Read Online Dollface: A Novel of the Roaring Twenties by Renée Rosen - Free Book Online Page A

it?”
    I looked over and couldn’t help smiling. I recognized the lock of hair hanging down first and then the smile. It was Tony Liolli. He looked good, even better than I’d remembered. The tip of his collar was flipped up but somehow he made imperfection look fashionable.
    “I’m sorry. Jeez—what is it? Valerie? Veronica?”
    I folded my arms. “Try Vera.”
    “That’s right. Vera.” He nodded. “How could I forget?”
    “I don’t know, how could you?”
    “Say, let me make it up to you. We’ll go have a drink. I know a place around the corner.”
    “No, thanks.” Lonely as I was, it bothered me that he didn’t remember my name.
    “No?” He sounded surprised, as if he’d never heard that from a woman before.
    A car door slammed. It sounded like a gun going off and I turned so quickly I dropped my pocketbook.
    Tony picked it up off the sidewalk. “Well, swell seeing you again, Vera.”
    When I reached for my pocketbook, his fingers brushed against mine and out of nowhere, a charge shot through my body. I glanced up and locked eyes with him. All of me went flush. And he knew it, too.
    “You sure you won’t have that drink with me?”
    The next thing I knew, I was on the south side of town, at Wabash and Twenty-sixth. Tony took me to a place called the Four Deuces. It was dark and smoky inside, and the clientele seemed to fit the decor. A man with thick, wiry eyebrows and a stern expression etched on his face was talking to a man wearing a black patch over his right eye. A couple other equally menacing-looking men were sitting at the bar, huddled over teacups of whiskey, chomping on cigars. Other than a few floozies off to the side, I was the only woman in there. I was about to tell Tony I wanted to leave when the men at the bar looked up and said hello, slapping him on the back, asking where he’d been.
    “So,” I said in a whisper, “do you know where all the secret passageways are in this place, too?”
    “Let’s hope we don’t have to find out.”
    He grabbed my hand and we went up to the second floor. I looked around at people hitting the slot machines while others leaned over the tables playing blackjack and roulette. It felt like a different establishment upstairs. A mix of men and women were laughing, singing along with the music, toasting one another with their cocktails. Halfway through my first drink I began to relax.
    Tony’s game was craps, and when he took to the table he drew a crowd. I didn’t understand craps, but I blew on his dice and watched the bets go down and the stack of chips in front of Tony climb higher.
    “See,” he said, scooping up a handful of winnings, “you’re my lady luck.”
    “So I shouldn’t remind you that you lost because of me the first time we met?”
    “Well, you’re redeeming yourself now.”
    When he was up forty dollars, we went back downstairs and I was thankful he led me away from the ominous crowd at the bar. We sat in the back at a quiet corner banquette upholstered in red velvet and studded with gold rivets. Tony was talking about some Russian leader who’d recently died when I noticed one of the men at the bar getting up. I thought he was coming over to our table. I braced myself, feeling my body go stiff, but he was only going to the men’s room.
    “So did I tell you I just saw Houdini?”
    “Huh? What?” I gazed over at Tony.
    “Houdini. I saw him.”
    “Really?”
    “Watch this.” Tony flashed his hands before my eyes and produced a cigarette from behind his ear.
    “Hey, how’d you do that?”
    “It’s magic. I’m no Houdini, but I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve.”
    We drank scotch that night and sip by sip inched closer together. He had a way of looking at me—or I’m sure at any girl—that reeled me right in. I had forgotten all about the men at the bar. I had almost forgotten about Shep, too.
    Tony was smart. As a young boy, he’d gone to private schools, and though he had been accepted to the University