Chapter 6 - A Mother’s Debt
Before they could reach the grand foyer, the sharp tap of an ebony cane on marble echoed from the gallery above.
Rosalyn Sartori stood at the head of the stairs, flanked by two elderly women who looked like retired nuns and possessed the eyes of prison guards. Rosalyn was dressed not for an afternoon in a parlor, but for church—or a funeral. A black fox-fur collar encircled her neck, and her hands were encased in pristine kidskin gloves.
“August,” the old woman said, her voice cutting through the damp chill of the entrance hall like a razor through silk.
August stopped at the base of the stairs, his hand resting on the banister. “Go back by the fire, Mother. The wind off the lake is rising.”
“Do not treat me like an invalid, boy,” Rosalyn said as she descended, each step slow, deliberate, and immovable. “I carried you when your father had three warrants out for his arrest and the federals were living in the van across the street. You are not going to Iron Street alone with a pack of heavy-handed dock brawlers.”
“Mother,” August said, a rare note of warning creeping into his voice. “This is not a matter for the family board.”
“It is a matter of my dignity,” she said, stopping on the third step from the bottom so her eyes were level with his. “Thomas Vance kissed my cheek at the Saint Anthony's breakfast last Easter. He told me the Sartori name would always be protected in the Twelfth Ward. Then he let half a ton of German plate glass fall toward my head because he wanted to shave four points off an insurance bond.”
She turned her fierce, hawkish gaze to Willa.
“You,” Rosalyn said.
“Mrs. Sartori,” Willa said cautiously.
“My son is very clever,” the old woman said, her gloved hand coming to rest on Willa’s uninjured shoulder. “He has seventy lawyers who know how to make money disappear in the Caribbean, and he has forty men who know how to make bodies disappear in the limestone quarries near Joliet. But he does not understand what people like you and me understand.”
“And what is that?” Willa asked.
“He does not understand shame,” Rosalyn said, her eyes flashing with pure Sicilian malice. “Men like Alderman Vance do not care if you shoot them in an alley. They expect that. It is the cost of their trade. But if you take away their silk ties in front of the Cardinal and the president of the Board of Trade, they turn into weeping children.”
She reached into her small beaded evening bag and withdrew an embossed ivory envelope. It was heavy, sealed with scarlet wax, and carried the crest of the Archdiocese of Chicago.
“Tonight is the Archbishop’s annual winter dinner at the Drake Hotel,” Rosalyn said, placing the envelope into Willa’s hand. “Thomas Vance will be at table four. The governor will be at table one. Gordon Pike will be standing by the coat rack, hoping nobody asks him why his banquet hall looks like the crater of an artillery shell.”
August looked at the invitation, then at his mother. “The Drake has private security from the First National Bank. They don't let anyone past the mezzanine without an identification badge verified by the bishop’s office.”
“They let me pass,” Rosalyn said simply. “Because I bought the roof on the cathedral three years before you were born, August. And tonight, I am not attending with you. I am attending with my personal guest: the brave young woman from Bridgeport who dragged me out from under Thomas Vance’s falling iron.”
Willa looked down at the gold lettering on the heavy paper. The contrast between this world of gold leaf, velvet, and cardinal red, and the moldy walk-up apartment where Toby sat shivering over his sketches, was vast enough to swallow an entire city.
“They will have police at every entrance,” Willa said. “Desmond said there’s a warrant for anyone carrying the footage.”
“Let them arrest the woman who saved Rosalyn Sartori’s life while she is walking into the Gold Coast ballroom on my arm,” the old woman said, a cruel, beautiful smile touching her withered lips. “Let the television cameras see Thomas Vance’s private deputies put handcuffs on a girl with seven fresh stitches in her arm while the Archbishop is blessing the roast beef.”
August stared at his mother for a long, silent moment. The cold, mechanical calculation behind his dark eyes shifted, giving way to something that looked suspiciously like admiration.
He turned back to Desmond.
“Change the plan,” August ordered. “Ray Howerin takes the salvage truck to Iron Street. He retrieves the anchor cup, intact or in pieces, and delivers it to the service dock of the Drake Hotel by seven-thirty.”
He looked at Willa, his hand reaching out to touch the heavy collar of his overcoat, which she still wore.
May you like
“And you, Miss Doyle,” August whispered, his fingers lightly brushing the wool near her throat, “are going to get measured for a dress that costs more than Alderman Vance’s entire municipal pension.”
***
