Blood & Whiskey Read online

  Blood & Whiskey

  A Scalisi Family Novel

  Meredith Allison

  Persnickety Publishing

  Contents

  Untitled

  Part I

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Blood & Whiskey: A Scalisi Family Novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination, or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 Meredith Allison

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval systems, without express written permission from the author/publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Design: Les of GermanCreative

  Created with Vellum

  For Avery, the Nick to my Mia.

  Part I

  CHAPTER ONE

  Deft fingers rolled a jazzy minor scale on a grand piano, the melody distantly reaching up to the second floor of Stems Supper Club in the Levee District of Chicago.

  Mia Angelia Scalisi, a New York Sour in one hand and lipstick in the other, cocked an ear to the tune. It was the start of the lengthy introduction to her first number, “Everybody Loves My Baby,” and she was late—which meant she was right on time, though her brother Nick might disagree. He’d given her strict orders to turn the place upside down tonight, and he’d probably be sore at her if he found out she was still preening in front of the mirror in her dressing room and drinking cocktails instead of getting her ass onstage.

  Though tonight was meant to be a birthday party for Nick’s boss, Sal Bellomo, who also owned the supper club, it was really about her brother. He was riding high after securing quite the birthday gift for Sal, in the form of a two-million-dollar investment from Hyman Goldberg, a Manhattan businessman of questionable scruples but untold wealth. The investment would allow them to finance a major liquor distribution operation in not only Chicago and New York, but Omaha, Philadelphia, Atlantic City, and Canada, with plenty of opportunity for expansion.

  Nick and Sal, and everyone else involved in the deal, would be very rich men inside of six to nine months. The money would be rolling in fast, and in huge quantities, according to her brother. And Nick’s successes meant more power and influence for him, which meant better things for Mia.

  Like moving pictures. And maybe even sooner than she’d hoped.

  Mia cast one more glance at herself in the mirror and tossed back the rest of her drink. Even Lillian Gish had to start somewhere. One day, Mia would tell the story of how an orphan girl of immigrant parents had grown up on the rough streets of New York City’s Lower East Side, became a child vaudeville performer, then moved to Chicago, where she’d become a cabaret princess at Sal Bellomo’s Stems Supper Club, before one day transforming into a silver-screen starlet.

  That’d make for a pretty good feature in someone’s gossip rag, she reasoned. And, hell, it was even true. For color, she might pepper in the fact that her brother was a gangster and a veteran of the Great War, and that she had done six months in a miserable dress factory while he was in France killing Jerries to make ends meet.

  Nah. He’d kill me if I told anybody he’s a gangster.

  The clarinet player started his solo. It was really, really time to go now.

  She hurried out of her dressing room and galloped down the last few stairs from the second floor, then skirted past the kitchen where workers prepared overpriced and underwhelming meals for the supper club’s patrons. The air in the short hallway between the kitchen and the dining room was cold, as the workers went in and out to dump trash and take smoke breaks. The October weather was chilly and damp and lingered when allowed inside, but the body heat generated from two hundred and fifty whoopee-seekers gobbled it up fast like greedy children in a penny candy store.

  Mia stepped through a door that opened to the back of the dining room. Tables filled the outer edges of the room and in the mezzanine, where people could eat their fill and drink in a relaxed atmosphere. Against the far wall, opposite of where she’d entered, the troupe of long-legged Stems dancers posed on stage in their short, bright-white dresses and shining silver heels. A large crowd filled the dance floor just in front of it. Sticking to a shadowy corner, Mia, in her bright red dress with its elaborate, sparkling beadwork and the complementary gauche white headband, went unnoticed. For now.

  The band, outfitted in identical tuxedoes, was arranged on a balcony above the stage. There was plenty of room for the main attraction—Mia, the Saturday Night Special, as she was widely known in Chicago. The painted, framed poster outside Stems announced her just that way. It had been her idea, she’d insisted on it, and Nick had dug into his pocket to make it happen. Every time she walked into Stems, she paused for a moment at the door, drinking in the sight of herself in an alluring red dress, flashing her trademark smile. It wasn’t quite her name in lights, but it was a damn good start.

  As the long piano and clarinet introduction of “Everybody Loves My Baby” lazily neared its end, Mia stepped out of the shadows and began strolling between the tables toward the crowd on the dance floor. An unsuspecting young man in a rumpled suit with his fedora hanging off the crown of his head stood to her right. Mia reached out to pluck the short glass of whiskey from his hand. He turned, at first indignant, then, catching sight of Mia tipping back his glass with a wink, he flashed a dopey, inviting smile.

  She pushed the empty glass back in his hand without another glance. The introduction ended, and a brief beat of silence ensued before the bright, brassy horns burst open the song, just beneath the sound of her voice as she began to sing.

  Her early days in vaudeville had taught her to command her voice and control it while projecting it at the top of her lungs. It was a challenge sometimes, on nights like tonight when it was a packed house, to make her voice rise above the din and the music, but her audience usually quieted down enough to hear the song.

  As she’d hoped, every set of eyes in the room swiveled toward her, and faces lit up in pleasure. The Saturday Night Special had arrived in time for the party, after all. Mia smiled, and the crowd applauded and cheered and parted as she strutted toward the stage, hands on her hips. On stage, the dancers kicked up to the ceiling.

  A group of fellows clustered off to one side caught her eye. Mia headed straight for them. In the space of a breath between lyrics, she grabbed one by his necktie and unceremoniously yanked him down until he was nose-to-nose with her. Vincenzo Fiore, one of the newer members of Nick’s outfit, recruited only a year ago. Nick had taken especial glee in informing Mia earlier that afternoon at rehearsals that Vinnie had questioned why Nick had not retained more well-known entertainment for Sal’s birthday party.

  “Asked if because you’re my sister, I gotta make you the pity gig,” Nick had finished, grinning impishly at her subsequent rage.

  Vinnie choked and coughed as she yanked on his tie again.

  “Pity gig?” she hissed.

  “I, uh—”

  She shoved him back and resumed singing without missing a beat, sashaying her way through the small group, playfully straightened bowties and pinching cheeks, taking stock of her brother’s guests.

  There was the straight-faced and serious Moritz Schapiro, a close friend of her brother’s from
Manhattan who’d accompanied Nick on his trip back from New York. The young Jewish man was an associate of Mr. Goldberg’s and had been instrumental in arranging the meeting between him and Nick.

  Also in attendance from New York was Charlie Lazzari, Nick’s best friend and former brother-in-arms. Though the grief Nick would give her for flirting with Charlie would be tiresome and more than likely result in a row between them, Mia paused in front of Charlie anyway, lightly skimming his lapel with her fingertips before tossing a wink over her shoulder.

  Charlie and Moritz represented Nick’s interests in the East and were his closest partners in the operation, so tonight was as much their celebration as Nick’s or Sal’s, too.

  Finally, she made her way onto the stage and fell seamlessly into step with her dancers. Her Charleston was snappy and high, her shimmy fast and made the beadwork on her red dress glitter madly in the lights. The crowd went wild for her, and she pasted on her brightest, most dazzling smile as the house lights hit her right in the eyes.

  On the other side of the room, her brother leaned against the bar, grinning and shaking his head. She knew what that familiar, mocking grin meant—he was proud of her.

  After all, he had told her to turn the place upside down tonight.

  Her skills at working a room and a stage had been honed from a young age. After she and Nick had been orphaned as children and left to fend for themselves, Mia entered vaudeville by chance, first as a dressing room assistant to the female stars, and then as a performer herself, at the ripe old age of eleven. That same year, The Birth of a Nation made its film debut and launched a young woman into superstardom. Mia’s dream took root and blossomed—she would be the Italian Lillian Gish, no matter how many stages she had to stand on and how many utterly filthy jokes she had to recite and pretend not to understand for the amusement of older men.

  Years later, sometimes while on the Stems stage in Chicago, Mia looked out and saw the same nasty older men, and she was eleven years old again.

  “Where you at, girl?” Annette Elliot hissed as she passed behind Mia on the stage with the other dancers.

  With a jolt, Mia realized she’d missed a step but recovered gracefully, as though she’d meant to do it, and fell back in with the dancers as the jaunty music swelled behind her and swallowed her voice. Annette was the best dancer in the group and responsible for the choreography, so her sharp eyes naturally caught Mia’s mistake even if no one else had.

  The Capone brothers, now just Al and Ralph after Frank’s shooting death that spring, sat down at a front row table at the edge of the dance floor. Both men acknowledged her, Al with a point of his finger and Ralph with a wave. Mia tried not to show her surprise on her face. It was no secret among them that the Capones and their boss, Johnny Torrio, were no great friends of Sal’s. Johnny and Sal had had a falling out back in their Five Points days in New York, and had never recovered from it. Were it not for Nick, they might be openly hostile with one another, but because of her brother’s friendship with the Outfit and his allegiance to Sal, they remained rigidly cordial.

  Sal had invited the Outfit earlier in the week, and Johnny had immediately sent his regrets. Mia had assumed that extended to the Capones as well, but here they were, although now they were hardly paying her any attention as they chatted and looked warily around the room.

  The band launched into “Who’s Sorry Now?” as movement at the door caught Mia’s eye. Strolling in with an arrogant smirk was none other than Dean O’Banion himself.

  What the hell’s he doing here?

  For Dean and the Capones to be under the same roof was an explosion waiting to happen—perhaps literally. Either Dean, a walking dead man after setting Johnny up to be arrested in a raid at the Sieben Brewery that spring, was monumentally stupid, or he had protection.

  Mia cut her eyes toward the Capones; both brothers’ gazes were locked on him. Nick appeared at Al’s side so suddenly Mia almost missed a lyric. He bent down to speak into Al’s ear, gesturing wildly, until Al nodded stiffly and waved a hand. A silent acquiescence that he would not make a move on his enemy here, now.

  Who the hell invited Deanie?

  It certainly hadn’t been Nick. Though he didn’t have an outright problem with the Irishman, his friendship with the Outfit was well known.

  Mia spun on the ball of her foot in time to the music. As she came out of the turn, she spotted Sal sauntering over to O’Banion and the few men he’d brought, shaking his hand like they were the best of friends.

  Oh. That’s who invited him.

  There was no time to wonder about that now, however. Next on her set list was “My Man,” followed by “I’m Nobody’s Baby.” By the time the last number ended, the crowd had filled out to near capacity, and several more noteworthy—and surprising—guests had arrived. Among them was Kiddo Grainger, part of the Wolfy Harold outfit in New York. Wolfy, the most notorious black gangster in the city, was heavily into the narcotics trade and looking to expand. Kiddo was a top man in his outfit, and had been in Chicago for several months now on his boss’s orders to peddle heroin—and he’d also taken up with Annette, who dished about his business aspirations constantly.

  It was time for a break and for the band and dancers to refresh themselves. As they left the stage, Mia snagged Annette’s elbow. “Your boyfriend’s here. Just saw him.”

  “He—he’s here?” Annette’s warm brown eyes widened and fixed on her. But she didn’t seem excited. Rather, she seemed nervous. Almost fearful.

  Mia drew her head back, studying her. “Thought you’d be thrilled.”

  A mask of smooth indifference dropped over Annette’s face. “Course I am,” she said, her Mississippi twang blurring pleasantly on Mia’s ears. “He just ain’t tell me he was invited.”

  Something about that didn’t seem right. “Why wouldn’t he mention it?” Mia asked.

  “I’m sure he did and I just missed it,” Annette said quietly, but there was something dark and off in her voice. She shook herself slightly and flashed a bright smile. “Well, ain’t that a gas. My man come to see me. You best go powder your nose, now.” She ducked into the dancers’ dressing room.

  Perhaps it was stress from the evening that had her out of sorts. Annette was under constant pressure from Sal to deliver excellent routines, and she was also the resident seamstress. As all the girls were, she was underpaid, though much of that had to do with her brown skin as not just Sal’s cheapskate tendencies. He’d made her undergo the humiliating “paper-bag test” to ensure she’d fit in with the other dancers, and required her to powder her skin on top of that. Annette always treated him with respect and deference, but it was no secret she detested the man. She wasn’t the only one.

  Before Mia could give it another thought, Nick and Sal approached her. “Well, well,” Sal said in a beery voice. “Saturday Night showed up for my birthday!”

  Mia rolled her eyes and accepted his pinching fingers on her cheek. “You know I’m here every night, Sally.”

  “Your best show yet, kid.” He cuffed her chin.

  “Don’t go blowing up my sister’s head any more than it is, Sal,” Nick chimed in, slinging an arm around Mia’s shoulders. “Don’t need it getting any bigger. She’s already such a peach.”

  Mia elbowed him hard in the ribs. “Go chase yourself.”

  “Now, children,” Sal said, waggling a finger mock-warningly.

  He was in a buoyant mood this evening, his normally dour disposition lightening to a playfulness Mia rarely saw. It had little to do with his birthday, she knew. Only one thing could please him so much—money. Nick’s new deal must really have buttered his bread, but no one should be surprised. Nick was money-hungry and business-savvy, the perfect combination to getting rich, and he’d proven his mettle with the deal. He already had a few key warehouses, trucks, and an impressive clientele list that included club owners, rich socialites, and most importantly, through them, a path to the politicians.

  The product itself was o
f surpassing quality compared to the bathtub gin and rotgut whiskey that flowed through the city now; 1925 was only a couple months away, and with the recent election, Prohibition showed absolutely no signs of slowing down anytime soon, if ever. Desperate for cheap liquor, scofflaws settled for anything as long as it could get them drunk, and quick. As a result, bootleggers had made a fortune by fermenting vegetables for alcohol and adding it to existing liquor diluted down to almost nothing with water, and topping it all off with commercial liquor. It was vile, undrinkable swill—until there was no other option, including giving up drinking altogether.

  Nick’s product, manufactured by an old war buddy in Templeton, Iowa, was a pure rye whiskey so exceptionally good he was confident the right people—the rich—would pay whatever price he asked. A certain quantity would be manufactured pure for this clientele and sold at an exorbitant cost, while another batch would be made and cut with water before bottling to lower the cost and make it accessible to regular joes. Nothing extra would be added. Even partially diluted, it was far better stuff than what the average working-class man or college student could get his hands on. At least, it didn’t contain any wood alcohol, and no one Mia knew of had died from drinking it.

  Sal had been lucky to recruit Nick to join his outfit when he had two years earlier, during a visit to Atlantic City, where she and Nick had lived since moving there in 1920. He’d been brought into the fold to be an enforcer for Sal, but he was cunning and fearless, two prized qualities that had catapulted him to the position of caporegime despite his young age. Additionally, he was somewhat short, strong but not bulky. Nothing about him revealed his explosive temper and penchant for violence, but he preferred—enjoyed—being underestimated.