Chapter 36 Chicago, 1928—Remy #2
Remy complied, the movement deliberate, proving he was clean.
Red Nose seemed satisfied, but Remy’s gut twisted for Skye.
Though her expression was otherwise calm, the subtle trembling around her eyes and her hyper-alert posture were quiet signs of a deep-seated fear.
A silent message burned in his gaze. He would kill to keep her breathing, no matter the cost.
“We’ll follow you,” Remy said. “I doan want to leave my car here, and after we meet with Capone, we’ll need a ride home.”
“Mr. Capone will see that you get there.”
Remy didn’t believe him. Except for when he threatened to cut off Remy’s fingers, most of their interactions with Capone were reasonable, but this was not.
What happened tonight to set him off? Capone never moved without cause.
Remy would play along until he found an opening that would get them out of this.
He’d spoken to Capone during intermission.
What had changed since then? Kaitlyn sat at his table during the second part of the show.
Could she have said something about New York that disturbed Capone?
Could she have slipped and revealed damaging information about the travelers?
No, according to Clay, she was too smart to fall into any trap Capone could set.
Red Nose steered Remy and Skye into the narrow, reeking alley. A sleek Cadillac, its door open, sat there humming. Remy’s senses went into overdrive. Familiar gangster movies flickered behind his eyes—the isolated road, the sudden halt, the chilling pull from the back seat, the brutal silence.
Skye wrestled her coat on before folding herself into the backseat.
Remy slid in beside her, his hand finding hers as his thoughts twisted through a maze of grim possibilities.
His inventory of resources—a sharp strategic mind, the raw power of his muscles, and the honed edge of his fighting skills—might not be enough to get them through the night.
After a grueling fifteen-minute drive through the city’s underbelly, the car slithered to a halt behind the imposing facade of the Lexington Hotel on South Michigan Avenue. The driver circled the building’s perimeter, finally pulling into the shadows of the rear entrance.
At least they weren’t going to the woods—not yet, anyway. Remy forced a shallow, nervous laugh, a fragile attempt to dilute the fear radiating from Skye. His mind was a relentless loop of the Joe E. Lewis story, a chilling premonition he wished he could scrub from his memory.
Red Nose met up with two other men. Together, they herded Remy and Skye into the bowels of the building, jamming them into a rattling freight elevator. Minutes later, the metal door groaned open with a clatter, revealing a machine gun-toting guard whose eyes held no hint of mercy.
“Louie Campagna,” Skye whispered.
“The Big Fellow wants to see them,” Red Nose said.
Remy quickly positioned himself between the danger and Skye, his hand firmly at her back. This is it.
If these men shot Skye and him, Elliott would never know what happened. Remy ached to kiss Skye one last time.
Red Nose muscled them out of the elevator, and the machine gun-toting guard jabbed the barrel of his weapon toward a steel-plated door. Remy’s adrenaline had already spiked, but now it roared through him, a white-hot current. If they got out of this alive, they were leaving Chicago tonight.
A cot stood by the door, the covers a tangled mess shoved to one side. They must have woken up Campagna.
“Wait here.” Campagna knocked twice, a hollow sound in the silence. The door groaned open. He stepped inside, and the door snapped shut.
Remy crushed Skye’s hand. They waited—for an eternity of sixty seconds, maybe ninety—until the heavy door groaned open again.
Campagna gestured with sweeps of his machine gun.
Then Red Nose and his partner shoved them forward, the muzzles of their weapons digging into Remy and Skye’s spines.
Every instinct Remy had screamed at him to spin around and knock the living fuck out of Red Nose.
The asshole reeked of cheap cologne and overconfidence.
Remy knew from experience that men like him were always the first to grovel once the power shifted. But it hadn’t done that yet.
Once they were inside the room, a monument to a mobster’s taste, they found a crest bearing Capone’s initials, meticulously inlaid into the oak parquet. As the steel-plated door slammed shut, Remy fantasized about twisting his heel into that smug inlay, a silent act of defiance.
The walls, a nauseating confection of gold and reddish-pink plaster, threatened to trigger an instant migraine in Remy.
“This is ostentatious,” Skye whispered while fingering her locket.
“I’ll take vulgar for two hundred.”
She met his gaze and raised her eyebrows, questioning.
“It’s a game. I’ll tell you later.” There had to be a way out of here. His eyes darted, scouring the smoke-choked office for another exit. But the room was a cage. The only other way out was a five-story drop to the unforgiving concrete of Michigan Avenue.
Capone presided from behind a massive mahogany desk, anchored in the curve of a bay window. Beyond the four towering windows, the South Side churned with the city’s pulse, a world he monitored with a hawk’s eye.
Remy’s fifteen-second visual sweep of the vulgar office concluded.
He and Skye stood about ten feet from the desk, ignored by the man behind it.
Capone hadn’t invited them into his inner sanctum for a cocktail.
They had been called to the carpet to be reprimanded, beaten up, tortured, or killed. Take your pick.
Behind his back, Remy clasped his hands—right over left, fingers extended, a posture of forced calm.
Capone was trying to rattle them. The delay gave Remy seconds to calculate an escape plan for Skye, should it become necessary to act.
So far, he had nothing—except the urge to vault the polished desk and knock Capone out of his chair.
The only option for getting Skye to safety was flying into danger, not out of it.
A flying leap was a death sentence. The men wouldn’t hesitate to turn him and Skye into a sieve. The only possible shield was Capone’s body.
“I heard you brought in a New York City entertainment lawyer,” Capone finally said in a terse tone without turning to face them.
Skye didn’t miss a beat and said conversationally, “Kaitlyn McSorley is the daughter of Remy’s friend. She writes entertainment contracts for clients in New York City. Her arrival was a surprise. We didn’t ask her to come to Chicago.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Why would we lie?” Skye asked, continuing in her conversational tone. “Kaitlyn and her father came to surprise Remy and to hear the band. She made an offhanded remark that she’d work out a deal for me if I needed her help.”
Capone swiveled in his chair to face them. “And you told her you’d talk to her later about it.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Remy wanted to give Skye a high-five. God, she had balls. She’d figured out how to handle Capone, as if reading his mind. Would it be enough to last the night?
Skye continued, “If Frederick Hager with OKeh Records offers me a contract, I want a lawyer to review it. I won’t sign it unless it’s a perfect fit for my singing career at your restaurant.”
Damn, his girl knew how to play the game.
“You expect me to believe you’re not using Miss McSorley to work a deal somewhere else? Maybe in New York City?”
“Mr. Capone, you’ve been so good to us. Why would we leave? We’re probably the highest-paid band in the city, and you take us out to nice clubs for late dinners and introduce us to important people, like Mr. Hager.”
Skye was fearless about her singing career. But going toe-to-toe with Capone was unexpected, and Remy wanted to kiss her for the display of guts few people had in the gangster’s presence.
Capone sat back in his chair and folded his arms. “You make a case for yourself, but I’m not totally convinced. You’ll stay here as my guests while I verify your story.”
“I’d like to call Clay and let him know where we are,” Remy said, knowing Capone wouldn’t let him, but why not try?
“He went out to dinner with the rest of his friends. Do you know where?”
“No,” Remy said.
“Then, a phone call is impossible.”
Capone lifted his finger. “Take them downstairs while I make a few calls.”
The two guards faced Skye and Remy, waving their guns. “Let’s go,” Red Nose said.
They returned to the freight elevator, and after a quick trip down a few floors, the elevator door groaned open in the basement, unleashing a wave of musty air that smelled of damp earth and decay.
It was a place guaranteed to be rat-infested, a place where shadows clung to every corner, a place where it could all end and no one would notice.
Red Nose pressed his pistol against Remy’s back—again. Fuck him. Could Remy take the asshole now? No. Not yet.
He stepped out of the elevator and laced his fingers with Skye’s.
Overhead, the purr of automobiles and the rumble of streetcars gave Remy a sense of how far below ground they were.
The sounds of sluicing water and scurrying rodents, echoing through the dripping tunnel walls, hinted at the danger they were in.
Filthy water pooled on the tunnel floor, turning their careful advance into a wet slosh. Remy was wisely wearing waterproof boots, but Skye navigated their nightmare in heels. The frigid water made a mockery of her footwear with every step, yet she bit her lip and pressed on without a complaint.