The Paragon Hotel Read online

  A knock interrupts us. Startling, I grip my half-empty glass, ready to test it against the assailant’s temple. But a young woman’s voice says, “Blossom, I’ve been checking here every half hour, I need you to—oh.”

  I evaluate the newcomer. She’s short, pleasingly plump enough to be ten years out of style, a garden of youthful bloom. Though she’s dark, where Blossom’s skin reflects ocean glints and cobalt dusk, hers has a red-brick undertone. Her long hair undulates, glossy and black as piano keys, and her shockingly full lips part company in dismay. A sheet of lined paper suffers between her fingers, crumpling.

  “Blossom, what in God’s name are you doing?” she exclaims.

  “Miss James, may I introduce to you Miss Kiona.” Blossom sweeps to her feet. “Refreshment, Jenny? Whatever’s the matter? You look sixteen shades of furious and it’s just the tiniest bit unsettling at . . .” She glances at a pretty mother-of-pearl desk clock. “Three twenty-seven a.m.”

  Medea yowls her agreement, glaring.

  “How could you ask such a thing?” Jenny Kiona’s cheeks are aglow. “We have to plan, we have to fight, we can’t just take this like—like animals, they already think we’re animals, and I wait for you all night long to show you what I’ve come up with and now I find you with this invader?”

  “Alice is fine,” I suggest humbly.

  Blossom barks a laugh. “There, you see? Come along now and be friends.”

  “Jenny, was it?” I extend my hand.

  She doesn’t take it. “Yes, Jenny. Or you can call me that, anyway. Ka’ktsama seems to elude people. Listen, Blossom, send her away at once. We need to—”

  “Politics before breakfast or after supper is never wisdom, honey.”

  “This isn’t politics! It’s our lives! You have to take this seriously.”

  Blossom pours another scotch, her face a stark mask. “I am taking it very fucking seriously, and you are taking a drink.”

  Steam billows from Jenny’s ears. “You’d truly prefer to booze and socialize with . . . with her than strategize with me?”

  “Strategies require mascara, and as you can see, we’re past that landmark for the night.”

  “You always do this.” Jenny vibrates dangerously. “Trust people. Just . . . without any thought whatsoever. It worked out all right with Evelina Vaughan, but this time? We don’t know her, what her views are, whether she’s at all respectable herself. We have to present a civilized image right now, it’s essential. And here comes a white woman with a mysterious bullet wound and you’re chattering away with her over backwoods moonshine—”

  “Hardly that, honey,” Blossom demurs.

  “She could be an arsonist for all you know!”

  “Put me down for medium rare, in that case, I can’t abide overdone meat.”

  Jenny blinks. “You’re sick.”

  “Yes, that’s very likely.” Shrugging at Jenny’s glass, Blossom downs the grog herself like a brine-crusted privateer. The fissures around her tender mouth aren’t just from laughter, and within all the straight contours, gentle purple shadows semicircle her eyes.

  “This is dangerous,” Jenny pleads. “It’s not the same as the Weekly Betterment classes, you know, in broad daylight so all can see it’s for a good cause. She isn’t like us!”

  “Of course she isn’t like us, look at her,” Blossom snaps, making a balletic orbit with her empty hand. “That doesn’t mean she’s like them. Think for a moment, if you can. A frog isn’t like a flamingo. That doesn’t make it a hippopotamus.”

  “I do think.” Jenny’s full lips quiver like a fly caught in a web. “I . . . just don’t always think what you do. But whenever we argue, you make me feel like an idiot.”

  “Honey, please don’t—”

  The door slams. Don Carlos must have soured in Blossom’s estimation, because she leans to disengage the needle.

  “Jenny is the loveliest girl, monstrously bright, hot as tropics for reform, but she thinks she can change the world,” my hostess exhaustedly volunteers. “She’s mistaken. She also thinks you’re nothing like us. Well, she’s right about that, but I’m nothing like her, and here we find ourselves.”

  Downing the rest of my nightcap, I consider my course. The past twelve years of my life were devoted to service; defending someone again is like having air.

  Break the champagne over the mermaid’s bosom.

  “This is about the trouble Davy mentioned earlier. Isn’t it?” I wobble toward the door and Blossom springs up with a small alarmed exclamation. “I want to help. You must know that I’ve no intention of siphoning hospitality until you’re all dry, and I have proof in my room.”

  The trek back along the Sahara hallway is exhausting sans camel. When we switch on the lights, I fold myself into my bedclothes and point at the valise sitting next to my carpetbag and jut my chin suggestively.

  When Blossom opens the luggage, she takes a quick breath and flattens her fingers over her prominent collarbone.

  “I know,” I commiserate. “The first time I saw fifty thousand dollars in cash, it took me the same way.”

  ◆ Six ◆

  THEN

  Mafia can objectively be defined as the mysterious sense of fear which a man notorious for his crimes or brutal use of force arouses in the weak, the meek, and the cowardly.

  —THE PREFECT OF GIRGENTI TO THE MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR, June 30, 1874

  Malavita may have planted the seed of my criminal career, but I’d a plethora of sunny days and watering cans to speed its growth. And all this steady nurturing of my corruption burst into full flower at last on the night I met Mr. Salvatici.

  I own a taste for devotion the way some own a taste for narcotics. Young Alice didn’t fling herself at every pedestrian in upper Manhattan swearing fealty—but some girls dream of wedding dresses and fashion veils from day-old newspaper.

  I dreamed of standing in front of a bullet for a friend.

  After our immersion in malavita, I stopped playing pranks on my mother’s johns. They could be Family—they could kill us. Stopped walking with my head up, eyes on the second stories of the crumbling brick tenements, the fourth, the rooftop, sky-high. Who knew what lurked there—it might stare back.

  Stopped talking. Started listening.

  “You’re vanishing, Nobody,” Mum said to my twelve-year-old self, two years after Nicolo’s beating and the massacre of Mr. Mangiapane’s windows. We had fought many battles in the interim. I was sick of the crunch of fists landing. “That nickname were meant fer a joke—I can barely see you anymore.”

  “Nun essiri duci sinno ti mancianu, nun essiri amarusinno ti futtinu,”* I replied.

  So there I was: slipping into the shadowlands while still burning to be of use to someone. And three years later, I was given one fiery hell of an opportunity.

  On Friday, October 27 of 1911, when I was fifteen, the rain drenched our neighborhood with zesty vim. The windows of the Step Right Inn wept at the advent of winter, and along 107th Street expired leaves and potato peelings bobbed downriver like so many shrieking shipwreck victims.

  Pressing one hand to my lower back, I surveyed the dining room, wielding a beer-soiled dishrag.

  There wasn’t much doing. Everyone was bobbing for apples or whittling at pumpkins in anticipation of All Hallows’ Eve. A trio of scarlet-fingered wet-washwomen nursed pints. Two Sicilians shared a bottle of Chianti. One was unknown—the other was Dario Palma’s uncle, Tommaso Palma, and therefore an object of loathing. And a regular customer with a hat pulled low over his temples read The New York Times while he awaited my mother. Who was already occupied in every sense of the word.

  “Poor Nobody, scrubbing day and night,” Mr. Mangiapane slurred from behind the bar. “What a Cinderella.”

  I polished the empty table before me.

  “Never fear, mia dolce. Your drudgery ca
n’t last long.”

  Here comes your daily prognostication.

  “You’ll be keeping somebody warm soon.” He appraised me with revolting enthusiasm. “Plenty of somebodies.”

  This brings us to another reason I’d been right merrily courting invisibility: I needed a profession and was unfit for any save human slot machine. Whether by marriage or rental hardly mattered to me. Without the safety afforded by obvious disease, or better yet a Siamese twin, I was one living parent away from a stranger paying me to dip his wick in my wax.

  A tinny bell chimed. “Go on, to the kitchen with you! It’ll keep that ass firm while I hold my dick waiting for you to accept amor fati.”* Mr. Mangiapane scratched at his belly swell.

  To this day, I believe Mr. Mangiapane ought to have been orphaned before conception. I edged silent as a cat’s tail through the swinging door, wondering how best to curse him with the evil eye, since Halloween was such a ripe occasion. The familiar blast of cornmeal and animal fat aromas hailed me.

  “Ah, here she is! I carciofini fritti sono pronti.”

  Crispy Ezio, black locks writhing like eels under his hairnet, nodded at the fried baby artichokes on the prep counter. Our esteemed chef presided over a deep copper skillet of sizzling lamb sweetbreads. I once asked Ezio whether any food was actually better off sans hot lard bath. He asked me whether any mortals were better off unbaptized in the blood of Christ.

  Popping a morsel in my mouth, I lingered.

  “Didn’t you eat yet, passerotta?* Here, I have for you fried chickpeas.”

  Crispy Ezio elbowed the snack in my direction. He was the only one in the hotel who hadn’t noticed the small breasts spurting from my lean frame. I adored him for it. Even Mum pinched them teasingly.

  “Mr. Mangiapane is itching to try me out as a puttana,” I whispered. “All he needs is a starting pistol.”

  Ezio snorted. “Impossibile.”

  “It’s pretty likely, actually. How else am I meant to live?”

  My companion shook his head, clucking. “You see before you, Nobody, one lucky bastardo. When I landed here, I had nothing. To live, as you say—this occupied all of my many brains. For survival a man is supposed to sacrifice something, give up un poco di spirit. For me, Mr. Mangiapane needed a chef. And I fry things. Holy mothershit! What a match! So fortunate. Perhaps the same, for tua madre. Making men happy? A match. For you? Not a match. What do you want to do?”

  “I’ve never wanted to do anything. Not the way you fry things, anyhow.”

  “Who do you want to be, then?”

  “I want to be the Apostle Peter except that I wouldn’t deny Christ, I’d rescue Him and we’d run Pilate’s soldiers through with our spears.” My heart drummed. I’d never told this to anyone before. “I want to be a knight serving a noble king, like King Arthur. I want to be Doc Holliday and save Wyatt Earp’s life during a saloon standoff. That sort.”

  Through the door, Mr. Mangiapane bellowed something crude. I was taking too long.

  “Then you must do this very much strange thing.” Crispy Ezio shrugged fondly. “You must succeed. It is required.”

  “Why?”

  “You are American. Half-breed, born in New York! It is your birthright, passerotta. Go—I have more coming. Vai, vai!”

  I went. My mother’s regular had removed his hat, revealing a face I always found pleasant save a mouth like an afterthought. Maybe it occurred to the doctor that the newborn would need to eat and simply slit a line. Who knew? But apart from the paper-thin lips, the Times reader was just a quiet Italian with philosophical blue eyes. I delivered him one of the carciofini bowls, keeping to his periphery as ever. Then I ghosted over to the Sicilians with fried tokens of the Step Right Inn’s esteem.

  The stranger was tall, with a loose-jowled hound’s face. Dario’s uncle Tommaso was older, with grey hair combed forward over his bald egg. Both wore dark, expensive suits. Both spoke their native dialect, which meant my mind glossed over words that weren’t Italian—Greek, Hebrew, all the bits thrown into the stew called Sicilian.

  But I grew up here. I could understand them perfectly.

  “It’s too soon after the last time,” the hulking fellow muttered.

  Dario’s kin drew a finger along the rim of his glass. “Old Benenati has been operating on credit, as far as the Boss of Bosses is concerned. So he won’t pay with money? Time settles all debts.”

  The two names nearly froze me. But freezing is noticeable, so I pretended to scratch barmaid notes, ears straining outward like Victrola horns. Old Benenati, of course, meant Nicolo’s father. But Boss of Bosses? We considered that position Satan’s local deputy.

  Known to every Italian on Manhattan Island only as the Clutch Hand.

  “A lot of work for us, to off Old Benenati over hen feed,” the stranger complained.

  Uncle Tommaso smiled. “It could be a fortune. It could be a penny. His life is worth less than a penny, you see. You must understand that, even if you’re new to this country.”

  The other ducked, his apologetic reply too colloquial to catch.

  “No, I don’t think you do. This is about order. Heaven and earth and hell below.”

  Swallowing, I affected to dust the piano.

  “There’s a saying about us back home,” Tommaso Palma continued in a gentle, sickening tone. “You probably know it. At the head of everything is God, Lord of Heaven. After him comes Prince Torlonia, lord of the earth. Then come Prince Torlonia’s armed guards. Then come Prince Torlonia’s armed guards’ dogs. Then nothing at all. Then nothing at all. Then nothing at all. Then come the peasants. And that’s all.”

  The hangdog fellow grimaced.

  “In Italy, we are the peasants. Not so in America. We’ve redrawn the map, rearranged the system. Rehung the stars. Who is the Boss of Bosses in this parable I’ve just told you?”

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said—”

  “Anything, very true, but who is he?”

  “The Clutch Hand is like Prince Torlonia.” Hand shaking, the stranger drained his wine.

  “And I am an armed guard of Prince Torlonia. You are a dog, a dog I’ll put down if I need to. Benenati is a peasant who isn’t paying his tribute, and he will burn for it. The letter was very clear.”

  “How was it signed?”

  “‘All of Corleone.’”

  The big man shivered and then went still.

  “We must be on our way.” Uncle Tommaso stood. “The sun has set enough, and the weather is clear.”

  They dropped coins and turned to retrieve their coats. Exited with their collars tugged high against the wind, the older carrying a black leather bag.

  My feet as they made measured progress toward the kitchen burned to run. I resisted. When I’d cleared the swinging door, I touched the back of Ezio’s shirt.

  “I have to go out. Can you serve the rest of the food?”

  “Ovviamente, not a worry.” Ezio’s attention darted my way, snagged there. “Good Lord. What’s happened now?”

  “No time.” My fingers fumbled over my apron tie.

  “Did cockshitting Mangiapane insult you again?”

  “He’s only a pig, Ezio. It’s cagnolazzi* trouble this time.”

  Ezio produced a string of colorful Italian swear words. “Put that back on. You are not mixing yourself up with Family!”

  Tossing the apron on a rack holding dried tomatoes and pickled peppers, I stood on tiptoe to peck Ezio on the cheek. “Pray to St. Jude for me.”

  “Nobody—”

  “I have to,” I said.

  The kitchen door snicked shut. A blade of wind scraped my throat. I shoved my hands in the pockets of my thin cotton dress, not wanting to feel them shake. Uncle Tommaso had said burn for it. Arson was a common punishment, from the Jewish firebugs preying on Jewish peasants to Italian incendiaries
preying on Italian ones. Half a block from Nicolo’s house, the electric streetlamps fizzed to life, glowing firefly yellow. A skittish horse whinnied. An omen or just a poorly broken mare? Teeth tightly locked, I wondered what the contents of the Family man’s bag was. Alcohol? Kerosene?

  Saving the cigar shop might be impossible, but the Benenatis lived above it.

  I can at least get them out. They can run.

  Vanish.

  I turned onto 106th Street, its stoops littered with festive straw bales and sagging gourds. Nicolo sat on his chipped front steps smoking cigarettes with his friend Nazario, a curly-headed rascal with soulful eyes that had been hardening lately. Cooling like a spill of wax.

  At the time, though, Nicolo’s were still warm as summer whenever he spied me.

  “What you want to woo her with is cannoli, not roses.” Nicolo grinned rakishly. “Antonia is fat in all the right places. She’ll make a dozen sons and get so huge you’ll have to buy a metal bed frame.”

  “Non è un problema. I know steelworkers. God, she makes me crazy,” Nazario admitted sheepishly.

  “Maybe you’re in luck and she loves tiny dicks. Oh, shit. Shut it, there’s a lady present.” Nicolo spread his arms to me in greeting. “Buonasera!”

  I caught him by the wrist. “Come inside.”

  “Good Lord, Alicia, what the hell is—”

  Dragging him up the front stairs didn’t take much effort, since Nicolo would have followed me anywhere. Nazario waved a puzzled goodbye as I shut the front door.

  “Jesus, topolina, you’re trembling.” Nicolo extricated himself, but only to hold my hands. “Whose face do I need to mash this time?”

  “I overheard Dario’s uncle Tommaso saying they mean to torch your cigar shop.”

  “What?” he exclaimed. “Is this about those thugs from the new tobacconist’s three blocks south?”

  “No! This isn’t some petty cigar store rivalry, they said your dad hasn’t paid his protection money. This is the Boss of Bosses. They said the order was signed ‘All of Corleone.’”