December 30th
The Model-T pulled up to the bustling Central Terminal in Jersey City. Tommy was wedged into the front seat between Richard and Clara, Jimmy having left earlier to pick up Luciano and Lansky.
"Did the mermaid people build this?" Tommy asked as he clambered over Clara's legs to stare out the window at the train station.
Clara's stories of Atlantis had adapted to their new home. Now the tall new buildings going up around Manhattan were, according to her lore, products of Atlantis's gods (who by Richard's reckoning were usually Roman or Greek gods with slight changes) remaking dry land to their liking.
"Well, King Neptune is the god of sea travel," Clara answered. "So he would see train travel as beneath him. But..."
They weren't even on the train yet, but she was already so tired. Sleep had evaded her for most of the night and she could feel her shoulders tense as they circled the parking area, even as she kept talking to Tommy, even as she tried to remember the good things about going. Seeing Romola. Spending time with Rose. A train trip with Richard and Tommy. All lovely things she'd enjoy. All reasons to endure this trip.
But the rest. She bit the corner of her lip and let her hands clutch her skirt. To keep from sighing, to keep from grabbing Richard's arm and begging him to take them home.
"Mercury was. The god in charge. Of keeping travelers safe," Richard offered as he parked the car. "My mother." He paused for a moment, his jaw working as he thought of his mother. "She also. Told stories. About the gods."
His mother's stories were surely why Clara's always felt so familiar to him, he thought. He could no longer remember the first time he heard her tell Tommy the stories of Atlantis's mermaids, sometimes feeling like he had known her stories for longer than he had known Clara.
Clara smiled at him over Tommy's head. "Well, there are also the Greek twins. Abeona and Adiona. Abeona watches over travelers on their journey. Adiona guides them home. And they both watch over children."
Tommy looked thoughtful. "They share? Like sometimes you take care of me and sometimes Daddy?"
"Yes," Richard answered.
Let's all hope Adiona does more of the caretaking than Jimmy manages, Clara thought.
The National Limited, the pride of the B&O Railroad, waited at the main track. Special private cars had been added to the train for the indulged passengers who required the finest accommodations. Porters in dark green uniforms took their luggage and waved them toward two cars in the rear of the train. As they climbed aboard Richard's eye moved around the train car, unlike any other train car he'd ever seen. Past the observation deck was a parlor with high ceilings painted green, an abundance of mahogany wood on the walls, and green velvet and leather chairs sprinkled around. He heard Clara take a deep breath as she stepped fully onto the car, but she was standing off to his left where he couldn't see her.
Carolyn Rothstein stood between the observation area and the parlor with a porter, wearing a dark dress and hat much like Clara's but with diamonds the size of Richard's knuckles hanging from her ears.
Richard recognized the look of uncertainty on her face. There were decisions that needed to be made and Carolyn Rothstein was terrified of making a mistake. Richard didn't blame her. The idea of the cold, unwavering eyes of Arnold Rothstein evaluating mistakes he made was something Richard also tried to avoid.
"Clara, I've been waiting. Arnold invited the Mayor at the last moment, so..." Carolyn told Clara as she handed her a piece of paper.
"Well, this is easily arranged. We will just need a few people to cooperate with us," Clara smiled at the porter. "Tell me, are there still berths available in the public sleeping cars?"
Tommy was clinging to Richard's right hand and half-hidden behind his leg. Richard knew Tommy would be drawn out soon and would make friends with half the people in the party before the train left Jersey behind. At the moment though he found the boy's presence almost as comforting as Tommy found his.
Richard kept watching Clara. The terrified woman from last night was gone. He chastised himself for not realizing what would happen after they fought. When she got upset it happened. Not only then, but when Clara got upset those...attacks were worse. An aftereffect of what her father did to her. All the half-lurking memories of that place. She looked pretty and hale now, no trace of the terrified woman from last night, even if he could see that the powder she'd applied this morning didn't quite cover the circles under her eyes.
Clara was smiling but it wasn't her real smile. She had transformed back in the Princess from the Ritz, one who could arrange these sort of parties with half her mind while daydreaming with the other half. Clara began to bustle around, organizing the staff of the private car to her liking.
"My car woulda fit on this train, Richard," Tommy said accusingly after a few moments.
Richard sighed.
"Wonderful, I so hoped you would be the next to board," Clara said as Jimmy walked in behind Charlie and Meyer. "Jimmy, my apologies, but I've had to move you and Peter to sleeping berths in the public cars. Charlie and Meyer, I must ask a favor of you as well. Would you mind terribly sharing a room for the train journey?"
Meyer and Charlie didn't look at each other. "Ya never do mind asking for stuff, do ya?" Charlie finally growled.
"What Charlie means is, that will be fine," Meyer said, wishing to extradite himself from the situation as quickly as possible.
Jimmy leaned against the wall and pulled a cigarette pack from his pocket as Charlie and Meyer walked toward the parlor car. "You and Richard, you're keeping your nice stateroom?"
Clara's eyes narrowed. "Would you like to take our stateroom and share with Tommy? Richard would probably prefer a berth."
"And you?"
"It would be a massive inconvenience, but you certainly don't care about causing us those, do you?"
Even as he settled Tommy into a chair Richard watched Clara and Jimmy, although he couldn't hear them. It struck him that not only did Jimmy not offer Clara his cigarette, she never reached for it either. He let out a deep breath.
The longer things remained broken the harder it was to mend them.
The people now entering the train caused quite a commotion. A man's voice with a British accent was chastising a porter. Richard wasn't surprised to see it was Lady Rose, whose cheeks were flaming red, her husband Dennis, and Lady Rose's uncle.
Lady Rose immediately walked away from her husband to join Clara. Richard's lip curled up into a smile. It almost looked like Clara was standing there talking to Angela. That must be it, he thought, recalling when he met Lady Rose the day Clara was taken and feeling such familiarity about her. She and Clara were similar in their dress and mannerisms, but Rose looked quite a bit like Angela. The same dark curls and fair skin.
He found her intimidating, but he liked Lady Rose. Even if her grandmother terrified him.
Her husband, Dennis, though. Richard looked him over. Dennis's hair was as dark as his wife's and his skin as pale. From the way his collar lay against the lapel of a suit made of fine fabric, Richard knew the man spent real money on his clothes. Considering he had never heard of Dennis working it was a mystery as to how he garbed himself so finely unless he was using his wife's money. Richard's jaw tightened at the thought.
Having had the misfortune of meeting Dennis before, Richard expected the man to go straight to Rothstein. Instead, he stopped in front of Luciano and Lansky.
"Hello," the man drawled, staring straight at Meyer, "who have we here?"
"Well," chimed in the older man who had followed Rose and Dennis onto the train car, "I'm familiar with Mr. Luciano."
"Mr. Levitz, this here is my business partner Meyer Lansky. Meyer, this is Harold Levitz," Charlie said, eyeing the man he thought must be fancy Lady Rose's husband. The bum she had married instead of whatever hoity-toity man her parents had picked out.
The man kept staring at Meyer and Charlie suddenly felt like his collar was tightening around his throat.
"This is my niece's husband, Dennis Malley," Levitz said in response.
"How do you do?" Charlie enunciated carefully, remembering Clara's words.
"And what exactly," Dennis asked with a slow smile as his eyes moved across Meyer's face, "is the nature of your partnership with Mr. Lucchese?"
"Luciano," Charlie responded. What the hell was with this guy? Why did he keep lookin' at Meyer all funny like?
"Mr. Luciano and I, we work in import and export."
"Are you very good at determining what goods to let in?" The man asked, leaning closer to Meyer.
The hairs on the back of Charlie's neck stood up, and his fingers balled into fists as he fought the urge to push the man off the fucking train.
"We are interested in a wide variety of going concerns," Meyer answered carefully, unsure as to why Malley was leaning towards him when the car's hallway was so wide.
"I myself am always interested in getting on the ground floor of a growing concern," Dennis answered, his face so close to Meyer's that the scent of his aftershave was all Meyer could smell.
"He said going, not growing," Charlie muttered.
"Dennis," Levitz called with some impatience, "come meet our host."
"What an odd man," Meyer muttered to Charlie. "If he wasn't Lady Rose's husband I woulda thought he had a mind to pick my pocket.
Charlie lit a cigarette. "I don't trust him."
Jimmy joined Richard and Tommy.
"Daddy!" Tommy cried excitedly. "The buildings used to live in Atlantis. Did you know?"
Jimmy ruffled Tommy's hair. "Clara's always telling stories, Skeezix. Isn't that right, Richard?"
"Mmm," Richard said. Clara's stories were a part of her. But Jimmy said it as a criticism.
"Clara's always told the story about how I'm like her brother. It's a favorite, right? We've all heard it."
Richard looked around to see who was close enough to hear.
"And hell, it's not like Clara hasn't been good to me. Just like princesses have always been good to paupers. She shares her bounty, as long as it doesn't overly inconvenience her." Jimmy stopped to light a cigarette. "But you've also played this well, Richard. Good to be the princess's consort. No public sleeping cars for you."
Tommy was looking back and forth between them. Richard took a deep breath. Every other train trip he'd ever taken he'd sat up in coach. He wouldn't ask that of Clara, of course, but they were on this train because his wife was being forced to dance to Rothstein's tune like a trained monkey. In large part to keep Jimmy and Tommy safe.
Richard would have never expected it, but down in the complicated raft of feelings he had for Jimmy, annoyance was beginning to take a prominent place.
"Dennis can be rather hard on porters," Rose said to Clara.
"Well," Clara said, searching for something both polite and true to say to her friend. The Dennis Malley she'd met during the war in his British officer's suit...
Clara pushed away the thought of British officers. Still, the Dennis she'd come to know in New York wasn't the same dashing man she'd known back in Europe. Slowly she'd realized she didn't like him at all.
Rose looked well enough, Clara thought. In fact, Rose looked better than she had last May at her sister's wedding. So her marriage to Dennis must be happy enough.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jimmy walk away from Richard and Tommy. Clara sighed, wondering what he wanted.
"Jimmy, would you be a darling and help me with the hand luggage?" Rose asked with a smile as he approached.
"Sure," Jimmy replied, taking everything, including Rose's purse.
Clara moved back towards Richard. "Isn't that something," she said softly, so only he could hear her. "He never does anything that easily when I ask."
"Mmm," Richard replied as Clara squeezed his hand.
"Elsie, your hat is just lovely," Clara said as she walked forward to greet the new arrivals. Richard thought it looked like a bird had deflated on the woman's head.
Rothstein headed towards them, smiling with a forced amiability Richard found disturbing. "Draper, Elsie, so glad you could join us."
"Well, it beats a public car," Draper replied.
"It was most kind of you to invite us," Elsie said. "Father Daugherty is already home in Ohio but we spent the holiday with my parents in Connecticut."
"So your father-in-law will be attending Remus's affair?" Rothstein asked.
"He doesn't want it known that he's attending a criminal's party, but Remus is becoming quite the donor to Ohio's Republican Party. So a duty appearance is required."
From what Richard read in the newspapers, he doubted Remus was the only, or even worst, criminal Attorney General Harry Daugherty kept close company with.
"Carolyn and Mrs. Harrow seem otherwise occupied. Richard, would you mind showing the Daughertys to their room?"
Richard had barely slid their door shut when the couple began speaking.
"However does Clara allow that thing near her?" Elsie said to her husband, not bothering to lower her voice.
"I take it you've never met her father. Harrow's face isn't that much worse."
"Oh thank goodness you are here. How was Christmas?" Clara asked when Kaity entered the train.
"Fine, my ma said to thank you for the time off." Kaity bit her lip.
"What is it?" Clara asked while watching the Mayor come aboard, but sensing Kaity had information she needed to hear.
"At the station I saw-I saw Mr. and Mrs. Thompson board the train."
"This train?" Clara breathed out. It made sense, she told herself, even as her fingers clawed into the cloth of her skirt. She knew last summer her father was doing business with Romola's father. She even knew that Rothstein was still doing business with her father, although she'd never seen him since she left Atlantic City and she assumed Richard and Jimmy hadn't either since they hadn't said anything.
Her father. Well, she'd put photographs and a letter in an envelope and sent it off to Wisconsin days ago to Richard's family. She could deal with her own. She squared her shoulders. Nucky Thompson had no power over her, not anymore.
"Owen, too?" Clara asked after a moment.
Kaity looked down and away before nodding.
Clara looked to make sure no one was close enough to hear and stepped forward so she could whisper. "Are you okay?"
"Yes. He chose her," Kaity said with such venom in her voice that it startled Clara. She'd known that last night at the beach house that something awful had happened between Kaity and Owen, but Kaity had never said what happened and Clara had never asked.
Now she wanted to know, but before they could continue the conversation Clara saw Tommy walk towards Mr. Levitz and AR and she realized she wasn't sure where Richard was.
"I just took delivery of the new Silver Ghost," Rothstein said to Harold Levitz, laying out the bait. With these old-money types, it was always so difficult to know how much actual money they had available for investments versus what was tied in trusts, real estate, and art.
"I'm still holding onto my Packard," Mr. Levitz answered.
"I just got a Packard!" Tommy replied, causing both men to look down.
"You have a Packard?" Levitz asked around his cigar. "Is it in your pocket?"
"No, it's big," Tommy said. "I drive it."
"Did you drive it here?" Rothstein asked.
Tommy took a step back and shook his head.
"My apologies, gentleman," Clara said, her hand closing around Tommy's arm.
"Don't apologize, Tommy was telling us about his Packard," Mr. Levitz said.
"Yes, it's quite the car. Excuse us, please."
Clara was shepherding Tommy down the hall when he pulled on her hand. "Clara, Mr. Rothstein makes my tummy feel funny."
"Want to know a secret, kiddo? He makes mine feel funny, too," Clara whispered in his ear before leaving him with Kaity.
The day passed in a blur, but at the same time, Clara felt like every moment lasted an eternity. Richard kept standing in the shadows, but she never had a free moment to go to him. Rose had disappeared. Clara sighed. Rose had the freedom to go lay down in her stateroom and read the afternoon away. She had to dance attention on Rothstein and his guests.
Odd that Tommy didn't like AR, she thought as she signaled to a porter to change the ice on the bar cart. Tommy was so friendly with everyone that it worried her. He wasn't aware yet that not everyone was a potential friend.
"What's the story with your friend's man?" Charlie asked when he cornered her. Charlie had been another of the day's worries, since he'd spent most of the afternoon in a corner, smoking cigarettes and glowering at Dennis like he was plotting how to dismember the man limb by limb at the first opportunity.
"Dennis? He and Rose are happy, he's trying to decide what to do now that they've moved to the states permantently." Clara said, annoyed Charlie was bringing back up her own worries from this morning. Before she could think about it more she was distracted by Carolyn and Elsie Daugherty. Elsie's tongue was as sharp as Jimmy's trench knife and unfortunately, Elsie didn't feel the need to be polite to Carolyn, even though Carolyn was the boss's wife. And there was something about Carolyn that both unnerved Clara and made her want to protect Carolyn.
"I don't like him," Charlie said in a petulant tone of voice Clara had last heard when she forbade Tommy from having an ice cream cone.
"I'm terribly sorry. I promise not to invite you both to dinner on the same night."
"Funny," Charlie stewed. The man was still talking to Meyer. Still. "Hey, where's Darmody?"
"Charlie, I'm happy to say that on the train Jimmy is your responsibility, not mine."
She could feel Charlie's glare as she walked away, but she simply had to save Carolyn from Elsie.
Since one Harrow had been less than helpful, Charlie turned to the other. Jesus, he thought, the man looked more a wreck than normal, his fingers twisting constantly against his jacket pocket.
"Harrow, what ya know about Miss Fancypants husband?"
"He's. Irish," Richard replied.
"That ain't exactly the information I'm looking for here."
Richard had learned that Luciano could hide his feelings when he wanted or needed to. He wasn't very successful at the moment, however. The man's eyes had barely left Lansky all afternoon. And Luciano looked like he was busy considering where he could hide Dennis Malley's body along the tracks.
"Did you want to. Speak with Meyer?"
"Yeah, we bein' partners and all, it'd be nice to get a few words to him."
"Mmm. Yes. It's tough. Someone monopolizing. Your partner," Richard answered.
Charlie cut his gaze back to Richard. Was Harrow razzing him?
"Where's Jimmy?"
Richard's jaw moved. He hadn't seen Jimmy since he helped Lady Rose with her hand luggage.
"On watch," Richard answered, hoping it was the case as he surveilled the parlor car again. Peter was guarding Rothstein. Clara was playing bridge. Kaity was watching Tommy in their stateroom. He moved away silently. Where was Jimmy? He'd do a few rounds, just make sure Rothstein's cars were secure. A noise from the stateroom car made him hurry out of fear something was wrong with Tommy. As he went up the hall he realized it was a couple very loudly enjoying each other. At first, he thought it was Lady Rose and Dennis, but Dennis was still following Lansky around in the parlor car.
Jimmy would know who it was. Richard had to push down annoyance that he had no idea where Jimmy was.
He'd finished making his rounds and was going to once more check on Tommy when he saw Clara in the hall.
"Do you have ones? We need to give Kaity money to take Tommy to the dining car."
"I got them. Meal tickets. Earlier."
Clara smiled at him and brushed her fingers against his. "Of course you did."
The door to their stateroom slid open. "Richard you are going to eat at the desk and Kaity and I are going to eat in the dining car and Clara said I could have ice cream because it's Friday," Tommy announced breathlessly.
"Not just ice cream, Tommy," Clara said as Richard handed Kaity the tickets, and Tommy ran out the door. "Hold Kaity's hand!" Clara called after them.
Clara walked into the stateroom and turned around. "Would you?"
He undid the top button but was surprised when Clara leaned against him instead of moving to take her dress off.
"It's a lovely compartment," Clara said. "I'd like it more if it was just us."
"Are you. Okay?"
"Tired," Clara began and then paused. "My father and Margaret are on the train."
Unconsciously his hands went around her arms. Nucky. Rothstein was certainly doing business with him. So far he'd kept the man away from Richard, though. "We could take. Tommy. Get off the train. At the next stop."
"I wish. But I promised Romola, and I doubt Rothstein would be pleased. Anyway, this day had to come."
She was limp against him, not tense, but he was still worried. "You aren't. Having that feeling?"
Clara shook her head. "I'm fine."
She stepped away and started taking her shoes off. Forever he's going to worry his wife is cracking up, Clara thought, upset at the idea he saw her as broken. As fragile. But wasn't that the truth, though? Was it not with cause that he worried that if she got upset it would end with her racked with fear that someone was watching her in their bedroom?
But it felt so real. Every time it happened she could feel someone watching her, almost feel someone's presence, hear their breathing. Like her mother felt baby Enoch moving and breathing and eating days after he died, as she held his motionless body, Clara thought and shivered. It could be her mother's blood in her veins, it could be making her just as crazy as her mother had been at the end.
Dinner was already on the desk, but Richard ignored it to watch her. Elsie Daugherty didn't understand how Clara could stand to be near him. He knew what the woman had meant by that. How could Clara bear all the intimacies of marriage with someone deformed? His jaw moved.
"It could be. That marriage is-"
Clara turned and moved back towards him. "Didn't we already do this?" she said, trying to make her voice light. "I love you. I'm basically happy, truly. Whatever is causing this is..."
He sat down and pulled her into his lap.
"I wish we had been able to properly makeup last night," Clara whispered against his neck, guilt that Richard blamed himself eating at her.
"Some couple was. Making up. Earlier," Richard told her.
"That's unfair, we are the only newlyweds on this train! And we have Tommy in with us so no making up tonight either."
"Mmm. We could. Stand him. In the corner." Richard said in a teasing tone.
"Ah yes I can imagine it now," Clara giggled and began imitating Tommy's voice. "Richard, what are you doing? Can I turn around? Clara, why are you making that noise? Do you have a cookie? Can I have water?"
Richard made the sound Clara recognized as his laugh and drew her a little closer.
"Maybe Jimmy could do us the favor of watching Tommy tomorrow," Clara said, and Richard heard the sarcasm in her voice. "Take him to the zoo. Romola said its lovely."
He'd rather think of zoos and quiet hours in hotel rooms with Clara. But what Clara said last night was true. They didn't talk about the things they needed to speak of. He took a deep breath."After. The injury. The hospitals. It was hard to. Remember what actually. Happened instead of. Remembering dreams."
"It seems so real," she whispered against his shoulder, "like when I'm asleep and you come home or Tommy comes in and stares at me. Just the feeling of someone else in the room with me. But instead of feeling right or normal it feels malignant."
"They gave you. Drugs. In that place. They...they did. Things you didn't understand."
"How did you get over it?" Clara asked, wondering how she could ever forget what was done to her.
"I asked. Other people. Emma. They told me. What was real. What was a dream."
"The feeling is a dream," Clara said, wishing she believed it.
He knew how hard it was to believe something that felt real wasn't.
They didn't talk about the war. It wasn't until they were married that he realized she'd been in Europe during the war at all. It was in their past. He couldn't think about it, about the hospital ward on the ship where they gave him so much morphine that all he remembered of the voyage were the dreams and the fact they'd tied his hands down to keep him from scratching at his face.
"For a long time. I kept something real. With me all the time. It. It calmed me. I was in Bousignies-Sur-Roc. In a tree. There was a German Sniper. Shooting at our troops. It took me three days. German snipers. Wore masks. Finally he took it off. I shot him. Under his eye. My lookout. Brought me the mask. I kept it with me. Always."
"I'm glad you got him," Clara said softly, sick at the thought of a world where the German...she couldn't bring herself to finish the thought.
"Fuck him, right?" Jimmy's voice echoed back from the Chicago Veteran's hospital.
The bag, Clara thought, seeing Richard sitting on the Boardwalk his first day in Atlantic City. He and Jimmy had left most of their things at the train station instead of carting them to the Ritz, but Richard had a leather valise with him that day. The same valise they'd used the night they'd gone to Princeton to bring Jimmy home after Angela's death.
"How did you stop carrying it?" Clara asked.
His fingers twisted into the thick wool of her dress. What he wanted to tell her was time healed all wounds and once he met Jimmy, once he met her, once he landed in Atlantic City the mask stopped mattering. True, it no longer mattered as much. He didn't carry with him in Atlantic City, not after that day she surprised him on the Boardwalk. But it lived on the top shelf of their closet, wrapped in the same fabric. Last Memorial Day he'd put it in his rucksack and taken it into the woods with him. It was the first thing he put away in their new home.
"I had. Other real things," he finally answered and felt Clara nod against his shoulder.
Richard had just finished eating and Clara freshening up when Tommy banged back into the room, Kaity on his heels.
"Tommy, you must knock," Clara said sternly.
"'Cause pirate time?" Tommy asked. Clara nodded yes without listening to Tommy's words.
"Be a good boy for Kaity and go to bed," Clara said, patting his hair as she left the room.
"We'll be back. After dinner," Richard said to Tommy as he walked past.
Tommy frowned. Kaity read stories. It wasn't the same, though. Richard would pat his shoulder until he fell asleep. Clara lay down next to him when she read. It made him feel better. He walked around the room, looking around until Kaity told him to get his pajamas on.
"I think I'll like sleeping here," he said when he finally climbed into the small bed made from a chair.
Kaity smiled at him. "Because it's a train?"
Tommy shook his head. "No. I like it 'cause there's no men breathing in the walls."
Children truly said the oddest things, Kaity thought as she started reading from his storybook.
Arnold Rothstein looked at his table with pride. Going to Cincinnati wasn't his idea of a pleasurable time, but having these people as his guests? That he liked. He had required Clara to submit several seating charts until she perfected it. He sat at one end of the table, Carolyn at the foot, Clara and Charlie facing each other in the middle. Unfortunately, Dennis Malley was sitting next to him and Rothstein couldn't remember the last time he entertained such a bore.
Clara was a good get, he congratulated himself. More useful, certainly, than Darmody. Almost as good as Draper Daugherty. Did Draper deserve the hefty paycheck he pulled down from Rathmore Security? Rothstein was well aware of the quality of Draper's work (when the man even bothered to make an appearance at the office) didn't support his pay. But having the Attorney General's only son at his beck and call?
That was worth every penny. Especially with an Attorney General such as Daugherty, whose morals were simply a negotiation point his wallet used to keep itself as overfed as the man himself. And for the first time in Draper's so-called adulthood, he wasn't a problem for his father to solve. He was solvent, employed, thriving.
Or at least, that's what Rothstein worked very hard to have elder Daugherty believe. For now, as long as the man continued to have the ear of the president.
Levitz was sitting to Clara's right. Rothstein allowed himself a small smile. The plans he had for that flour fortune. Charlie and Clara worked well together, Charlie's natural charm bouncing off of Clara's careful manners, AR reflected. Another good choice. Down the table, he spied Charlie and Clara's partners in conversation.
"I finished Ronicky Doone," Meyer said in a low tone only meant for Richard to hear.
Richard didn't look up from his plate. "Mmm. You liked. It?"
"It was enjoyable."
"I'm still. Reading. My Inventions."
During the summer in Atlantic City, they'd both recognized the rectangular shape in each other's pockets weren't ammunition boxes or packs of smokes. They were paperbacks. Meyer appreciated Harrow's cool head and understanding of logistics. Richard appreciated Lansky's analytical eye and ability to see the bigger picture. In New York they'd slowly fallen into the habit of silently sliding paperbacks, ever so slightly worn around the edges from being pulled in and out of pockets, to each other. Meyer was surprised that Harrow mostly read nonfiction, while Richard was amused Lansky had such a softness for cowboy novels.
They sat in silence, Richard moving creamed salmon around on his plate.
"I couldn't do it," Meyer finally said.
Richard let his head turn enough to watch his wife and Charlie entertaining the table.
"I forget," Angela had said softly the night of Nucky's party. "And then suddenly they are Prince James and Princess Clara of the Boardwalk, and I wonder how Jimmy and I ever ended up together. I mean, look at them. They don't look like the man who eats breakfast in his undershirt or the girl who can spend hours playing on the floor with Tommy."
Clara and Jimmy had spun around that dinner, charming Nucky's guests, playing off each other like two singers performing a well-practiced duet. It bothered him less when it was Jimmy, undertaking a role in Clara's life that would have been filled by her husband if she'd married anyone else but him. But it wasn't Jimmy, not anymore. Now it was Luciano.
Lady Rose turned and faced Richard when she noticed him staring towards Clara.
"I had always believed you and Jimmy fought together during the war," Rose said.
"No. I met him. In Chicago."
Rose nodded. That's what Jimmy said. That's what Clara said, she thought but continued anyway. "You didn't go there to meet Jimmy? Because of Clara?"
"How could. I have? I didn't know. Them."
The waiters were whisking away the fish course and replacing plates for the meat course. Rose took a moment to think of how to ask the next question. "You and Jimmy didn't cross paths at boot camp or on a transport ship or a hospital?"
Clara had to admit Charlie was charming. All she had to do was keep the conversation flowing to topics he could contribute to and he could entertain the group effortlessly. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Richard crush a linen napkin in his hand. She carefully turned her head. Whatever Rose was asking him was upsetting him. Rose caught her glance and Clara didn't miss Rose's blush when she did.
Before she could decide what to do she felt someone's eyes on her. Rothstein was staring directly at her. Clara rearranged her face back into a pleasant smile.
"So tell me, Mr. Levitz, what are your plans for next summer's regatta?" She asked as her wine glass was refilled.
The women left the men around the table and went out to the parlor. Luckily Elsie Daugherty was speaking to Clara, making it easier for Rose to slip away to the bedroom car.
Just the sight of him leaned against the wall, cigarette dangling from his lips was enough to take her breath away. Every part of her being wanted to grab him and pull him back into her stateroom. It mattered not that's where they had spent the majority of the afternoon. It wasn't enough.
And tonight, she'd lay in the same bed with Dennis. Luckily she didn't have to worry about him wanting anything from her. It had been rare in the beginning and was now non-existent.
"I respect you to much to burden you with my needs," he told her one night when she'd rolled away to hide her tears when he'd once more rejected her clumsy advances.
No one had wanted her to marry Dennis, so whom could she ask if this was normal? Perhaps this was all marriages were like. But last May, when she'd watched her sister marry. When she'd read Clara's letters change over the last half of 1920.
That's when she knew with certainty her marriage, her relationship with her husband, wasn't like other people's.
Still, she wouldn't delude herself enough to forgive the sin she had started committing last fall and saw no way to stop.
"How was dinner at the grown-ups table?" he asked when she stopped in front of him.
She didn't bother to answer, sliding her hand under his blue suit jacket and raising her mouth to his.
Once Clara believed the men of Atlantic City were the most boring people one could be trapped into conversation with, but that was before circumstances forced her to spend time with Elsie Daugherty. Not only was the woman vapid, but there was a viciousness to her. Like a brittle wasp always looking to strike.
All Clara wanted was to collapse into bed. Dear God, she thought, when was the last time she'd been forced to talk and smile this much? She sighed. As soon as the men came through she could hopefully slip away. Richard wouldn't try to talk to her, he'd just let her prop her feet on his legs and hold her as the train clipped down the track towards Ohio.
Rose came back into the parlor looking flushed. It took Clara a moment to push Elsie's attention elsewhere.
"Is everything okay?" Clara whispered.
"I just needed to freshen up," Rose answered, her eyes scanning the room. She knew she was betraying her husband, her vows. But since they were thirteen she'd told Clara her secrets. It wasn't until...
Well, now there were two secrets between them.
She's lying to me, Clara thought.
She knows, Rose realized.
"Why did you upset Richard at dinner?" Clara asked.
"I'm very sorry about that. It wasn't my intent," Rose answered. "I just asked him about the war."
Last May Rose had upset her terribly by wanting to talk about the war, wanting to talk about...that time. It was now one of many things Clara didn't think of because remembering some things was agony. Richard barely spoke about the war to her. Including today, she could count on one hand the times they had talked about it in more than generalities. How dare Rose decide to question him during a dinner he was already uncomfortable at.
"Don't. Don't ever ask him, not again Rose. I won't have it."
Rose blinked. She'd seen Clara angry at other people but never at her.
Clara's social smiled slid back into place and she went once more to save Carolyn from Elsie.
December 31st
The sound of the engine and the clacking of the train against the rails filled the room, but could not overcome the roaring silence between the room's inhabitants. Charlie adjusted his legs once more, trying to find some way to fit them on the single bed. God damn it, this was a bed for a child not a grown fucking man. The Darmody kid was probably too big for it. Charlie wasn't sure how long he'd been awake-this time-but it was one of many things really pissing him off.
From the larger bed there was a quick flash of light and then the scent of sulfur and tobacco. "I offered to take that bed," Meyer said after a slow exhale.
"Them shoulders of yours wouldn't have even fit," Charlie groused.
Determining Charlie's mood came as naturally to him as determining the weather before he stepped off his stoop. Certainly, Charlie's moods could be as mercurial as the weather. And at the moment, Charlie's mood was certainly stormy.
"Charlie," Meyer began.
"Can it, Meyer," Charlie answered and swung his legs off the bed, stumbling in the dark for his own cigarettes and lighter.
"You are being irrational," Meyer responded.
"That brutto figlio di puttana bastardo was up your ass all night. You enjoyed though, didn't ya?"
Meyer sighed. Charlie acted like he was the only one who wanted. Meyer's first memory was wanting. Wanting enough to eat, wanting a warmer fire, wanting. Those years when his father was gone and he did all a kid could do to keep his mother and siblings fed and warm.
But wanting. Wanting in America was sharper, brighter, different. There was so much more to want. From the moment he stepped off the ship he moved as fast as his little legs would carry him. He moved to learn English, to get out of the classroom full of tiny children and catch up with his peers, he moved to learn the streets and determine how to make money any way he could. He moved as fast as he could because he knew the goal was to leave the Lower East Side behind him. To move fast enough that one day he could even outrun wanting.
But nothing, not a lifetime of yearning for acceptance and security, held a candle to his ever-present need for Charlie. There was no part of him that did not want every part of Charlie. And as much as his wants dictated every carefully crafted move of his life, there was nothing he wanted more than Charlie. In his life, in his office, in his bed. Even if it made no sense. Even if it had no place in his plan.
"He was circling round you like a bitch in heat," Charlie continued.
"The way Gillian Darmody circles around you? The way the chorus girls do?" Meyer snapped back. He spent years, he spent agonizing nights, watching Charlie charm women whose desire for him was as clear as the powder on their faces.
"That's different, and you know it well as me."
"How?"
"They're broads, Meyer! It don't matter like..." Charlie stopped talking, not knowing how to put into words what mattered. They was just broads. They wasn't in his mind like Meyer was. Even Meyer wasn't with him he could still hear the little addin' machine in his head, telling him to be smart. Telling him to think.
Being with those women was like grabbing a dog from a cart and eating it on the street. Scratched the itch of need. Satisfying enough at the moment.
Being with Meyer was different and Meyer damn well knew it. They was friends and they was more and when more changed to be even more...It ain't like people understood their friendship anyway. The Jew and the Italian. They was supposed to be mortal enemies, not friends for life. Not...whatever they was.
"I gotta keep up appearances," Charlie said because that was also a true thing. He hadn't told Meyer that Clara knew. No need to introduce complications. They was careful. They was always careful. "That's why I can't believe you let the guy get near you like that."
Meyer shook his head. "Charlie, he's married. To Lady Rose. I think he's just an adventurer."
"Yeah. I know what adventure he's after," Charlie responded.
"A man like that..."
"What? You think you ain't good enough for a fonferer like that cercatore d'oro? What, you just good enough for the likes of me, that it?"
The petulance in Charlie's voice was so familiar. "Charlie, come here."
"Mey, I ain't in the mood."
Meyer doubted that. Charlie was rarely not in the mood. "Charlie," he said again.
Charlie heard the gruff tone in Meyer's voice. He was angry, he was still angry, but that tone in Meyer's voice always did the same thing to him. Instinct drove him to Meyer's side.
Didn't mean he wasn't still angry, though. He sat next to Meyer silently. One man wearing an undershirt that buttons with sleeves that come down to his elbows, although the width of his shoulders and upper arms often mean the seams ripped and tore and stretched due to the strain placed upon them. The other man wore the new kind of undershirt-knit, sleeveless, no buttons.
Charlie told Meyer all the time he should switch. Be more modern. But Meyer couldn't quite break away from tradition in some matters.
"There will always be others, won't there, Charlie?" Meyer asks, and even though he knows the answer for a moment he willed Charlie to lie to him. "After all, we'll have to marry one day, won't we?"
"I ain't. Look at Harrow and Clara."
Meyer turned to stare at Charlie. Personally, he thought Harrow had chained himself to a klafte in pearls. But the man seemed to love her. And Clara seemed as happy as he thought her capable of being.
"Harrow seems content enough."
"That ain't the thing, Mey. They love each other. But we all know how this ends. Clara sobbing over a morgue slab with Darmody's brat and a baby or two besides clinging to her. I ain't gonna do that to a woman."
What Charlie didn't say was how could he promise to be someone's partner when he knew he'd already found the other part of him. He knew damn well he had his faults, but he didn't go around making promises (good or bad, right or wrong) he didn't intend on keeping.
Meyer carefully extinguished the lit remnant of his cigarette into the green marble ashtray embossed, like everything else in the car, with the letter P. The idea of Charlie cold and still on a slab, of a world where he must go on without the only person who knew his thoughts before he spoke them caused the air to squeeze from his lungs.
Instead of speaking he put his fingertips on Charlie's jaw, so he could feel the warmth of Charlie's flesh. Such a delicate jaw in such a strong face, Meyer thought idly before bringing Charlie's face to his. Charlie didn't fight it, and soon their mouths were finishing the disagreement. Charlie fell first-Charlie always fell first-letting his mouth open and Meyer plunder its depths.
Charlie's mouth tasted of hot honey and something deeper, sweeter, more savory. It was the taste and sensation he spent a lifetime chasing down in penny candy bins and bakeries and sweet shops. Much like with the candy he had kept in his pockets from the first time he had spare pennies, he knew he'd never have enough of it.
It was the sweetness he'd always craved.
The hard, taut muscles of Charlie Luciano's body, the ones that struck fear around the underworld (and occasionally in the upper echelons) of New York went soft and loose as something else grew hard. Without realizing it, Meyer turned Charlie so he was on his knees, his head laying on the soft Irish linen pillowcase embroidered with the ever-present P.
Meyer's left hand drifted over the hard muscles of Charlie's stomach down to the mother of pearl buttons on Charlie's beloved silk boxers. His fingers drifted over the buttons but didn't try to undo them. Instead, he reached down to the impossibly soft skin of Charlie's inner thigh and began drawing lazy circles. His right hand combed through Charlie's thick dark curls before yanking sharply so Charlie had to turn his face to Meyer to save his hair, their faces so close they were breathing in each other's breaths.
"Tell me, Charlie. Tell me why I'm different from Gillian and those broads."
Charlie's breath was hot and fast. "God damn it, Mey. Just touch me."
"Tell me the things I do to you I'll never do to Dennis Malley," Meyer said, his hand cupping over Charlie's bulge momentarily before going back to stroking his inner thigh.
"You do lots of stuff I'd fucking kill anybody else for," Charlie said, knowing they were journeying into uncharted territory. "You knot up my god damn hands with your tie."
Meyer leaned over so his face was against the smooth back of Charlie's neck, wanting to inhale Charlie's scent, wanting to inhale Charlie. "Yes, true. What else," he asked while his hand slid under the paisley silk to caress the very tip of Charlie's cock.
Charlie tried to push his hips into Meyer's fingers but Meyer removed his hand from Charlie's hair and grabbed him around the hips. "Don't even try it," Meyer whispered harshly.
"You put your prick in my mouth and push it in until I choke. You like it when I choke."
True, Meyer thought, because who wouldn't want Charlie on his knees? Who wouldn't want to see those pretty lips wrapped around their cock? He rewarded Charlie with a quick tug that made both of them momentarily forget to breathe.
"You make me grab my own prick and you watch. Sometimes you put your fingers in...god damn it, Meyer, you know where you put your fingers."
For a moment Meyer's hands brushed back against the buttons. What did it matter, he decided, Charlie bought his silk underwear by the gross. He yanked on them so hard that the mother of pearl buttons scattered across the thick antique rug. Filled with a need to feel the silky soft flesh of Charlie's back under the thick fur of his chest he first pushed up Charlie's undershirt until it was wrapped around Charlie's shoulders before Meyer sat back on his own knees to more carefully remove his own underthings. After all, he'd spent good money on them. No need for carelessness.
"For our mutual benefit you should continue," Meyer growled, fighting the urge to have Charlie right now.
Charlie licked his lips. Meyer was leaning over him to grab something from the bag on the floor, causing Meyer's dick to press against his lower back. It gave him some satisfaction to realize Meyer was as hard as he was. He writhed under Meyer and was rewarded by Meyer groaning above him. He heard the sound of glass and the knowledge of what was in Meyer's hand made precum start leaking out of the tip of his dick.
"You put on oil on your fingers and then you put oil on me and sometimes you put oil on my hand so I can rub it on your dick," Charlie finally managed to say.
Meyer's hand was covered with oil as it started massaging the top of Charlie's ass. Charlie groaned as Meyer's fingers slipped into his crack.
The light coming in the edges of the curtains was changing but Meyer was too distracted by the sight in front of him to think about what that meant. He was intoxicated by the scent, sight, and feel of Charlie. "What else?"
The linen of the pillowcase was now being crushed between Charlie's fingers. The fuck if he was going to ruin this moment like a damn kid. "You put me on my side," Charlie continued after taking a deep breath and Meyer moved him so quickly he fell onto his side with a thump.
After positioning Charlie's legs to his liking Meyer continued to let his hand move down.
"You push your fingers inside me," Charlie managed to gasp out as he felt one of Meyer's fingers breach him. "Mey, your fingers are so fucking thick."
Meyer lowered his mouth onto the top of Charlie's shoulders, his own breath coming at an incredibly thick pace, overtaken by the need to taste Charlie's flesh salty and warm under his tongue. Neither man noticed the bedside clock striking six.
Nor did they notice the train was no longer rocking beneath them.
With great care Meyer worked in a second finger and started scissoring, looking for the spot that always made Charlie howl.
Charlie howled. Meyer pressed harder.
"God damn it, Meyer, god damn it..." Charlie pleaded.
"Say it," Meyer begged, his breath hot against Charlie's ear, the game having rebounded until his need was as raw and urgent as Charlie's own.
"I want you, Mey, please," Charlie finally sobbed out. "You fuck me, you fuck me, holy mother of god please just fuck me."
"Charlie, god," Meyer breathed out, his heart hammering in his chest.
The words falling from Charlie's mouth dissolved into nonsense. For a moment their faces were pressed together, letting Meyer feel the pulse in Charlie's temple in the bones of his own face.
Once more Meyer pressed his fingertips against Charlie's jaw and their mouths opened to each other. There was no more dominance or one-upmanship. Instead, there was the slow slide of their mouths melding together until Meyer can no longer determine where he ends and Charlie begins.
One hand gripped Charlie's hip, holding him in place. Meyer could feel the tenseness in Charlie when he first breached him and the pain hit, but after a moment he could feel Charlie's muscles relaxing under his hand.
"I gotta move, tesoro," Meyer finally breathed out.
One of Charlie's hands braced against the soft mossy velvet of the headboard while his other reached back for any part of Meyer he could touch. It didn't matter that Meyer was ever so slowly moving ever deeper inside him. He needed more. He wanted everything.
"Move, libster. Damn it, move," Charlie answered, his hand finally finding Meyer's ass to pull him closer, to pull him further in.
Time lost meaning. Seconds, minutes, hours, days fell away. There was just this. Meyer's hand finally came around to touch Charlie in the way Charlie had wanted since the game began, since time began.
Finally, they fell into the soaked sheets, the ruins of Charlie's underthings trapped beneath them, their legs and hands twisted together, both of them breathless and boneless. Their faces were still pressed together and as Meyer relaxed back into sleep he realized their faces were wet.
He wasn't sure who had cried.
Richard startled awake when he felt someone staring at him. Instinct made his right arm reach down for the gun he'd secured under the bed until he saw the soft dark eyes blinking at him in the early morning gloom.
"Tommy," he managed to say. It was always hard to talk when he first woke up. He'd grown accustomed to having a four-year-old around him most of the time, but he didn't think he'd ever get used to waking up to a small person staring silently at him in the darkness.
"The train stopped choo-chooing ," Tommy said.
Richard was busy putting the mask on, the Daughterys' words still in his head. Clara had been curled against his back as they slept. He carefully leaned over her to pull the curtain slightly back. "Mmm. We are in. Cincinnati."
"Time to get off the train?"
"No. Not until nine. The railroad men. Are unhooking. The train. We'll get moved to. Another track." Richard knew Jimmy, Peter, Kaity, and any others in their party who slept in a public sleeping car were being moved into the parlor car.
Clara moaned in her sleep and turned over on her stomach.
"I want to see," Tommy insisted and began climbing over him.
"Let's go. See," Richard answered.
Richard bundled them into their coats and slippers before leading Tommy to the observation deck. He saw Peter, Kaity, and who he assumed were other maids and valets going into the parlor area but no sign of Jimmy. He must be patrolling, Richard hoped. Or buying cigarettes from the station agent.
Tommy was fascinated by the procedure of removing Rothstein's cars from the train and the small engine that pushed them onto a sidetrack.
"I can't see anymore," Tommy said plaintively so Richard picked him up, even though now there was little to see. "Are there cows here?"
"No. We are at. A train station."
"I saw eight cows yesterday," Tommy answered while holding up seven fingers. Richard adjusted his grip so he could push up Tommy's ring finger."I counted like you said." Tommy was quiet for a moment."I think my Mr. Cow would like to meet a cow. Do you know any?"
They weren't supposed to name the animals, and Richard had early learned his lesson with chickens, but he couldn't resist the cows. Especially Belle, the first cow he had ever milked.
"Where I grew up," Richard answered.
"In Witscotsin? Are we there?"
"No. This is. Ohio."
"Not the..." Tommy began to ask when they both heard a strange moan. "Richard, is that a cow? It sounds like a moo!"
Richard's arms tightened around Tommy and he was assessing for threats when he realized the noise was coming from Lansky and Luciano's room.
"Moo, Cow!" Tommy called loudly.
The next noise was instantly recognizable. The rhythmic squeak of bedsprings and the raspy groans of people...
Well.
Without pause, he started walking with Tommy back to their room. "Is that Mr. Charlie and Mr. Meyer? What are they doing?"
Richard's mouth twitched. "Wrestling?" he finally managed to say as he opened their door and put Tommy down.
As Richard turned to hang their coats up Tommy sprinted across the room before jumping directly on the sleeping Clara.
"Mmmf, what..." Clara cried out.
"Tommy. Do not. Do that," Richard said, moving to pull the boy off Clara. "Are you okay?"
Clara rolled over onto her back and tried to fix the scarf holding her hair. "A little out of breath. Tommy, why?"
"So we could wrestle. Like Mr. Meyer and Mr. Charlie."
Clara looked up at Richard questioningly. The blush and his inability to fully look her in the eye answered her question.
"Well, I'm fairly certain Mr. Meyer asked Mr. Charlie before he jumped on him!" Clara rebuked the boy, ignoring the choking sound coming from her husband.
"'Cause they was playing pirates?" Tommy asked.
No coffee, hadn't even washed her face yet, should still be asleep and she was dealing with this she thought. "Do you think only pirates wrestle?"
"No, silly! It sounds like when you and Richard have pirate time."
Richard and Clara shared a glance before Richard realized what Tommy meant. "Private. Time. Tommy. I said. We needed. Private time."
"You don't play pirates? 'Cause one day Mr. Charlie said Clara was going to blow a man down and then I heard you go clunk!"
Clara bit her lip. She hadn't read a magazine article that explained how to tell a child about throwing one's spouse against one's bedroom door. But by god, she knew one thing for certain.
"Tommy," Clara declared in a voice modeled on her own mother's, her father's, and even Mrs. Levitz's. "We will never again speak of the things you hear beyond other people's bedroom doors! Never!"
"Why?" Tommy asked, and Richard was also curious as to how Clara was going to explain it.
"Because it's rude!" Clara answered in a completely horrified tone. "No one will ever have cause to say we aren't raising you to have excellent manners!"
Richard turned away so that Tommy wouldn't see him laugh.
"Whatever you think you might hear in our room or Meyer and Charlie's or Daddy's or whomever you never mention it!"
"Other people hear too," Tommy said petulantly.
"What other people hear and say is not my concern. What you say is!"
Tommy crossed his little arms over his chest.
"Don't be petulant," Clara told him.
"Nobody read me a story," Tommy answered.
"Kaity didn't?"
"She didn't do it right."
Clara smiled. "Go get your book."
Richard finished hanging up their coats before sitting on the bed. Clara pulled him back towards her.
"I'm cold," she whispered into his ear. "Also, what were Charlie and Meyer doing?"
Tommy was examining his books carefully. Richard leaned down closer. "Tommy thought. Luciano was. Mooing."
Clara clamped her hand over her mouth, but her eyes were bright. "He mooed?" she finally managed to say. "Oh my goodness. What were they-oh my goodness! This is so unfair, though. We are the newlyweds!"
"Still?" he asked.
"Practically still honeymooners," Clara answered with a laugh. "Jimmy really needs to take Tommy to the zoo today."
Tommy launched himself across the room, book in hand. "Are we going to be cozy?"
"Since it's not even half-past six and I'm freezing, I certainly plan on it," Clara answered, pulling the blanket up so Tommy could climb in.
"Richard has his mask on. But we have on our jammies," Tommy answered.
Richard felt both Tommy and Clara staring at him. Elsie Daugherty's words bit at him. He turned away to slip the mask off as Clara and Tommy arranged themselves on the bed. His body was still stiff when he turned back to them.
Clara leaned back against his shoulder as Tommy wedged in between them. "Now we are cozy," Tommy announced and Clara began reading.
He wasn't exactly sure when he relaxed.
The private cars bustled as the inhabitants prepared to disembark into the limousines that would take them to the Cincinnatian Hotel. Rose came out of her stateroom and saw Clara standing at the entrance to the car, once more acting as Arnold Rothstein's social secretary.
Rose took a deep breath and walked towards her. "Clara I-"
Clara shook her head. "Don't. It's okay. Just don't do it again."
I've been betraying your faith for so long, Rose thought. How will I ever tell you.
"Rose, is that?"
Standing on the platform was a slender dark-haired woman.
"It is!" Rose answered, and they fumbled for each other's hands before running off the train.
For one moment they forgot they were adults with responsibilities and dying dreams to take care of. For one moment, they were three best friends reunited on a train platform.
"It's been so long!" Rose cried out as she wrapped her arms around both of them.
"I can't believe you are actually here," Romola answered.
"It's so good to be together," Clara answered.
Back on the train their reunion was watched. "That George Remus's daughter?" Charlie asked Jimmy.
"She never came to Atlantic City so I haven't met her, but yeah," Jimmy answered, watching the three women.
Meyer joined them. "Mey, how come you don't act like that when you see me?" Charlie asked while lighting a cigarette.
The only answer Charlie received was a glare.
Rothstein also watched. Ah, the moments when people's carefully constructed disguises fell away and they revealed their true selves. How much information he won then, but also how much enjoyment he took in watching the stoic slip.
The Rothstein party disembarked around the talking women until Tommy ran up to them.
"Clara, do Richard and I have to to the hotel without you?" he asked.
"You must be Tommy," Romola laughed. "I've heard all about you."
Clara looked up and saw Richard standing back, so she waved him over.
"Darling, this is Romola Remus. She's the other person who made boarding school bearable. Romola, my husband, Richard Harrow."
"It's so lovely to meet you," Romola said, extending her hand. "I feel like I know you already from Clara's letters."
"Pleased," Richard said, blushing at the thought of what Clara wrote to her friends about him.
"Duty calls," Clara said with a smile as Tommy pulled her hand. "I'll see you both at the hotel."
Romola looked closely at the men Clara walked towards. They looked like all the men who had invaded her father's life since the start of Prohibition. So well-dressed they ever so slightly pushed past the boundary of good taste and into showiness. They stood in a clump smoking, only one other woman with them. And the woman. Diamonds in the daytime. She reminded Romola of her stepmother. A rich man's darling, obviously. Still, from her letters, Romola thought that Clara seemed to like Mrs. Rothstein. Much more than Romola liked Imogene, but then again Clara was genuinely fond of her own stepmother. Perhaps Clara was not as discerning as prudence dictated she should be.
At first, Romola planned on following Clara, but the pressure Rose applied to her elbow held her back.
"What are your thoughts on Clara's Mr. Harrow?" Rose asked ever so softly.
"He is much as Clara described," Romola said. "It is clear they love each other."
"Yes," Rose said decisively. "At first I thought he purposefully went to Chicago to meet Jimmy but...well, I've heard the story from Jimmy. From Clara. From him. There's no way. It was happenstance that Jimmy was in Chicago at all, he had no connection to it until he...until after he was released from Walter Reed."
"Until Prohibition," Romola said drily. "And Clara?"
"She had no idea Jimmy had met Richard. He was writing letters, but for some reason, they weren't being delivered. It's why she went to find him in Chicago and came across Mr. Harrow instead."
Romola stared down the lobby. Jimmy Darmody's little boy walked between Clara and her husband. Clara seemed happy. That was what was important. After the war, that year Clara spent in Washington...Romola had worried. And when suddenly she was engaged to Darcy Blaine, a man whose Clara's dislike for was reflected in every word she wrote, Romola saw the steel bars of a trap closing around her friend. Then the letters changed, Darcy was dealt with, and the Clara at Dorothy's wedding last May was so much more herself.
But what Rose was suggesting. It was impossible, Romola decided. How could it possibly be?
Author's Note:
The National Limited was the "best" train to take to Cincinatti, but oddly the train left out of Jersey City instead of New York.
Rothstein's cars are based on real private Pullman cars.
Warren Harding's Attorney General, Harry Daugherty? His son Draper really did work for Arnold Rothstein at Rothstein's insurance firm. I'd link to proof but it would give away an upcoming plot point.
Three MAJOR plottwists progress in this chapter? Does anyone have any thoughts or comments about what they might be?