Sons of Thunder (8 page)

He closed his eyes, putting his forehead on his hands. Listened to the Greek—albeit choppy and oddly foreign—around him. The coil inside him began to unwind.

See, he didn’t need Dr. Scarpelli’s charity. Markos Stavros knew how to take care of his family.

Never did Markos think he’d despise the smell of fish. But, locked inside his uncle’s sweltering kitchen, surrounded by potatoes, onions, garlic, tomatoes, and piles of herring in need of cleaning, everything about
him reeked of the sea. It embedded his skin, his hair, his pores. The bloody entrails chapped his skin, his hands shredded from the scales, slicking tears into his eyes when he moved on to peeling and chopping onions.

Or, perhaps it’s wasn’t so much the smell he minded as the reminder of his losses. Theo, Papa, Mama. Roast lamb on the spit. Baklava. Fresh figs…

“Markos! Are you finished with the fish? Because the potatoes need skinning.”

While Dino swept the restaurant after close and served as a busboy during the days, Sofia rose early, her strong hands again turning chapped as they worked the dough and transformed the restaurant into a bakery.

However, she still refused to sing, and, although Markos ached for it, he didn’t ask.

Even at night. In the darkness, in their tiny room overlooking the café, he longed for anything that might stir his memory of home, anything to yank his thoughts from the raucous music that spilled out into the streets, the dogs barking, cats howling, the chill that found him as he huddled under a flimsy blanket. He slept on a mat on the floor, Dino in a cot next to him. To Sofia, they’d offered the narrow metal bed, hanging a curtain down the center of the room to cordon off some privacy for her.

He tried to be thankful, especially with the soup lines he passed when his uncle sent him out on errands.

Sofia managed to bring some life to their room, finding a dresser and covering it with a piece of lace she’d brought with her, filling a pitcher with flowers discarded from a street vendor.

He would have been happy with just her singing.

Markos winced as the knife accidently slid through the soft flesh of his thumb.

“Where’s Sofia?” Uncle Jimmy stuck his head into the kitchen. He’d insisted on them using his American name, and had begun barking at Markos only in English. Thankfully, Markos understood more than he spoke.

“She went to the movies. With Dino.” Markos didn’t look up, wrapping a towel around his cut, stifling the anger that stirred inside. Dino had figured out a way to sneak him and Sofia into the back entrance of the Cinema Palace. The kid had turned into a regular street urchin, bringing home filched apples, peanuts, even an occasional carnation for Sofia’s flower vase.

At least, Markos assumed he’d filched them. Although, on occasion, Dino had mentioned Peter Kazolas’s name.

Markos wanted to throttle the kid, all the same. He couldn’t afford flowers. Couldn’t even afford to buy Sofia a winter coat instead of that ratty wool sweater. She tromped around in the brisk November air in her black scarf, her thin summer shoes. Not that she’d complained.

But once when she worked as hostess, he’d seen her in the coatroom, running her fingers through the softness of a patron’s fur coat.

How he longed to buy her such a coat. But he barely had time to sleep; how could he take on another job?

The blood had stopped. Markos wiped his forehead with the back of his arm, tossed the filet into a bucket of salty water.

Uncle Jimmy picked up a piece of peeled garlic, gnawed on it. “Listen, I got a little treat for you tonight.” He slapped him on the back. “After you get done, take a bath and meet me after the restaurant closes. It’s time you figured out how to live in America.”

The crisp night gathered the stars overhead as Markos slipped out the back of Zante’s. His uncle sat at the wheel of a shiny Model T coupe, the motor coughing out exhaust, the headlights like eyes on Markos as he gawked.

“I didn’t know you had an automobile.” Markos ran his hand over the plush seat then slipped in beside Uncle Jimmy.

“There’s a lot of things you don’t know, my boy,” Jimmy said with a wink. He’d cleaned up, wearing a suit, his black hair oiled back. For a moment, he reminded Markos of Dr. Scarpelli. But Uncle Jimmy didn’t want to steal his family. Uncle Jimmy
was
his family.

Markos pulled his father’s coat around him, suddenly conscious of his own threadbare wool pants and shirt.

The automobile gears growled as they rolled out into the cobblestone street. “You can’t tell Dino, or even Sofia, what you see tonight, okay, boy?” Uncle Jimmy reached over, patted him on the shoulder. “It’s for men only.”

Men. His mind whisked back to his father, hauling him up to do the Kaslamantiano. Markos nodded.

Uncle Jimmy parked his car in a lonely alleyway between two brownstones. They got out and Markos followed him down a stairwell blocked by garbage cans. Uncle Jimmy stopped at a blackened door, knocked.

A panel in the door slid out, and eyes peered through.

“Hornsby,” Jimmy said, quietly.

The panel closed. Silence. Jimmy had removed his driving gloves and now slapped them in his hand.

A lock slid back with a click and the massive door opened.

Music spilled out as Uncle Jimmy hooked Markos’s arm and pulled him inside the basement room. “Welcome to America, boy.”

Green draperies covered the walls, tiny gaslights flickered at each round table inhabited by women with rouged lips, painted eyes, low-cut
frameless dresses, some long, others fringed at the knee. They wore the brimless hats and high-heeled shoes he’d seen in storefronts. A blond by the door, with hair cut to her chin, settled her eyes on him, a cigarette in a long black holder balanced between her fingers. She blew out a smoke ring as he passed by, her eyes trailing him.

Men in crisp suits and wide ties drank glasses of amber liquid.

Uncle Jimmy practically pushed him to the long bar.

“What is this place?”

“Tony’s.”

Tony’s—gin room? He’d heard the term, hadn’t really known…

At a stage at the far end of the room, a blond sat on a stool, her low-cut red dress a siren in the dark club, crooning out a song with a husky tone that roused to life something inside him. His eyes fixed on her, the feeling growing at the way her gaze latched on him, the smile that crept up her blood-red lips. She turned and began to sing to him.

His entire body glued in place.

Behind her, a musician with man-sized bouzouki plunked out low tones, another played a shiny flute—stepping forward to solo as the woman finished, her final notes hanging in the blue haze of smoke, caressing the crowd.

“That’s a saxophone,” Uncle Jimmy said, handing him a glass of something dark. “And this is what we call coffin varnish. Go easy, kid.” Jimmy lifted his glass. Then, with one quick movement, downed it. “
Oopa
!”

Markos put the glass to his lips, sipped it. His eyes watered. Even retsina, which burned his throat the few times he’d finished off his father’s drink, seemed as milk to this. He swallowed fast, regretted it, and coughed, ready to retch. “What is it?”

“Homemade liquor, son.”

“Like wine?” His father had made their own wine—

“Not exactly.” Jimmy signaled the barkeep.

The woman on stage began to sing again, and this time her eyes landed on Uncle Jimmy, another luring smile on her lips. Jimmy swayed to her song. “She’s some kind of songbird, ain’t she, kid?”

Markos nodded.

“Name’s Hedy Brooks. She’s sweet on me.”

Indeed, at the end, she blew a kiss to the audience, then hung up her microphone and floated off stage in a way that dried Markos’s mouth.

She stopped before Uncle Jimmy and ran her finger down his lapel. “Buy a girl a refreshment, Jimmy?”

He slipped his hand around her waist. Snapped his fingers at the barkeep.

She turned in his arms, leaned back against him. “So, who’s this?”

“My nephew. All the way from Zante Island.”

“Greece? Hmm.” She accepted the drink, sipped it. Markos noticed she didn’t even blink, not a hint of flinch. “He’s a young one. But… sturdy.” She ran her finger along his jaw. “Such pretty blue eyes.”

“Hedy—”

“They’re Stavros eyes, Jimmy.” She glanced at his uncle. Pressed a kiss to his chin. Jimmy grinned, downed another drink.

“So, what does Markos do?”

“He works at the restaurant. But I was thinking about your little problem.” His eyes latched on Markos. “I thought Markos could help you.”

She raised a thin eyebrow. It seemed as if she ran her hands down him with her eyes. Something hot scurried through his belly.

She looked up at Jimmy. “I thought it was
your
little problem.”

Jimmy lifted one shoulder, winked at Markos.

She gave Markos another perusal, this time quick. “He looks like he can handle himself.” She took another sip of her drink. “I’ll give him a try, but no promises.” She reached out and patted Markos on the cheek, her perfume thick, curling through him. “What do you say, kid? Wanna work for me? I’ll make this chiseler pay you twice what you’re getting at the restaurant.”

Markos glanced at Jimmy.

Jimmy wore an indulgent smile and shrugged again. “Anything for you, Hedypie.”

She rose up on her toes, gave Jimmy a kiss on the mouth.

“But what about the restaurant?” Markos asked, that heat in his stomach now filling his chest.

Hedy finished her drink. “Aw, I just need you after the joint closes. Get me home safely when Jimmy here is tied up.” She turned, slipped her arms around his neck. “Which is too often for me.”

“Doll, I got things to do. Markos will keep you safe.”

His words slipped into Markos, touched something fragile. Markos felt himself nodding even as his thoughts caught up to him. Twice the pay. Enough to get Sofia her own room. Maybe buy her a coat. Shoes.

Take her out, maybe not to a joint like this one, but a real first-class restaurant.

C’mon, Markos, you know you can’t take care of them.

The band kicked up another song. Jimmy put down his glass, grabbed Hedy’s hand, tugged her out to the dance floor. Began to sway with her, his body molded close. Not a dance the likes Markos had ever seen.

Markos lifted his glass, studied the amber liquid, and then, with a jerk, downed the entire drink. He braced his hand to his chest, his eyes watering, but held back a cough.

“Another one, barkeep,” he said, lifting the glass as warmth touched his toes for the first time in two months. See, he could do just fine on his own.

The barkeep filled his glass. He drank down the next shot.

Yes indeed, welcome to America, Markos Stavros.

CHAPTER 6

Hedy found the perfect coat for Sofia’s Christmas gift in the gilded archways of Marshall Fields on State Street. Markos felt the vagabond in his father’s coat the moment he stepped inside, swiping off his fedora. He followed Hedy as she sashayed down the main aisle, under magnificent chandeliers dripping light, past ornamented, rounded glass counters that displayed all manner of jewelry, pots of rouge, bejeweled containers of inebriating perfume. For the holiday season, great wreaths adorned the balconies that soared four stories. A pianist at a grand piano plunked out holiday songs—a few he recognized from Hedy’s song-list.

Hedy greeted clerks by name, stopping to kiss a few. She eventually marched him to a room filled with coats. “Gretchen, we need something special for my friend’s Jane.” She plunked herself into a leather chair while Markos tried to blend into the racks of furs.

Usually, when Hedy asked him to drive her to Marshall Fields to spend the day lunching and partaking in an afternoon fashion show, he passed the time out in the car, sounding out the many English primers she’d purchased for him.

He’d begun to understand even the clandestine conversations in the back of the speakeasies. Like the fact that Jimmy the Greek, aka Uncle Jimmy, actually worked for someone named Joe Aiello, offering “protection” for his neighborhood on the north side of town.

“Protection from whom?” he’d asked Hedy later, as she unwound herself in the backseat of the Model T, pulling off her sequined headband.