Author's Note: ANGST. SO MUCH ANGST. I thought Clara was missing from the Boardwalk Empire story because the Nucky/Jimmy/Eli feud would have been far more devastating if someone loved all of them and was hurt by the fallout. And then Clara went and fell for Richard, and, well...ANGST. This chapter covers events from "Two Boats and a Lifeguard" and "Battle of the Century", but the timeline is slightly different. The dream that starts the chapter is the season two trailer-you'll see where Clara belongs. Enjoy!

Please review! I want to know where you think this story is headed as we slam into the end of Season Two!

Nucky was lost in a familiar dream. It's always the same. He walks out of the Ritz, and people surround him, calling his name, wanting a piece of him. James, that fucking traitor, and Angela sit sipping lemonade. Lucy walks with that Prohie. The aldermen, Mickey, his New York associates all look at him ominously. Who can he trust. Who can he trust. Gillian and the Commodore ride past in a pushcart powered by Eddie. Eli pins a red carnation to his sheriff's uniform, just like his big brother's, Nucky thinks.

The crowd grows ever tighter around him. Chalky White strolls by on the ocean side of the Boardwalk, and then Harrow walks up the beach stairs with a rifle slung over his shoulder. He recoils from the sight of the man and almost overlooks Clara. She's wearing a blue dress, standing to the right of the stairs with her back to the ocean, looking up at the Ritz like she just realized something about the place she's called home since she was eight years old. As the crowd swirls, he loses track of her, his attention taken by Margaret, by Torrio's little troll, by James. He tries to find Clara in the mass of people moving around him. He expects to find her with James, but instead, he sees her standing with Harrow before he loses her again in the crowd's push, and then he's alone looking out at the ocean in the spot she was standing earlier.

Nucky startled awake. The smell of bleach was overwhelming, and his hand felt like it was on fire, like the night his father struck him with the fire poker for eating first. As he emerged from the haze, he saw a woman in a blue skirt and white shirtwaist staring out the window. The fair curls made him think for a moment that his mother was in the room with him. No, of course not, he thought.

"Clara," he said weakly, and she finally turned from the window.

"Father," she said after she sat in the chair next to him. "The doctor just left. He said it's a clean wound, you shouldn't have long term damage. In fact, you are set to go home tomorrow."

"Thank you for coming," he said as he looked at her closely. There was something in her voice he hadn't heard before, he thought, trying to remember the last time he'd seen her. He'd heard the typewriter at odd hours more than he'd actually seen his daughter since their fight on Memorial Day.

"I need to know," she said, her eyes huge and serious. "Tell me who did this."

"James. We were at the Jack Dempsey event, and James walked up to me and said, 'it doesn't make a difference if you're right or wrong. You just have to make a decision.' As soon as he walked away, the gunman ran up."

Clara choked out a cold, bitter laugh. "I see Jimmy's backbone is as strong as ever." She stared into the middle distance. "If it's all right, I'll move into Margaret's. I need to cut ties with the past, and I can't do that at the Ritz. It will just be until I can make concrete plans."

"What sort of plans?"

"Europe. I'll write the Grenvilles and ask to visit for a bit, start my European sojourn in the Yorkshire countryside."

Clara braced herself for an argument, but she was beyond caring about her father's objections to what she wished to do with her life. While she waited for him to wake up, while she measured the depth of Richard's betrayal, she'd started to make plans. How could she stay in Atlantic City without Richard, without Jimmy? This was even going to cost her Angela and Tommy, she thought. Luckily, she had more than enough money saved to get to Europe, and it wasn't like she was going to need that money now for houses and hardware stores. From everything she read, the cost of living on the Continent was so low, she'd be fine with the money she made from writing.

"I'd prefer you to stay until the trial is over."

She looked over at him." I thought you took care of that with the Attorney General ."

Nucky closed his eyes. "There have been complications."

Undone by his own cleverness, Clara thought. She cleared her mind and tried to identify the various puzzle pieces at play. "Harding's administration is in trouble," she said, remembering the news articles she'd read all month long. "They've cut you off, taken away your friendly prosecutor?"

He didn't answer her.

"How bad is it?" she asked in a chillingly empty voice.

"I don't know yet."

They sat in silence. Finally, Clara stood up and walked to the door. She paused before she walked out. "I asked-I begged-you to stop. I asked all of you."

He didn't respond. He didn't run his business on the whims of a girl, he thought, even if she was his daughter. Then something bit at his subconscious as the sleepiness from the pain medicine returned. "You didn't ask who the gunman was. Why didn't you ask if James sent Harrow?"

Clara didn't turn around. Because I asked Sleater what time you were shot, she thought. Because at that moment we were twisted into his bedsheets as my fingers were digging into Richard's back as I moaned his name into his ear as his breath was hot and wet on my face as his hand cupped my left breast as he pushed into me as my leg wrapped around his hip as...as he kept me busy and distracted and away from the event where the man I love as a brother sent someone to kill you.

How ironic, she realized. She loved Richard in part for his strong sense of loyalty. She'd just forgotten she wasn't the person to whom he was ultimately loyal.

"Because you're still alive," Clara answered.


Richard sat at the desk, his hands moving back and forth over the material of his pants. A familiar knock sounded on his door. It took him a few moments to get up to answer it.

The look on Richard's face told Jimmy everything he needed to know. Jimmy let out the breath he was holding. He walked into Richard's room. The quilt folded at the end of the bed, the copy of Dorothy Canfield's The Brimming Cup on the bedside table, the small box of hairpins on the desk, they all spoke to the fact that Clara had all but moved in with Richard over the last few weeks.

Richard's mouth was pulling so hard that it took him time to get the first words out, and they were punctuated with throat clicks. "The Irishman. Came. He told. Clara. Nucky had. Been shot." At first, Richard meant to tell Jimmy the rest. The look of betrayal on Clara's face when she realized Jimmy had ordered her father killed, and that Richard knew, but he couldn't.

"You told. Me. You called. Mmm. Off the hit."

Jimmy closed his eyes. He had told Richard that, and he had meant it. He didn't want Nucky to die, not really. But then Ma pointed out how important it was he look like a leader, that he not backtrack in front of Capone, Luciano, and Lanksy.

'And that's why he dies?' he'd asked her.

Except, of course, Nucky didn't die. What a colossal fuck up.

"I couldn't, Rich. I couldn't look weak."

Richard thought of all the things Jimmy did that made him look weak. Not paying the butcher, not making sure Mickey was guarding the warehouse, having his mother around during meetings like they were after-school 4-H club gatherings. He wondered why Jimmy didn't have a problem with those things that made him look weak, which made him look like a boy playing a man's game.

After Jimmy left, Richard started to stand up but couldn't bring himself to move. Clara seemed to have marked every inch of the room. There was nowhere for his eye to land that did not speak of her presence and her absence.


Clara sat at the desk, forcing the words to flow from her fingertips. The book had to be finished, even if Nan and Bert and Flossie and Freddie's adventures felt like sandpaper in her mind. She refused to let any other part of her life be sacrificed up to this feud. She had lost almost everything she cared about in the world. Now she'd even exiled herself from her home, trapped the last few days in this landlocked room at Margaret's instead of peacefully alone in her room by the ocean.

The door opened without a knock, and Clara prepared to chastise Teddy for once more bursting in on her without warning.

Her father stood in the doorway, staring at her. Instantly, she knew something was wrong. Fear licked at her, and before she could push the thought away, she prayed that Richard, Jimmy, and Eli were safe.

"My father's dead," Nucky told his daughter.

Clara let out a deep breath. Thank goodness, she thought.

"What happened?" she asked.

"Died of a heart attack at the breakfast table," he replied.

Clara winced. "Oh, those poor kids," she said, thinking of her little cousins. "I'm sorry, Father. His death must be...emotionally complicated for you, and you already have so much going on."

Nucky almost laughed as he sat across from her in the slipper chair in front of the fireplace. Everyone else gave condolences and expected him to grieve, but Clara knew. It was emotionally complicated, and it was an inopportune time.

"You won't mourn him?"

Clara sighed. "He never missed a chance to say something about my mother, did he? What sort of man makes jokes about their mother's death to a child?" It's enough to make me pity you for your childhood, she thought.

"When I die, is that what your child will say to you, how emotionally complicated my death is for you?" Nucky asked.

For a moment, all she could do was look down at her hands. "When you were shot, I cast from my life everyone I deemed responsible. Without question. Without doubt."

Clara looked up, and the pain in her eyes almost took his breath away. He left without saying another word.

When she went down for lunch, Margaret expressed her condolences.

"We weren't close," Clara replied as she tried to eat. The cold jellied chicken bouillon was at least refreshing in the mounting mid-summer heat, but she couldn't force the stuffed tomato down around the knot in her stomach.

Margaret wanted to ask Clara about all of it, but the girl's defenses were so clearly raised that Margaret let it pass. Margaret had real problems, she thought, between Enoch's legal troubles and Emily's fever. Clara was an adult, she'd have to cope on her own. Instead, she told Clara that Emily was still running a low fever as Clara pretended to eat.

"Still not feeling well?" Clara asked when she walked through the living room after lunch and saw Emily lying on the sofa looking miserable.

"No one has time for me," Emily told her sadly.

Clara smiled. "That's a familiar feeling. Can I help?"

"I want to finish my book, but no one will read to me."

"I can do that."

Emily held her book.

"The Tin Woodman of Oz ," Clara said softly. Of course, out of all the children's books Emily could possibly be reading, it would be this one

"There's one more chapter. The Tin Woodman loves Nimmie Amee, but the Wicked Witch of the East cut off all his parts and replaced it with tin and he went away because he thought he couldn't love with her without a heart."

Clara forced her face still as the child chattered on

"The Tin Woodman met his old head and they talked. Then he meets the Tin Soldier. The Tin Soldier also loved Nimmie Amee, and the Witch cut him up, too. He doesn't have a heart, either, but he doesn't care. Now they are going to Nimmie's house, and who she loves best wins."

Without another word Clara opened the book.

"We may be sure," she read, "that at this moment our friends were all anxious to see the end of the adventure that had caused them so many trials and troubles. Perhaps the Tin Woodman's heart did not beat any faster, because it was made of red velvet and stuffed with sawdust, and the Tin Soldier's heart was made of tin and reposed in his tin bosom without a hint of emotion."

When Clara finally recited 'the end' she stared down at the page, unable to look into Emily's big eyes.

"I thought the Tin Man and the girl were going to live happily ever after," Emily said sadly.

"I as well," Clara responded. She couldn't leave the child sick and heartbroken, so she reframed the ending. "But the Tin Woodman is with his best friend, the Scarecrow, and that's a happy ending of sorts."

"Is that where your Tin Man went? He wanted his best friend instead of you?" Emily asked.

For a moment, she wanted to laugh at the child's summation of the disaster of her life, but she held back. A smile, Clara thought, smile at the child and then escape to your room. "Yes. I need to go write, do you need anything?"

It was a few days later when Nucky called Clara into the conservatory. She could tell Margaret already knew the content of the upcoming discussion. The children's maid brought them down in their nightclothes and robes to say goodnight.

"Goodnight, Mama, Goodnight, Daddy," Emily and Teddy said in chorus. Clara startled slightly at the children not calling her father Uncle Nucky.

"Goodnight, kiddos," Nucky responded, and for a moment, Clara was back in the living room of the white clapboard house on Ventor, the one with four bedrooms her mother planned filling with children. Jimmy lived with them because Gillian was on tour with some company or couldn't take care of him or was chasing a man. Why didn't matter to Clara because the times Jimmy lived in the bedroom next to hers were the happiest of her childhood. They must have been six or so, and she could remember her mother bringing them down in their nightclothes to say goodnight to her father, while he sat in his sheriff's uniform writing at the desk. He'd said 'goodnight, kiddos' in the same tone of voice.

Well, after all, she thought, who needed the messy, disastrous adult versions of Jimmy and Clara when the sweet, innocent versions were available in Teddy and Emily? Why cope with the complex needs and desires of Nimmie Amee when the simpler companionship of the Scarecrow was available?

"Tomorrow I'm resigning as County Treasurer, effective immediately. I'm going to meet with the Commodore and James and tell them I'm done with this game. Clara, you'll need to pack up your room at the Ritz. I'll be giving up the eighth floor at the end of July. Plus, you should know, my money is tied up in a land deal and I just ended my income stream. We will all need to watch our spending."

Clara nodded. Her father was giving up the war, now. Jimmy had won. Her life was in tatters, but Jimmy had won.

"I can support myself," Clara said, and didn't miss her father's barely suppressed eye roll.

"You should also know that Owen Sleater and I are leaving for...England tomorrow afternoon."

"I could accompany you to Southampton," Clara proposed.

"No, I told you, I want you here until after my trial," Clara didn't respond, so Nucky pressed on. "Rebecca Spencer called the Ritz and asked you to a dinner and theater party tomorrow night. I told Eddie to accept on your behalf. So you know, Eddie will be taking vacation while Sleater and I are away."

Nucky was starting to miss the Clara who argued, he thought, when she sat primly in the chair and didn't say another word.

"You should also be aware there's a new prosecutor, Esther Randolph," he continued.

Clara looked up. "A woman prosecutor?" she asked with something like delight in her voice.

"Don't get excited. If she asks to see you, contact my lawyer."

Clara wanted to argue, tell him she had her own lawyer, but in the end, she didn't have the energy. She wished her father a good trip and forced her legs to carry her up the stairs.

The next night Clara dressed in a blue chiffon and bronze satin dinner dress. The skirt, she thought, was almost scandalously short, barely covering the top of her calves. She'd bought the dress for Dorothy Grenville's rehearsal dinner, and it came with a headpiece made up of more bronze flowers.

These people were supposedly her friends, Clara thought when she met up with everyone in the Ritz lobby, yet she barely knew any of them. They certainly didn't know her.

"My grandmother couldn't be happier with Mr. Harrow as a tenant," Rebecca told her as they walked to Babette's. "She said it's the first summer she's really enjoyed Maine because she knows he's watching after the house and taking care of the lawn."

Clara closed her eyes in an attempt to block out the image of Richard carefully cutting Mrs. Siddons's yard while she watched from the door. "That's nice to hear," she managed to say in response.

Rebecca and her husband, Jonathan, were in earnest conversation with Babette while the rest of the party waited in the foyer.

"Change of plans," Jonathan announced. "Babette's is closed for a private party, not that anyone bothered to call and tell us about the change in our reservation. We'll need to walk over to the Blenheim."

As they walked toward the door, something made Clara turn back towards the hostess stand, where Jimmy and Richard stood staring at her.

Since the moment she sat in her father's Buick (the backup car he liked to loan out to Atlantic City residents for funerals) next to Owen Sleater, it felt like her heart was overtaken by ice. Somewhere inside her, she knew, was an abyss of agony and anger, but it was more than she could stand. So she let the ice flow through her veins and numb her so she could cope.

The realization that Jimmy and Richard were standing with Babette because it was their party, that the reason no one contacted the Spencers was that Jimmy had only found out hours ago that her father was stopping the war (Clara realized in that instant that her father was a fucking liar and Jimmy was a fucking idiot because the war was far from over) and had just reached out to Babette about throwing his celebration slammed into her frozen reserve. Jimmy and Richard were wearing their everyday suits. They hadn't even taken the time to change into party clothes.

The ice began to melt.

"Rebecca, I need to speak with Jimmy. I'll meet up with you at the Blenheim, don't wait dinner on me."

Rebecca looked like she wanted to say something, but then just nodded and herded the rest of the party out the door. Clara had known Rebecca since they were six; she had never liked her more.

She turned and started walking back towards them. Jimmy was running his tongue across his bottom teeth. Richard looked between the floor and her with a mixture of pain and hope in his eye. For a moment her resolve faltered, and the desire to throw herself in his arms and accept whatever explanation he managed to give overtook her flared inside her. She knotted her hands into fists and pushed the feeling away. Not only had Richard's loyalty to Jimmy outweighed what was between them, but he had bedded her while Jimmy sent an assassin after her father.

"Mmm, Clara," Richard started to say.

Clara held up her hand and shook her hand. I'll get to you in a minute, she thought. Your betrayal hurt the most but isn't at the heart of this nightmare.

"Congratulations," she said to Jimmy in a cold voice.

"Clara," Jimmy said, recognizing the tone in her voice.

"You've ascended the throne of the Crown Prince of the Boardwalk and shown yourself to be the stupidest pawn on the chessboard all in the same day. That's talent, Jimmy."

"Nucky didn't die, Clara. It's over. There's no need..."

Clara tilted her head. "You know, perhaps Father was right about one thing. Perhaps you did run away to the Army because you couldn't hack Princeton. Because if you'd stayed a bit longer you would have read Emerson's refute to Oliver Wendell Holmes. 'When you strike at a king, you must kill him' because if you fail, you naive fool, the king doesn't hand over their kingdom to the upstart who hired an assassin from Woolworth's bargain bin who managed only to shoot them in the hand. The king plots the upstarts destruction. You are so blind you can't even see it. You've wandered into the zoo, opened the cages, let the animals out, and don't even realize the lions are circling their prey, just waiting for your first stumble."

"I didn't have a choice, I..."

"Needed to impress the troll from Chicago? Wanted to prove to Mommy what a big, strong man you are?"

"Nucky isn't who you think he is..."

Clara laughed, a bitter, choking laugh. "I know exactly what kind of corrupt bastard my father is. I also know exactly what kind of ...boy you are." Jimmy didn't answer her, so she pressed on. "You promised, Jimmy, you promised. And in the end, it wasn't worth as much as appearing momentarily like a player in a game I don't even think you comprehend.

"Enjoy your reign, Prince James. I fear it will rival that of Lady Jane Gray in terms of longevity."

When Clara turned away from Jimmy to face him, Richard could feel the anger and pain coming off her in waves. Her voice was barely above a whisper, and her face soft, like she was confiding in him while they curled around each other in bed.

"The gunman came from Chicago. There was time between when Jimmy decided to kill my father and when the man shot my father. You knew Jimmy had ordered my father dead, and you came home and just..." her voice broke, and she winced as she spoke. "Fucked me?"

He startled at her word choice, and he wanted to tell her, no, of course not. Jimmy had told him he changed his mind. Richard thought Nucky was safe, or as safe as any of them caught in this damn feud. But even at that moment, had he actually trusted Jimmy, or had he pushed away all doubt so he didn't have to choose?

Richard's lack of an answer was response enough for Clara. "I loved you for so many reasons. But from that first moment I met you in Chicago, you never treated me like I was less than an actual person. So how very ironic that in the end it was you who made me feel like a foolish, foolish girl. Just a woman, someone to bed and pass time with but not a whole person. Not someone worthy of your loyalty. It's not like I was someone important, like Jimmy."

Clara turned and looked back at Jimmy and let her voice raise slightly. "That's something you actually could learn from Jimmy, Richard. I must give him this much-he is extraordinarily loyal to the woman he beds. He listens to her council, he lets her whisper in his ear, and he'd never keep something like this from her."

Richard turned his face enough to look at her. Clara was not describing Jimmy's relationship with his wife. Angela knew nothing about her husband's dealings, Richard thought. The only woman Jimmy listened to, even though she was the person Richard wished he wouldn't, was Gillian. He looked back and forth between Clara and Jimmy, as usual in discomfort when Clara brought up Gillian to Jimmy.

"Fuck you, Clara," Jimmy spat at her.

"Oh, did I go too far? You can send a gunman to kill my father, but your bitch of a mother is off-limits?" Clara asked. "You destroy my life, but still expect me to protect your secrets?"

"Did you just come to ruin my party?"

"Ruin your party?" Clara shook her head. "Your downfall is going to be delicious."

"Would you be this upset if I'd been successful?" Jimmy asked, already knowing the answer.

She turned and walked away, the ice melting so fast she was afraid they'd hear her sobs before she got far enough away. Her father's careful training held, though, and she managed to rejoin the Spencers' theater party at the Blenheim shortly before the main course was served. She managed a few polite bites.

In October of the same year, Clara sat in the second row of the Klaw Theater on West 45th Street with another group of people she didn't particularly care for, watching the same play on opening night. She'll have no memory of seeing Lillies of the Field in its first week of out of town tryouts, nor of crying so hard when Mildred lost everyone she loved that Rebecca Spencer never forgot it. It was the first time she had ever seen Clara Thompson cry, even though they'd known each other since first grade.

Jimmy would later think that Clara had cursed him with her words that night. Richard spent the evening against the arm of the sofa in the VIP room, looking shellshocked. Jimmy tried cheering him up. He told Richard that the success was as much his as it was Jimmy's. He told Richard, fuck Clara. There was a nice girl out there for Richard, someone to settle down with.

The look on Richard's face when he said that stayed with Jimmy for a long time. That's when he got angry. He wanted to tell Richard he'd lost things, too. He'd loved Nucky and Clara his whole life. Then Eli pounded the same drum, saying Nucky's retreat was just a trick. Seriously, fuck all the Thompsons, Jimmy thought. And it was the Thompsons' fault he bungled dealing with the butcher, because he was so angry he wasn't thinking straight It's why he ended up throwing Mickey Doyle off the balcony at Babette's straight to the feet of Manny Horvitz, butcher.

It was a miscalculation.

After Clara left with Owen Sleater that awful night, Richard had put away some of her things. The book she left out, the quilt, the extra pillow. If Clara wasn't there, he didn't want to enjoy the little comforts she'd brought with her. When he got back to his room the night of Jimmy's party, he forced himself to deal with the rest of her things. There was one dress in the closet. Clara had brought it the day before she left, he remembered. She'd been happy, because it was her favorite, and she'd sent it to a seamstress to have it shortened. It was the floral dress she'd worn that day on the Boardwalk when she'd brought him a picnic and seemed so happy to see him in her city. He carefully folded it and put it in the drawer, his fingers touching the fabric for the first time. The soap she left in the bathroom, he carefully wrapped in paper before putting in the top drawer with the rest of her things, knowing soon his room would stop smelling of oranges.

Finally, he went to his own dresser and opened the drawer with his winter things, pulling a velvet box from underneath the flannels. For a moment, he saw the life he thought they were going to have. A life where he wasn't lonely, where someone was happy to see him when he got home. He sat holding the box for a long time, his thumb running over the velvet, mourning the life lost so that Jimmy could rule an empire built out of sand.


Clara knew how to observe the properties. It's why she stood in all black at the Saint Bernard Clairvaux cemetery in Dorothy. It wasn't love for her grandfather that led her to the Jersey mainland on a summer Saturday morning.

Her uncle's eyes were on her from almost the moment she parked her father's Buick and stepped across the first grave, but Clara attempted to ignore him. She regarded her cousins thoughtfully. Poor little lambs, they looked so upset, she thought. How was it possible they loved their grandfather so much while she found him so despicable?

Aunt June invited her for lunch after the internment, but she refused the invitation. Clara could not eat at her uncle's table, now.

"Dollface," Eli murmured, approaching her as the mourners dispersed.

"Don't. Don't. Not after what you were part of," Clara looked at him with fierce anger in her eyes.

Fuck Jimmy, Eli thought. How do you fuck up sending a gunman? His words to Harrow stood, he thought, because he still believed they would all be better off with Nucky gone.

"So you've written us all off?" Eli asked.

Clara's eyes flashed. "You all conspired to have my father killed. What should I do?"

He regarded her thoughtfully. Clara was the first kid he'd watched grow up. When he and June were courting, they'd go eat dinner at Nuck and Mabel's, and then they'd play with Clara. Eli always thought he fell in love with June in part because she was so natural with Clara. It made him see what a good mother she'd be to their children. It's why he could see how the pain tearing at his niece was destroying her, and why the anger in Clara's eyes cut him so deeply.

"It was Jimmy," he said, hoping for forgiveness.

"Try that line on Father. Jimmy can barely decide what pastry to order at Formica Brothers. Someone led him into this." Clara stared into the trees, seeing the man in the Ford without realizing it. "It was that awful little troll from Chicago, wasn't it? He pushed Jimmy into this."

Capone, sure. He wondered why Clara despised him. "Yes, he pushed Jimmy into it." It wasn't even strictly a lie, Eli thought, looking at the church steeple behind Clara's head. Jimmy pushed back against him, but once Capone, the little one, and the one who was screwing Gillian started in, Jimmy folded fast.

"It doesn't change anything," Clara said. "The three of you...you still conspired to kill my father."

"Harrow, too?" Eli asked, thinking of the broken man sitting in the VIP room at the party.

Clara shot her uncle a venomous look. "Do you think I don't know what Richard's part in this was, to keep me occupied while the gunman did his work? Do you want to know how he kept me busy?"

"Clara, that's a sin," Eli said in a shocked voice. She was his niece. He often had to remind himself she wasn't an eight-year-old in a crinoline. The last thing he wanted was to picture...that. Although he was suddenly possessed by the urge to ask her if she made Harrow keep the mask on.

"That's a sin?" Clara asked with a hysterical note of laughter in her voice. "You conspired to kill your brother, my life is paid for by a river of blood and illegal booze, but my bedding a man I," her voice broke, but she forced herself to continue, "love, that's the sin that worries you?"

"It's not true, Clara," Eli said, thinking if nothing else, he could spare her that pain. "There were three men in that room who love you, but Harrow was the only one who was thinking about you. He tried to convince Jimmy not to order the hit, and..." Eli skipped over the point where Harrow had asked him how he could kill his brother, and focused instead on what Jimmy told him later, "he thought he had succeeded."

Clara's hands went out behind her, and she leaned against a headstone. Richard hadn't betrayed her in the way she thought. Guilt for the things she had said, for the things she had felt, crashed over her. He still had known what Jimmy and Eli were considering, and she felt a new flame of anger start inside her. He hadn't put her first and let his loyalty to Jimmy overcome any commitment he should feel for her. Richard should have told her. But he hadn't betrayed her, not like she thought. Not in a way she couldn't forgive.

"I said horrible things. Unforgivable things," Clara said softly.

"Dollface, your aunt and I say unforgivable things to each other at least once a month. Then we go out to the garage and makeup."

Clara made a face. "Ugh, I didn't need to know that."

"Oh, I had to picture my niece with the masked man, but you didn't need to hear that?" Clara looked up and smiled at him and then fought back the urge to cry.

"What's Father going to do now, Uncle Eli? To you, to Jimmy? Jimmy thinks he's won, but..."

"Jimmy is an idiot," Eli answered. "Our best bet might be the lady prosecutor."

Clara nodded slowly. She still felt like she was being ripped in half. How could she do it? How could she want her father to go to prison, and from the undercurrents, she gathered it was much more severe than election-rigging now.

Clara and Eli were so intent on their conversation they failed to notice the man in the Ford snapping pictures with his Brownie was a warm summer Saturday afternoon, two days before July 4th, and almost everyone was happy and excited.

After all, it was the afternoon of the fight of the century.

Charlie Luciano and Meyer Lansky were checking into the Fairmount in Jersey City when the clerk handed Charlie a message.

"Fuck Darmody. That fucking little pissant. The butcher went up to New York and found Benny," Charlie said in a voice he thought was his quietest. It still caused Meyer to pull him aside, after casting a worried look at the high rolling gamblers AR had invited down for the fight standing in the lobby who were looking at the enraged Charlie.

"We've got to get back to Atlantic City, Charlie. Who is going to tell AR?" Meyer answered.

"Fuck Darmody," Charlie said again before pushing the task of talking to Rothstein off on Meyer. He wanted to watch Dempsey pummel Georges Carpentier from the front row, god damn it, not listen to it from fucking Atlantic City. Not even the idea of screwing Gillian in that creepy old bastard's house with Jimmy, Capone, Harrow, Thompson's odd brother, and the rest in the other room made him want to spend any more fucking time in Atlantic City.

Meyer started speaking soothing words to Charlie as they drove off in the Oldsmobile, trying to calm him down so he wouldn't beat the hell out of Darmody on sight.


At the beach house, Jimmy watched Richard closely. As usual, these days, his head was hanging down, and his hands fretted across the material of his pants. Damn Clara, Jimmy thought, absolving himself of any part of the catastrophe.

"Rich, what is it?" Jimmy asked finally.

"What happened at Babette's," Richard managed to get out.

Jimmy purposefully misunderstood. "With Doyle? It was just a gag. Besides, it will keep him in line."

"Mmm. That's not. What I meant. You said. A nice. Girl and. I would. Settle. Down," Richard tried to explain, but with each word, speaking became more difficult, and his facial tic worsened.

"You will. You'll see," Jimmy interrupted as he heard the car containing Waxey Gordon and his associates.

Richard looked at him. A miracle had happened, Richard thought, a nice girl loved him, but now she thought he had used her to help Jimmy succeed.

"Why. Did you. Make fun of me?" Richard asked.

"Rich, I wasn't." Jimmy heard the car door close. "Look, fuck Clara. She's hardly the only girl in the world, okay?"

Richard recoiled, but it didn't stop him from standing behind Jimmy's shoulder as Waxey Gordon came in, and it didn't stop him from doing everything he could to help Jimmy make the deal for Waxey to take care of the butcher once and for all.


The drive from Dorothy to Atlantic City was miserable in the best of times. Her father had been nattering about a road deal since she returned from D.C., and Clara felt a sudden surge of goodwill for the project. It was a long time to be alone with her thoughts as the merciful numbness she'd mostly been encased in dissipated, and the raw agony of the last eight days bit at her. She thought through everyone she knew, everyone she loved, in Atlantic City, and realized the only person she trusted absolutely was Angela. Clara felt a rush of shame. She hadn't even checked on Angela or Tommy because she'd been so wrapped up in her own heartbreak.

Her fingers drummed the steering wheel. Her temper, her impetuousness, could get her into trouble, mostly when she acted without thinking. And she'd been wrong if Uncle Eli was telling the truth, and Clara couldn't see a reason why he would lie about Richard's involvement. She still had things to be angry about, she thought, but...it was survivable. But she needed to talk to him, she needed to apologize, she needed to stop talking and let him tell her in his own words what the hell happened.

The Ford was parked by in Mrs. Siddons's driveway, and Clara's heart skipped a beat. She was breathless when she knocked on the door. There was no answer. Something drove her to try and find Richard now, the same feeling she'd had Memorial Day. A note, she decided, she should leave a message. She ran back to the Buick, only to realize she had her smallest day bag and no paper or pen. There was none in the Buick, either. Clara sighed in frustration.

The Ritz, she thought. She'd go home, change out of the funeral clothes she was wearing, write Richard a letter, leave it here, and go find him. The idea of escaping into the peace of the Ritz was delightful. She could think there.

Unfortunately, the lobby of the Ritz was complete chaos. Clara looked around in shock. Granted, it was July 4th weekend, and the Dempsey fight was tonight, but never, in all the years she'd lived there, had she seen the Ritz coming apart like this. There were angry guests scattered across the lobby with their luggage. Other angry people poured from the restaurant. Clara picked her way through to the elevators, where people were lined up to get on.

When she finally got on, she was shocked to see the Ritz's assistant manager, Mr. Donaldson, instead of Leroy or one of the other elevator operators at the controls.

"Miss Thompson," he said as he started the elevator with a jerk. When the last guest departed the elevator on the seventh floor, Clara took her chance.

"What's happening?" she asked quietly.

"Oh, there's just some problem with the colored workers this for you to worry about," he said in an attempt to be jovial. The last thing he needed, he thought, was for Miss Thompson to reach out to her father and tell him what a mess the Boardwalk was on this, the most profitable weekend of the year.

Father, Clara saw suddenly. It was how he planned to undermine Jimmy. He was going to cripple the city. He was going to bankrupt the Boardwalk during the height of tourist season when everyone made their money.

He was going to destroy Jimmy at any cost, even if the entirety of Atlantic City was collateral damage, she realized. As she stumbled past a pile of newspapers by the front door of the suite, she could see Chalky White waiting to speak to her father. Of course, she thought. Mr. White would still be livid at Jimmy, and understandably so, about the stupidity the Commodore talked Jimmy into.

She turned back and grabbed the top newspaper. The Dempsey fight! Jimmy would be at the radio presentation, and doubtlessly Richard would be with him. Clara started to run out of the suite before she realized she was still in her funeral clothes. No, she thought, she couldn't show up looking like a wraith. Turning around, she kicked off her black shoes and started unclipping her stockings as she raced to her room.


He was going to be good at running Atlantic City, Jimmy thought as Richard drove them to the theater. The deal with George Remus? Fucking perfect. It was going to be a game-changer. They were going to make money at levels Nucky never even dreamed of. And Clara had done him a favor, mocking him about his mother. Running things out of his house, without his mother's interference or the Commodore randomly shouting, was better. Made him look like a grown-up. Made people respect him. Even if he had had to send Tommy and Angela away for the weekend.

The botched hit on Nucky wasn't the end of the world. People saw he was willing to act, even if the act hurt. The butcher was about to learn that lesson, courtesy of Waxey Gordon. Courtesy of him. No one was going to harass him, certainly not some crazed meat cutter.

Richard stared straight ahead as they drove. Jimmy sighed. He hadn't wanted Clara and Richard to get hurt. If Clara wasn't so fucking stubborn, Jimmy thought. Richard might really be better off without her. Fuck, Jimmy realized, he didn't even believe that. But Clara always forgave him anything. She knew Nucky's crime. Tomorrow, as soon as he woke up, he was going to get a message to her. He'd talk until she understood. He'd tell her Richard was innocent, that he had made a mistake, that he needed her help to do this. That Angela needed her help. That Richard needed her. But first, he and Richard were going to enjoy tonight.


B. F. Keith's Garden Pier Theatre was packed. People from all walks of life had paid $2.50 a ticket to listen to Dempsey wallop the Frenchman as it happened over one hundred miles away in Jersey City. Neither Richard nor Jimmy were having as much as fun as they hoped. Jimmy felt like everyone kept turning to stare at him, and Richard picked up on his anxiety, which made his inherent watchfulness kick up several notches. When Jimmy received a note reading 'I'm watching you,' Richard almost suggested leaving.

Clara smoothed her dress as she worked her way to the box office. She'd bought it on that trip to Bonwit Teller because it reminded her of the dress she'd worn the night before Angela and Jimmy married. After all, that was a happy night. It consisted of a dark green slip with a green tulle overdress decorated with copper embroidery. She thrown it on, applied dark lipstick, and was back out the suite and calling for the elevator within minutes. A far cry, she reflected, from the time she and Angela had spent getting ready that night six months ago. Only six months ago, and yet an entire lifetime seemed to have passed.

When she tried to buy a ticket, the box office attendant they were sold out. Clara closed her eyes and then did the thing she always tried to avoid. "My name is Clara Thompson. You might know my father, Nucky? And I'm here to meet my oldest friend, Jimmy Darmody?" An usher was dispatched to take her to Jimmy.

"We got dressed all by ourselves, too," the brunette said as she starting climbing in Jimmy's lap.

Richard was uncomfortable. Not only because of the people around him who kept looking at him but because he liked Angela. He didn't understand why Jimmy needed other women when he had someone like Angela waiting at home. Then the red-haired girl gasped at his face, and Jimmy rushed to his defense. He's with me, Jimmy said, as if that took care of everything.

"We're having fun here, Rich," Jimmy said. "Clara ended things with you, no need to feel guilty."

Next thing he knew, the redhead said he'd be a good story for when she was old and climbed into his lap.

Clara's eyes raced around the theater. Suddenly she saw Jimmy with some chorus girl on his lap. Jesus, she thought, he really is turning into my father. Poor Angela.

"There he..." she started to say to the usher when the dark-haired girl in Jimmy's lap moved, and she saw a flash of green tweed next to him. A man in a green tweed suit with a girl in his lap, sharing an awkward kiss. Awkward because, as she knew all too well, learning to kiss around the mask wasn't intuitive. And this woman was kissing him like it was a task and not a pleasure.

Clara gasped, which made Jimmy look up from the girl in his lap.

"Mr. Darmody," the usher said, "this girl said she's here to see you."

The usher's voice knocked Clara back into reality, and she turned and fled.

"Clara!" Jimmy called, once again knowing he had somehow fucked up badly. "Clara, goddamn it!"

Meyer was ready to be out of the car. Not one but two tires had blown on the never-ending drive from Jersey City back to Atlantic City. Charlie hadn't exactly coped well. He'd started complaining before they'd gotten in the car and hadn't fucking stopped yet. Now Meyer wanted to punch Darmody senseless, just as payback for this car ride from hell.

"We've spent so much fucking time in this seaside shantytown I know how to get to this damn theater street-side," Charlie groused as they pulled up.

Clara's first instinct was to run back to the Boardwalk and flee to the Ritz. Then she realized that's exactly what Jimmy thought she would do, so she turned and ran for the theater's street-side exit.

First, Jimmy had to get the brunette out of his lap, and then he had to get his leg to cooperate. By the time he could move, Clara was disappearing through the exit door.

He turned back to the seats. "Richard, come on!"

Richard sat, staring straight ahead. The look of pain on Clara's face. He had done that. He had done that.

At Jimmy's order, he made himself stand and follow behind him.

Jimmy started to go out of the exit to the Boardwalk but then realized Clara would anticipate he would think she would go that way. He turned and went towards the street-side door, cursing his bad leg as they went.

Clara took a large gulp of salty air when she made it outside. Pain sliced through her. She knew men cheated. She'd watched them come into her home with their mistresses and then come to dinner the next night with their wives. Hell, when engaged to Darcy, she'd cheered herself with the thought that he would probably take a mistress quickly and leave her alone.

But Richard. She'd never expected Richard...she closed her eyes to hold back the tears. Not because she didn't think no one would want him, she certainly wanted him, but because she thought he was loyal.

And he was, just not to her. Because apparently she deserved no one's loyalty.

"Clara Thompson, what the fuck is wrong with you?" a voice heavy with the accent of New York tenements asked.

Clara opened her eyes. Charlie Luciano and Meyer Lanksy were staring at her while standing next to an Oldsmobile.

"Clara!" Jimmy's voice called out.

Fuck it all, Clara thought. Let everyone else know how this feels.

"Charlie, remember when you said you owned me a favor?"

"Sure," Charlie replied.

She swallowed hard and then found her voice. "Kiss me."

He leered at her for a moment and then moved fast to throw her back against the cement column holding up the awning outside the theater. Her head smashed into the cement, and for a moment, she welcomed the pain. Charlie kissed her like their mouths were at war, and at one point, he sucked so hard on her tongue she thought it was going to rip out of her mouth.

She was distantly aware of voices, of the sound of running, and she knew Jimmy and Richard were there. Charlie mercifully pulled back.

Clara turned away. "Get me out of here," she whispered.

Charlie looked at her, and then he looked at Darmody's angry face and Harrow's horrified face. With fucking pleasure, he thought.

"Charlie," Meyer said with a warning in his voice. Clara Thompson and her fake brother Jimmy Darmody shared one trait in common, Meyer thought. They made every damn situation they were in a thousand times more complicated than it needed it to be.

"I'm going to help a lady out," Charlie replied, walking Clara around to the Oldsmobile's passenger side.

Clara covered her face with her hands, but her shoulders were shaking so severely that everyone could see she was sobbing.

"Well," Charlie said, turning to face Darmody and Harrow, "You two have certainly screwed absolutely fucking everything up. I'm going to take her home, and then meet everyone at Babette's.

Richard stared because, as Luciano spoke, all he could see was Clara's lipstick smeared on the corner of the man's mouth.