Chapter 4
Mr. Black’s darkened figure filled the space before her.
“Did anyone see you leave?” he demanded.
His self-possessed demeanor had vanished. His hand became a manacle around Fern’s elbow.
“Answer me,” he growled. Only a simpleton would have ignored such a harsh command.
“No. I don’t think so, anyway.”
“Why did you follow me?” He kept his grip on her arm, the pressure of his thumb beginning to ache.
“I…I don’t know,” she replied shakily. She was glad she’d chosen the truth rather than a lie. Something told her Mr. Black could easily sniff those out.
“Stupid. Reckless,” he hissed, at last tossing her arm away from him. “Go home. Now.”
His shoes scraped along the sidewalk as he hoofed it away from her. The bottom of his trench coat flapped from the speed. He’d sounded so much like Buchanan. Fern clenched her fists and took off after him.
“Who are you? Why is a bootlegger bothering my father, and why does my brother hate you so much?”
Mr. Black pivoted on his heel. He reached her side and again made to grab her arm. She jumped back to avoid his fingers.
“Listen, princess, I told you to go home. Ask your brother and pop who I am, but I’m not foolin’ around—you better hightail it outta here.”
He took a glance up the avenue in the direction he’d been walking, toward Midway Plaisance Park, then back toward Fern’s house.
“Do you really think either of them will tell me anything?”
“Do you really think I care?” He checked his pocket watch then tucked it back inside his vest pocket. Seeing the time must have pacified his nerves because he relaxed a fraction, his hands coming to rest on his hips.
He stared at her, the lamplight shining off the thin, black satin ribbon wrapped around the base of his hat. “You’re a real pain in the ass, you know that?”
Fern gaped. No one had ever called her that. Oddly enough, the insult didn’t hurt. A smile pulled at the corner of her open mouth, and she shook her head. “If you were one of my mother’s candidates, I’d ask you to come back next week, just to see what she would do.”
Mr. Black again looked up and down the street. There weren’t any cars or people coming from either direction. “I don’t like being insulted, princess.”
“How was that an insult?”
“I’m not low enough to accept an invitation to ogle some girl’s scarred-up face.”
She breathed in sharply; it felt as if her lungs had holes in them. He knew the purpose behind the dinners, even without having been invited. If he did, how many other people knew? How many had gossiped about it?
“Go home,” he said, buttoning his trench coat as he walked away. This time, Fern didn’t follow him.
“Is it really so awful?” she called out. She needed to know, and so far, this man had been brutally honest about everything.
Mr. Black stopped and half-turned. “Is what so awful?”
She closed her arms around her waist. “My face. The scars.”
He hesitated a few seconds before answering, “Yeah. They are.”
His honesty fell through her like rocks plummeting into a fathomless pit. They didn’t hurt. They only made her feel hollow. Grasping.
Mr. Black took a small step toward her. “But you’re not ugly, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Mr. Clifton had said something similar. Not that half of her. Fern’s right side was pretty enough, she supposed. It also counted for nothing.
“Go on.” His chin jutted out as a gesture for her to start home.
Suddenly, the red dress that had filled her with boldness earlier now made her feel a shade tawdry. She was ready to retreat to safety. However, before Fern could take a single step, two men appeared in the next dome of lamplight.
“Shit,” Mr. Black muttered. He was at her side in a heartbeat, his fingers digging into her arm yet again. “Follow my lead, you hear me? Go along with everything I say.”
Fern’s heart slammed against her chest, and her head felt the echo of it, Mr. Black’s next whispered words muffled and brusque: “This isn’t a game.”
He turned toward the two men, his hand loosening its death grip. He didn’t release her entirely, just enough for her forearm to pulse with the rush of returning circulation.
“Cal,” one of the men drawled. A pair of deeply set eyes raked Fern from head to toe. His face was skeletal, his ears prominent. His inspection lingered on her face. “Holy shit. Ain’t she the judge’s daughter?”
“What’s she doing out here, Cal?” the other man asked. This one had a blocky chin and kept his hand deep in his trench coat pocket. His eyes bounced from Fern to Mr. Black. Mr. George Black, not Cal, as they’d called him.
“Don’t worry about her,” Mr. Black replied.
Fern’s mind raced over why these men had called him Cal, and what the second man was holding in his coat pocket. There was a bulge there.
“Why’s that?” the first man inquired. She didn’t understand why they were so edgy about her.
“She’s with us,” Mr. Black answered.
Her arm stiffened under his easy grasp. The two other men swapped skeptical glances. “That so?” the one with the hand in his pocket asked. “She don’t got no beef with it?”
“That’s so.” Mr. Black glanced down at her, his stare heavy and expectant. He’d said to go along with him, so she gave a small nod, but she was alarmed by what the man had said. What didn’t she supposedly have a problem with?
“Jesus, you work fast.” The man took his hand from his pocket and slapped Mr. Black on the shoulder. The bulge in the pocket remained. Fern really didn’t want to know what it was, but a part of her already did.
“Let’s take her to Rodney, then. He’ll want to know,” the other man said. He nodded up the sidewalk. “We parked up near Plaisance.”
They turned and started back the way they’d come.
Her body pulsed with a rush of heat as Mr. Black pulled her along the sidewalk after them.
No. She couldn’t leave South Woodlawn. She couldn’t go anywhere with these men!
They were calling Mr. Black “Cal,” and one of them had a gun in his pocket.
The whispered warning that this was not a game pounded through Fern’s skull.
The other fellows were close ahead, but a string of vehicles passing by obscured her voice as she turned her mouth into Mr. Black’s shoulder.
“Where are you taking me?”
The spiced sandalwood of his cologne, though not as strong as Buchanan’s, invaded her nostrils. He craned his head until his mouth came level with her temple. She felt the heat of his breath on her skin and jerked back.
“Lincoln Park. Play it cool, princess, and I’ll get you back home as soon as I can. Remember…you’re with us.”
What did that even mean? That she had teamed up with Mr. Black in some manner? A matte-black, four-door cabriolet with wide wheel hubs and a thin sliver of a windshield came into view, and she couldn’t think beyond the inevitability of having to climb into the back seat.
She should never have left her lawn! How stupid, how incredibly deranged she had been to follow a perfect stranger at night.
If anyone discovered her missing between now and whenever Mr. Black—hopefully—brought her home, she would be in a world of trouble.
Being twenty-four and a legal adult meant nothing at all under Judge Adair’s roof.
The fellow with the gaunt face opened the back door.
Mr. Black gestured for Fern to get in. Releasing his arm felt like lowering herself off the side of a bridge.
The silk of her gown slid easily across the leather seat, and the scent of menthol and gasoline instantly drowned out Mr. Black’s cologne.
He got in beside her, and then, the slamming of the door rocked the car.
Nothing was said as the engine roared to life.
The driver, the fellow with the gun in his pocket, jerked the wheel and pulled into traffic, cutting off another driver.
He laughed at the blare of the other car’s horn, and Fern turned to peer out the half-moon rear window.
Headlights blinded her, and with a jerk of the steering wheel, she slid roughly into Mr. Black’s solid figure.
He was large, muscularly so, and tall. He had to scrunch up his legs to fit in the back, and even then, his knees were touching the front seat.
Fern pushed her elbow into the seat back and tried to edge away from him, but the car swerved and sent her flush with him again. In the front, the two men were laughing wildly at the sharp blows of the horn behind them.
“Straighten out, Francis, and stop drawing attention to us,” Mr. Black barked.
The car immediately stopped swerving, and Fern could finally scoot to the far side of the back seat.
Francis. The fellow with the gun was called Francis.
She had a cousin named Francis. He’d died in the Great War, at Verdun, and Father still toasted him at Christmas every year.
She closed her eyes as the glare of headlights raced by the passenger window.
She had to focus. Poor dead Cousin Francis didn’t matter right then.
These men were taking her to see someone named Rodney in Lincoln Park.
There were dozens of neighborhoods in Lincoln Park, north of the Loop and the city’s business district.
She didn’t know where Francis intended to drive them.
She supposed it didn’t matter. Any place other than South Woodlawn would be foreign to her.
Fern didn’t go out in the family Buick often, but she did know the Chicago grid as well as anyone who could read a map.