Prohibition is the law of the land, but Nellie needs cash - after socking a gangster in the face, she's got ten days to make it right. Frightened and caught empty-handed, Nellie turns bootlegger.
She accepts a job from her sly friend Lola to pick up...
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SATURDAY, MAY 9th 1925
This girl certainly isn't dim. She has the good sense not to open the door all the way.
"Is there trouble?"
"No" I say, frowning at the scuffs on my shoes, "I've come to return something that belongs to you."
"You still haven't answered my question."
"Lester Howard," I say, and I fumble for my star-shaped badge. She takes it through the crack in the door, and I worry very briefly that maybe she aims to take it. But she shoves it back to me and I pocket it.
"I've got your shoes," I add, "And a handbag. And shawl."
She opens the door all the way, and shuts it behind me. Turns out Cinderella has dingy-blonde hair shorn cut in a ragged bob. My mother would be appalled.
"Why do you think they're mine?"
"Is your name Nellie Sypek?"
She folds her arms over my chest. She's got a mean-looking wrench clutched in her right hand. "Maybe."
"Look lady, do you want your things or not?"
She snatches the cloth bag that's been hitting my upper thigh the entire walk here, and rifles through the contents.
"How did you find me, Mister Howard?"
"A friend of yours."
"Are you gonna arrest me?"
"No," I say. I'm trying not to get cross. I suppose somehow I could, since she admitted these were her things.
"It seems like your business is done here," she says.
I nod, stick my hat back on my head.
"See you around, Miss Sullivan."
She slams the door after me. I take the long way home, thinking it all over. Should I have arrested her? She was wily enough to get away from me the other night, but it doesn't hurt to have a favor to call in.
Mother's reading her book in the parlor. Expecting a jab, I've left my dirty shoes by the back door where I came in.
"Lester?"
I freeze and don't dare poke my head in. Mother will demand answers.
"Yes?"
"There's dinner on the table if you want it."
"I'm going straight to bed," I tell her, from around the corner.
I hear her frown. Of course if I had a respectable profession I wouldn't be sleeping during the day and working at night. How very bourgeois of Mother.
