Page 24 of The Bootlegger’s Bride

H e had just signaled Karl for a nightcap when he saw Jesse, who was putting his horn away, look up toward the front door and pause for an instant.

Richard Dupuis followed his gaze past the tables where customers were still drinking, smoking, and laughing.

There a slim brunette in high heels and slinky black dress beneath a burgundy topcoat stepped toward the far end of the bar.

She walked real straight and tall and composed as if she had had a few.

She deposited the coat on the last barstool and slid onto the next.

He had seen her before in The Blue Note though not alone.

He couldn’t remember when or with whom. Could have been years ago.

But hers was not a face you’d forget: a looker.

And her figure just right. He’d always liked slender.

Hedy Lamarr? That’s it: A real Hedy Lamarr.

Wasn’t often someone with real class came into the joint.

Karl served her a highball. When she slid a pack of Luckies from her clutch purse lying on the bar, Dupuis sauntered down the row of padded chrome barstools, left hand grasping his drink and his right the cigarette lighter in his sport coat pocket.

As she lifted a cigarette toward her lips he caught Karl’s eye, and the bartender turned away.

“Let me,” he intoned over her shoulder.

He clicked the lighter and held the flame before her.

The faintest lines at the corners of her eyes told him she was closer to thirty-five than twenty-five.

That is, perfect. An age when a woman knows the score.

The paper crinkled and burned. Only after drawing deeply on her cigarette and exhaling did she turn to see who held the lighter.

“Thanks.”

“You just missed some good dance music. Jesse used to play trumpet for Woody Herman.”

“I’m sure. However, I did hear some pretty good music tonight across the river at the Casa Loma. The Harry James band.”

“We can’t compete with the likes of that.”

“We?”

“I’m the proprietor here. Richard Dupuis.”

“Hazel Robinson,” she said, extending a cool hand to him, diamonds set in white gold wrapping her wrist. Her perfume wasn’t cheap either. The kind that said she was an animal not a flower.

“You look familiar to me, Hazel Robinson,” he said, leaning an elbow on the bar. “Like I might have seen you in here once. Or maybe in the movies.”

“I was here a few times years ago with my husband before he died.”

“Sorry to hear about that, Hazel.”

“In fact, he recognized you. Said you had once done some business together.”

Alarm bells started clanging in Dupuis’s head. She looked like the sort of dame who could have been with some big-time hood, guys who sometimes buy it prematurely. Likely still rationed by someone post-hubby. Best to tiptoe.

“I’ve done business with a lot of good people over the years. What was your husband’s name?”

She stubbed out her cigarette in the blue glass ashtray on the bar, staring at it.

“Jan Nowak.”

He bit his lip and frowned at the smoke rising from the ashtray as if trying to recall.

Recall he did: fucking devious Polack punk.

Guys seldom got the better of Richard Dupuis when doing business.

If certain people found out it could ruin you.

But in this case it wasn’t the sort of job the Slavic shit would have been bragging about. Good to hear the prick was dead.

“Nowak… Nowak… Sounds familiar. Did he tell you what kind of business?”

“No. Just that you probably wouldn’t want to talk about it.”

Dupuis shrugged. “Maybe it’ll come to me… How about another drink on the house, Hazel?”

She raised an eyebrow, pursed crimson lips, and looked him up and down. He lifted his chin at Karl and held up two fingers.

§

Hazel woke parched to a bright day, raw throat, and throbbing headache. Typical Sunday morning though a bit more oozy woozy than usual. It was the damn cigarettes. If she could quit the smokes she’d feel a whole lot better mornings. Not likely. She loved them.

Hazel remembered feeling good the night before.

The music, the dancing, the drive back across the bridge from St. Louis—she recalled all that.

Getting home was another story. After crossing the Mississippi, she drew a blank.

Maybe it would come back to her later. Odd the way that worked.

Hours of her life often irretrievably lost. But she didn’t much care.

She heard a noise in the kitchen—a coffee cup hitting the counter—sat up straight and found herself naked.

She put her palms to her temples and stared at her silk stockings lying on the carpet beside her ivory tap pants.

What the hell had happened? The previous night hung distorted, dark, and, for now, incomplete, like an expressionist jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing.

She found her robe and ventured toward the kitchen.

The electric percolator sat warm on the counter.

She crossed the kitchen to the den, where logs crackled in the fireplace.

A tall black-haired, mustachioed man in a navy blazer, coffee cup in hand, stood at the windows overlooking the lake.

He turned as she padded barefooted across the floor and plopped in the leather armchair by the fire.

“Good morning, Hazel.”

“Good God,” she said, shaking her head but finding that just made things worse. Slowly it was coming back to her. “Fetch me a cup, black.”

He smiled and moved off.

A few of the missing puzzle pieces floated into place.

Drinks at The Blue Note. How many? What difference did that make?

No recollection of driving home from there.

She looked up to see her car in the drive and a cream-colored Cadillac convertible behind it.

No memory of anything else, though she could imagine.

The man returned with her coffee. Richard Dupuis. That she knew from before. From years before. She could even remember the exact date: January 10, 1942. Their second anniversary.

“You have a lovely home here, Hazel. I think I know the guy who built it. One of Jellyroll Hogan’s gang.”

“That name sounds familiar. Memorable enough… You have a cigarette?”

He pulled a pack of Pall Malls from his sport coat pocket. She took one from it, and he lit it with a gold lighter. Then he lifted his chin toward the bookcase behind her.

“Who’s the kid?”

She turned and reached for A.J.’s gold-framed school photo. With her sleeve she smoothed dust from it. “My son. He’s nine. Fourth grade at Mitchell.”

Dupuis frowned. “He here?”

“No, no. Stays with my sister and her husband weekends to give me a little breathing room.”

A.J. was likely in church now with Helen and Raymond. She couldn’t remember the last time she went. The pastor did stop by one afternoon to see how she was doing. She was in her cups early that day, that’s how she was doing. He didn’t stay long and left disgusted.

“Nice looking boy. Takes after you. What’s he gonna be when he grows up?”

“Rich.”

“So, he likes the moolah?”

Hazel took a deep drag on her cigarette and studied A.J.’s photo, trying to see Jan there. “Not so much. He likes books, and he likes the lake. His father set up a trust fund for him before he went off to war. It’ll kick in when A.J. turns twenty-one.”

Dupuis made a mental note of that.

“Trust fund, eh?” he said. “Must be nice. Always wanted one of those. Unfortunately, my ancestors were not very industrious.”

“His father was, at least when he was young.”

“And this is him, Jan Nowak?” he said, pointing to another framed photo on a bookcase shelf.

She nodded. “Yes. That’s Jan.”

“I think I do remember him now,” said Dupuis. “Nice fella.”