm so terribly sorry.
"I don't. Have to work. Tomorrow," he said, and Clara heard the uncertainty in his voice. "I can. Walk Tommy to school."
"He'd love that," Clara responded. "I'll get up and go along."
There was so much to talk about, but her head felt like it was about to split open. Richard handed her the carafe without commenting and she drank thirstily. In the morning, all would be better.
In the morning. Oh, hell, Clara thought miserably.
"Richard, there's something else." She took a deep breath. "Charlie's asleep in the morning room."
"Why?" Richard asked, his hand once more flexing furiously.
"Well, we went to the Paradise, but it was raided. He needed to talk about Meyer, so we ended up back here and Tommy woke up scared and Charlie made meatballs-"
Luciano had made the meatballs and noodles he'd eaten, and Luciano had left the mess in the kitchen for Kaity to clean up. While the man got drunk with his wife. Whom he could have gotten arrested or hurt during the raid.
Luciano could participate in the parts of Clara's life that were closed to him. The parts she told him didn't matter, and in Atlantic City, the parts he assumed mostly would fall away. But then he'd agreed to Rothstein's deal, and suddenly Clara was swept into an intense social whirl, with Charlie often at her side.
It wasn't enough that the man could do all the things in public with Clara that he could not, but now Luciano was invading his home. Even here, doing the things he could not.
Eating in the kitchen with Clara and Tommy. No need to worry about eating alone in the morning room, or worrying that Kaity might appear at any moment.
"And by then he wasn't in any shape to get home," Clara finished. "And Tommy was still upset, so..."
It was so late as to be early. Soon Tommy would be awake and need to be walked to school. He reached over to turn off the lamp. Clara silently went to her side of the bed and lay down next to Tommy, who in his sleep reached out and grabbed both their arms.
The things we don't talk about, they grow and they grow, Clara thought, looking at the small fingers sinking into their wrists. Even in his sleep, Tommy feared the people he loved would slip away. She reached over the sleeping boy and pressed her free hand against Richard's jaw.
"I love you," she whispered.
"I love you," Richard responded, and as Clara fell back into alcohol-assisted sleep she wondered if he said it because he meant it or because he was so unfailingly polite.
"I'm going to take care of this," Clara said when she saw Richard was awake. She was already dressed. "Last night...that's not what I wanted you to come home to. I missed you, you know? Maybe I got a little stir-crazy."
As Clara closed the door behind her she heard Tommy squealing with happiness that Richard was home.
"Jesus Christ, that ain't necessary," Charlie called when she knocked purposefully on the morning room door.
"This is the morning room and it's morning. We need it..." Clara said, bursting through the door before she got a good eyeful of Charlie sitting without pants on her new velvet cushions. "Oh my god, put your clothes on!"
"Whadda you think I'm doing?" Charlie asked. He'd expected her to turn and flail around and make a giant fuss like she'd never seen a man's dick before.
Instead, she was staring at him.
He'd spent the night thinking about Meyer, but he hadn't become no nun. Charlie preened under Clara's attention. "Like whatcha see, Princess?"
"What," Clara said, biting her lower lip and pointing, "are those?"
What she saw made no sense. There were leather straps encircling Charlie's thighs with buckles and elastic, and they connected to the bottom of his shirt.
The rational part of her brain realized it was something like her own stocking suspenders. Obviously, it was meant to hold his shirt flat.
The irrational part of her brain focused on the fact it was the single most attractive piece of male paraphernalia she'd ever seen.
Although she'd never know it, Clara had the same reaction to the stays as Arnold Rothstein. Instead of focusing on the man in front of her, her mind leaped to think about the man's legs she'd like to see in them.
"They're shirt stays."
"Can I touch them?"
The knocking from the front door was very precise and polite. Richard knew the sound of that knock.
"Harrow," Meyer said with his friendliest smile. "I had to wonder if by any chance..."
"Luciano. Spent the night. Here in our apartment. After he almost. Mmm. Got my wife arrested."
Meyer blinked hard and forced the smile to stay on his lips.
"Don't tell nobody," Charlie said. Jesus fuck if he needed Meyer or Metal Face angry 'cause Clara touched his leg.
She reached out hesitantly and popped the elastic back.
"Ouch!"
Clara nodded like she had confirmed an idea she already held. "I need a pair for Richard."
"What the fuck? You're grabbing my leg and thinking about Harrow?"
"We still need the morning room," Clara muttered as she walked away.
Her dress was silk crepe, not heavy wool, but as she went down the hallway it felt like she was wearing her heaviest coat. The heat was almost unbearable. She wanted to rip the dress off and press her body against either a cool window or her husband. Either should work.
"Are you. Okay?" Richard asked when Clara stopped in front of him without even acknowledging Meyer.
Clara reached for his hand and pulled him along with her back to their bedroom without speaking.
The morning room door slammed open. Meyer knew the sound of Charlie's footsteps.
"You can thank me later, Harrow!" Charlie called out before he saw Meyer. "Oh, nice of you to wonder where the hell I been all night."
Meyer took a steadying breath. "I am wondering now, Charlie."
"What's Richard gonna thank you for Mr. Charlie? Makin' meatballs?" a little voice asked from behind them.
"My apologies Mr. Lansky, Mr. Luciano," Kaity said from the dining room. "I was getting Tommy's breakfast when-"
The sound of a door slamming was followed by the solid thunk of a body hitting wood.
"What was that?" Tommy asked.
"About six feet and one hundred and sixty pounds hitting a door," Charlie said with a smirk.
"So you cooked," Meyer asked, in a tone that Tommy didn't recognize but Charlie certainly did.
"I seen paupers with better pantries than Clara's. Don't get excited, they turned out like shit."
Tommy nodded solemnly. "They didn't taste best."
"Kid there weren't no garlic, that onion needed burying not cooking..."
Meyer reached in his pocket and flipped a quarter towards Tommy right as another crash (a pile of books and perhaps some sort of brass ornament, if his ears could be trusted, Meyer thought) echoed down the hall. "Here you are, Tommy. Perhaps you'd allow Mr. Charlie and I to drive you to school, since it does sound like Clara and Richard are occupied?"
"Thanks, Mr. Meyer!" Tommy called out. Paper money he found boring, but Tommy did love the satisfaction of coins. "Are they having pirate time?
"Sounds like Clara is about to blow a man down," Charlie said.
"Enough, Charlie." Meyer warned.
In a very comfortable bed uptown, Jimmy Darmody stretched himself awake and then realized the sun's rays were fully streaming in through the spotlessly clean windows. Not even the layers of drapery could completely push back the day.
Fuck, he thought. He'd honestly meant to get up and get home. Richard was out of town. It would be better if he was there. He meant to be there.
Instead of getting up, he let his fingers slide through her curls. God, she was pretty in just the way he liked, all dark hair and creamy skin. He found it vaguely disconcerting that she smelled of the orange soap Clara used, but what the hell. Sometimes Angela had used it, too, because God knows Clara left bars everywhere she stayed.
He smirked while his hand drifted down and started smoothing her other set of dark curls. She moaned a little, confirming she wasn't totally asleep.
"I'm quite sure Clara won't mind taking Tommy to school," she whispered as his hand went deeper.
Tommy scampered from the car, having spent the ride telling them all about his school.
"Ain't that something," Charlie said. "Clara makin' Harrow pay so Darmody's kid can learn to sweep a floor."
Meyer smoked his cigarette and looked at the Fifth Avenue mansion that sheltered Tommy's little school. It was frankly ridiculous to pay so that Tommy could learn to sweep, but Meyer recognized Clara's action for what it was. Tommy'd travel with these kids he was sweeping with to one of those schools where the boys wore crests on their jackets and then off to Princeton or Yale like his father. But Clara would send Tommy off prepared, already one of those Ivy League jerks.
"When I have children I'll pay," Meyer said, almost more to himself than to Charlie. "Celebrities will stop to speak to my children. They'll be friends with society people, real friends."
Meyer, having kids. Charlie frowned. "You want some spoiled brat like Clara?"
"Thompson crawled out of the woods, found a rich girl, and claimed a city for his own. Clara grew up with the nicest clothes, good food, the best schools. She can walk into any room-she can walk into places even AR can not-and she knows how to be there. She can make those people think she's one of them."
"She's been shot at," Charlie said, ignoring his own part in that. "Thompson sent her to the loony bin."
"Thompson made mistakes. He let his world get too close to Clara. And now I know what mistakes to avoid when I have a family."
Charlie was silent.
"Speaking of Clara, what did you do?"
"I got ready 'cause I thought we was gonna spend some time together. Then your ma called, and Benny ran off, so I took Clara to the Paradise Room so she could introduce me to more of her fancy world you like so much. Then the Prohies showed so we ended up back at their place."
"And how did it come to pass that Clara stormed down the hall and grabbed Harrow?"
"She slammed in on me while I was gettin' dressed. Asked what the straps on my legs were."
Meyer took a long drag off his cigarette, not letting his eyes move over to look at Charlie, thinking about the implication.
Charlie was wearing the stays.
"Perhaps this morning we should start our work," Meyer said, mindful of the cab driver, "by stopping at your apartment. I believe some of the information we need you keep at home, yes?"
His hand brushed down ever so slightly to the outside of Charlie's leg, and felt the familiar series of straps and buckles.
"You are still wearing them," Meyer breathed out.
"I don't got a change of clothes with me," Charlie muttered, a hand over his face to protect his bloodshot eyes from the sun.
Meyer gripped the leather strap. "Driver, please take us to Murray Hill," he said. To anyone else, it just sounded like the very polite, purposefully professional voice Meyer Lansky used in most of his interactions.
Only Charlie heard the gravelly undertone of need.
"I'm certain we can find something there to make you feel better," Meyer continued.
Charlie brought his left leg up to press against Meyer's hand.
Velvet was the right choice for the bench, Clara thought dreamily. Chintz would have paradoxically been both too slippery and too rough under her knees. Richard was half slumped across her, his breath hot and ragged against her neck, his weight pushing her torso down into the foot of the bed.
Richard started to slide away, so she grabbed his wrist. "Stay," she murmured, knowing the instant he moved away this moment suspended in time would burst like a soap bubble and real life would flood over them.
"Mrs. Harrow," Kaity called from down the hallway. "Tommy has been taken to school. I thought this might be a good time to run errands?"
"Who took. Tommy?" Richard asked, but they both knew his voice wasn't loud enough for Kaity to hear.
"How did Tommy get to school?" Clara said loudly.
"Misters Lansky and Luciano took him when they left," Kaity responded.
Richard sat up, and this time Clara let him.
"Thank you, Kaity."
Silently Richard moved around the room, retrieving the bits of his clothing that were tossed about. Clara sighed and took stock of the damage. One stocking was off, her dress was pushed down around her waist, her bra was half off. Silk crepe did not stand up well to this sort of abuse. A bath was needed. A clean dress.
Without warning, the feeling hit her. She grabbed the chenille blanket, wrapping it around her.
From the corner of her eye she could see anger in every line of Richard's body, and it annoyed her. It annoyed her more that her rising panic meant she couldn't properly feel her anger.
It was displaced by the cold and the shaking and this horrible feeling that something was terribly wrong.
"You. Are having. That feeling?" Richard asked.
Clara nodded, afraid her voice would be unsteady. It had been a few weeks, at least, since she had it. She thought it was over, that she was better.
She sank towards him, grateful he was home. The times it happened when he wasn't were awful. More than once she'd fled to the morning room..
Because it only happened in their bedroom. That horrible feeling that someone, something, she could not see was watching her.
For awhile they say quietly on the bench. "I didn't. Think to get. Something. From the drawer."
Clara understood his meaning. "It's okay. I have the cap in."
Normally she would have seen him flinch and feel his body tighten, but Clara was busy fighting back the fear that she was beginning to believe would be her undoing.
After awhile he finally spoke. "Let's take. A nap. And then go. Pick up Tommy. Get chop suey."
"That's what I want," Clara whispered.
An absolutely delicious crumb on this cake, Arnold thought as he took another bite. His last night in New York in 1921. Tomorrow he would board a train so he could see in 1922 in a city he despised. Still, though, it was important to reflect and learn, and Rothstein had certainly learned much in 1921. And there had been so many pleasant surprises.
Including today. A few weeks ago, when he barely made out straps beneath the blue pin stripe of Charlie's suit? Satisfying. The well-savored pay-off of a plan and a bet carefully nurtured.
But today. Today was an unexpected surprise. Mr. Harrow, always so quiet and efficient. A tragedy, obviously. One forgot there was still handsomeness there.
Rothstein was reminded when he noted the same straps catching the thick green fabric of Harrow's suit.
What a delight all these children were.
Author's Note: Thank you so much for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts. BTW, most of the things referenced here existed. Rothstein really owned that apartment building, and really used it to home people he wanted control over. The Paradise Room existed, and started being raided around that time. Shirt stays exist. Follow my tag on tumblr to see historical research.