Disclaimer: I don't own all of the characters. Obviously I've made some of them up, but the rest aren't mine!
Chicago Again!
Chapter 1: The Beginning
Roxie stepped out into the cold night air. A chill ran up her hose covered legs and under her skimpy, white, beaded outfit. Tonight was the closing night of her very own show and she was running late. Her heels clicked as she stepped to the icy curb to call for a cab. She called for one and as it was pulling up, her foot caught a rough patch of ice and her bottom met the ground with a hard thump. She groaned. Oow! And this is the final night! She got up, rubbing her butt to relieve the pain. As she opened the squeaky cab door, Amos came running out of the door of their new house that Roxy had paid for.
"Roxie!" Amos yelled, half-way protruding from the house's new oak door. He pushed open the door as a woman in a dark green trenchcoat went by. After apologizing he turn to Roxie. "Roxie!" he yelled. "You forgot this inside and I thought you would need it for tonight."
Roxie looked down. It was an old hankie with the initials A. H. sewn into them. But that wasn't the important part. Deep down inside this folded hankerchief was a twenty dollar bill. Roxie noticed this right away.
"Thank you, Amos. I don't know what I would do without you." She reacher up and gave him a peck on the cheek and returned to the tattered cab. She sat down on a spring and readjusted as the cab was pulling away from the street corner where Roxie's desperate husband stood, believing that his wife was away, doing some 2-bit show in a clean place. His crimson tie was flowing in the slight breeze as the cab drove through the foggy night and came to a complete stop outside of the Pink Lemonade. The hottest new joint in town, bearing a fabulous stage, weekend dinner shows, and poles (for women to dance on if you get my drift). It wasn't exactly the most laldy-like job to work in this whore house-like atmosphere, but at least Roxie found some place to work where she loved what she did.
She stood under the pink neon sign and threw her cigarette to the ground. Smoking really wasn't her thing, but it picked up the men if you could huff with the rest of 'em. The still lit cigarette butt rolled towards the dirty street as Roxie walked past the neon sign and into the club.
Music was blaring, the lights were low, and people were getting tipsy in every direction. Walking through the club to get backstage she noticed all the usuals and plenty of other people she had never seen before. There was the regular Frank, who sat in the corner and always ask for a certain girl, Tim Smith, who was inebreated to the point of jiration before the night even started, and the rest of the usuals. But there was one man imparticular that caught her eye. Over in the corner, surrounded by a lot of women, was a tall, handsome man in a black and white pinstripe suit and a matching hat with locks of fading gray hair falling over an againg, yet tanned, forehead. He had a lit cigar in one hand and a class of what Roxie recognized as one of the most expensive champages in the other as they caressed the shoulders of two skimpy looking women. Roxie just kept walking, heading towards the backstage area. Before she knew it though, she was on the ground covered in cheap beer and wearing a waitress. The waitress got up.
"Sorry, Miss Roxie. I didn't see you there. You should watch where you are going." said the waitress as she picked up her stuff and started to leave.
"I'm dearly sorry, Melissa, but frankly, tonight I don't give a st." Roxie stood up and ran backstage. She quickly changed into a short, black dress with not much on underneath it. She threw up her hair and ran onstage, right as the raggy old curtain was rising. The music started going and before she knew it, Roxie was done with her musical number and standing on stage, covered in blood, sweat, and twentys. The crowed cheered and the lights went out.
She ran back stage. She passed some of the other girls as she wiped the sweat from her forehead with a towel. Some of the girls stopped and asked if Roxie knew where one of the girls was, Andrea, because she was missing. She told them she didn't know so they all went about their business. The last girl stopped her. She said someone had been trying to get into her dressing room. Some over weight man in his mid-thirties. She shrugged and followed the rest of the girls.
She approached the stairs and started going down. Roxie started counting the twenties as she arrived at her dressing room. She glanced at the doorknob. The door was open and the lights were off. She listened in but she couldn't hear anything but her heartbeat and the music going upstairs. Walking in, she flipped on the lights. She braced herself for someone to pop out but nothing happened. Her dressing was the way she had left it, except there was a bouquet of flowers thrown across a small table by her couch. She picked them up and read the pink, lacy card.
Roxie,
I love you!
Amos
"That's sweet!" She said. Amos sure knew how to treat a girl. Just too bad he's not a king in bed. Roxie though.
She went over to the mirror and glanced it in. All these shows were taking a toll on her. Not to mention all the afterhours work she did behind Amos's back. But he didn't need to know that. Something grabbed Roxie's attention. She heard someone yelling down the hall. With the flowers still in her hand, she went into the hall. It was dark but there was light coming from an open door down the hall. Slowly walking towards the door marked with A. B., the noises got louder and louder. One of the voices was all too familar. She threw open the door and there was Amos and one of the girls from the show, Andrea. Roxie was furious. Of course she had done it before, but Amos wasn't allowed to know and he wasn't allowed to do it either. She threw the flowers at them and stormed back into her dressing room, with Amos behind her, trying to pull up his pants. He was yelling something but she wasn't paying attention and she didn't care anyways.
When she got into her dressing room, she ran over to her vanity and opened the drawer and there lay her shiny black pistol. She grabbed it, making sure she wouldn't touch it with her fingers by grabbing it with the white hankercheif underneath it with the initials A. H. initialed in the bottom. Without thinking she ran up to Amos, shoved the gun in his stomach and shot. He fell to the floor. Andrea came running in to meet another bullet from the gun. She caught it near her neck and fell against the door and on top on Amos. Blood was all over the door and it was pooling on the floor. To Roxie's surprise, Amos pushed Andrea off of him, blood shooting from her neck, and into the hall. He stood up and came towards Roxie. She screamed and pulled the trigger again, but nothing happened it was jammed. Roxie tried hitting in against her hand but it still wouldn't fire. Amos came running towards her and he pinned her against the wall. He started to say something but she tried to un-jam it against his timple and he slowly fell to the ground. To Roxie's disbelief, he got up again just in time for the gun to fix and Roxie fired, just missing his heart. Blood poured out. "You stupid bard!" she said as she fired the remaining three shots into Amos's head.
She yelled at him a few more times and collapsed on the floor into a pool of Amos's blood. She layed her head on her hands and started crying. She heard screaming upstairs and the music had stopped so she stood up. Roxie started to think. She took all her money and put it behind her vanity where she sometimes hid things from Amos. After all the money was put up she started to think of an alibi. She got one and she ran to the end of the hall, not noticing that she was leaving bloody foot prints behind her. She sank into the floor where she started to cry. Thoughts ran through her head. Why did Amos cheat on her? How was he so stupid? Why did she have to shoot them?
After a few minutes she heard sirens getting closer and closer until they stopped. Then she heard shouting upstairs. It was all over now. She pulled her legs to her chest and squeezed as she heard the police running down the stairs. She could see their flash lights and she was lucky because at first they didn't notice her. All they noticed was the two dead bodies and before long, all of the policemen were in the room looking for clues and taking pictures. She slowly got up and went into the closest dressing room. She closed the door behind her quietly but waited to turn on the lights. She felt around on the ground for clothing of some kind. She found something and went over to the door, placing it at the foot of the door so the light wouldn't leak out. She then turned on the lights and ran over to the vanity. She looked at herself with disgust and fear. She didn't know what was going to happen. Roxie drug the vanity over to the door, closing off any way out or in. She didn't notice anything in the room behind her and she didn't notice that the vanity pushed part of the cloth away from the door, letting some of the leak out from the room and into the hallway. She heard some the rest of the girls returning to their rooms. She braced herself for when the girl that this room belonged to tried to get in, but nothing ever happened. All the girls were here... Except Andrea.
She turned around. There wereclothes laying on the couch, of a man and woman's. She recognized a tie. It was a crimson, silk tie with an A and a heart sewn into the bottom. It was Andrea's dressing room. She yelled curses at the top of her lungs at Amos. "Yeah! I killed you! And I'll KILL YOU AGAIN, YOU SON OF A BH!" She picked up the tied and tried ripping it but it was too strong. She threw it down and started stomping on it, creating lots of noise. She stopped but the noise of her stomping didn't. She freaked out but then realized that she forgot about the police. They were banging on the door. Bullets were shot into the door handle. Roxie ran to the opposite side of the room and hid in the corner as they busted through the door with guns in their hands. Her trip to fame was over. The police poured into the room. It took them a second to find Roxie and they pulled her and, but then pinned her to the ground and cuffed her.
"It wasn't me! I don't know what you are doing! What happened?" She pleaded for her very life.
"We know you did it, Miss Hart!" one of the officers yelled.
Roxie started to cry and scream. "You can't prove anything! It wasn't me!"
"It's too late for that, Miss Hart. We found your footprint in the room around the bodies and down into this room. And you are covered in blood!"
They finally shut her up and dragged her upstairs. They had cleared out the bar, but they couldn't stop them from crowding around outside. There was a massive crowd of people outside the doors. She saw all the girls, still in their costumes. Some looked angry and others were crying, some for Andrea and hopefully a few for her. Roxie also noticed the man in the suit from inside. He reached the crowd and handed her a card. She shoved it into her outfit as she was thrown into the back of the police wagon. Reporters swarmed the tiny window. One of the reporters in the front snapped a picture of her holding onto the bars as another one asked, "How do you feel about this, Roxie? Some say it's a hangin' case."
The wagon started to pull away from the crowd. "What's a hangin' case?" Roxie yelled. "What's a hangin' case?!?!" But the wagon got to fast and the sirens were too loud and it vanished into the night.