Remembrance of Flings Past

A slice of bread, a glass of wine, and though antediluvian, the memories come flooding back. Fear not that I will break the seal of the confessional like the paper between foil and cork, nor in my cups reveal names unknown.

Caution: I must myself confess a weakness for puns. What pun-ance shall you assign me, reader?

The previous autumn, Mike Merlo, president of Chicago’s Unione Siciliana chapter, died. The fragile peace among the mobs shattered like a diva’s wine glass - an apt simile, since Signore Torrio had instilled his more notorious protege with a love of opera.

Moreover, the idea struck me at a performance of Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette (teenagers governed not by their brains but by their gounods). Was believing it a solution immodest? The Lord shall judge. So, I daresay, shall you. I judge you not for that judgement; the act of publication invites it.

Chicago’s civil war, like the wider one sixty years before, pitted North against South, with a significant front in the West. My first act, therefore, was to lunch with Sister Mary Titian and Father Pawel Zdlota. The former was secretary to the principal of St. Shelagh the Voluble, a girls' school on the North Side. The priest held that post at Good Goatherd Parish School on South Wabash.

We ate at Bon Vivant. I ordered Sister Titian the cotelettes d’agneau avec pommes roti, paired with a Merlot. The lamb was seasoned with herbs rather than spices.

Bon Vivant billed me at cost because the monsignor supplied their wine. Unfortunately, it was a South Side establishment, so the beer which accompanied Father Zdlota’s charcuterie was Manhattan brand.

“No appetite?” Sister Mary asked, with lowered brows (not the German beer).

“Or depriving yourself so you can treat us?”

“I am fasting diurnally until my task is done.” I sipped my black coffee, savoring it as it cooled.

“You'll lose a lot of weight,” said Father Zdlota, spearing a morsel of jambon cru. “Those animals can’t make peace OR good beer.” He popped the ham in his mouth and mimed a toast with his water glass.

“I’m feeling contentious as a Jesuit, Lord help me,” the nun declared. “I understand the late Mr. O'Banion's - “ she crossed herself - “organization owns creditable breweries.”

The priest presented his right hand to cede the point.

“Alright. They can make peace like Frenchmen can make kielbasa.” He poked a circlet of saucisson with his fork, cut it in two and peered at it.

“Surely you can find a scion of either Italian gang, and a daughter of some Irish hoodlum who are willing to…”

“‘...date each other up’ is the expression.” To her credit, she refrained from sniffing.

Zdlota pointed his fork at me, tines blunted by an olive.

“First, you think you just need to find kids willing to buck their parents. These days, that’s not hard. But the boy has more to fear than disapproval. The girl’s family would kill him. Painfully.”

“True,” said the Sister. “For remarkably stupid people, gangsters show great inventiveness regarding torture.”

“Second, not many are old enough to have teenage children. Bootlegging’s a young man’s game.”

I shrugged. “I shall look for a niece - “

“What does licorice have to do with it?” Sister Mary asked.

“Licorice? Little. Liquor, lots.”

“And he’s the one who’s not drinking.” Father Pawel pointed his thumb at me.

“Fasting has made him light-headed.”

“So much that he doesn’t see probabilities. You’ll most likely find a kid brother or sister. Since no commandment reads, ‘Honor thy sibling,’ defying them doesn’t feel daring, just ungrateful, not.”

“You both miss the point,” Sister Mary Titian sneered. “The strongest taboo here concerns our sports rivalry.”

“Your school is for girls!” I objected.

Father Pawel nodded wearily.

“And it’s St. Cormac of Ballygadannon’s sister school. St. Shelagh girls cheer at St. Cormac games. I should have remembered. Talk to someone at Bishop’s Etruscan.”

I took another sip. It was cool enough to swallow right away.

“The new place?”

“They call it a ‘Catholic private school.’ Academically superior.”

“Co-educational,” said Sister Mary Titian.

“And as you said, new. Appeals to new money.”

“Father Zdlota is right. That is where you would find children from both sides. But stop searching.”

“Why?”

“Peace is not desirable. Let the vermin destroy each other.”

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Bishop’s Etruscan started life as a paint manufacturer’s mansion. His grandson donated it to the Church when he moved into a Louis Sullivan house. I would have donated the new abode, which looked more like a paint factory.

I saw the headmaster, Monsignor Frobe. On him a solid black cassock looked like tweed. I should have asked how he accomplished that.

“You cannot make them love each other.” He measured tobacco from a foil pouch into a briarwood pipe.

“Loving their families is enough.”

“They will need a chaperone. You?” He tamped down the tobacco like a gravedigger smoothing dirt.

“No, I do not need one. I do not date. Seriously, I know just the man. ”

His office was barely within the Loop, one block east of the river. The view was blocked by taller structures. Anyway, he was on the building’s other side. The off-white paint in the hallway wasn’t peeling, but was farther from white than one would like. The dust on the linoleum reminded me I hadn’t seen my friend Kugheim, the archaeologist, in a while.

In the top half of the brown wooden door was a pane of pebbled glass. Centered thereon, gold block capitals outlined in black announced:

PHILIPPE MERLOT

PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR

He was a distant cousin, but closer than my siblings.

The cramped waiting room held an umbrella stand, a coat rack, and optimistically, two wooden chairs with gold mohair upholstery. I smelled floor wax and furniture polish.

“Come in.”

Sunlight blasted through the spotless window behind him. I blinked and set the gift-wrapped box on the faded green blotter.

“What’s the occasion?”

I sat in the client’s chair, identical to those in the waiting room, and told him.

He raised a dark blond eyebrow.

“Chaperone, huh?” He shook a Lucky out of its pack.

“Really it’s bodyguard and surveillance work.” He lit up and blew a smoke ring.

“I’m not going to guard their bodies from each other. Want proof you don’t know what you’re doing? The Southsiders are almost as Italian as you think, but up North they’re not that Irish. The boss is Hymie Weiss, a Pole. Next in command are Schemer Drucci - yup, Italian - and Bugs Moran. But his real name is Adelard Cunin.”

“French?”

He smiled.

“As for the competition, three Jews run their whorehouses. Another top guy, Murray Humphreys, is a Welshman. Mrs. Capone is Irish.”

“That’s in my favor.”

“But you didn’t know. Now, you hatched this plan watching Romeo et Juliette. I forget. How did things work out for them?”

“So I’m tilting at ginmills.” I started to rise. He patted the air.

“I didn’t say I won’t do it. It’s work. Man does not live by…” he tore open the package. “...nickel-plated magnifying glasses alone.”

From the bottom drawer he produced a bottle of Merlot.

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I called Bishop’s Etruscan from the corner pay phone.

“I left a message at your rectory,” said Frobe. “Come by and meet the guinea pigs.”

“Won’t school be out by then?”

“James would otherwise be at baseball practice. He prefers football. Adelina needs a change of scenery from detention.”

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Lina Tedesco’s hair matched the paneling, dark brown with burnt Sienna highlights. Her eyes were pool table green. As my cousin might say, she could have run away with a spoon.

“Why were you in detention?”

“This time? Booking bets on our ball games.”

I turned to Jimmy Cullen. He was a foot taller than she, with onyx hair and sapphire eyes, the sort of things his father stole.

“Did you throw a dive?”

The kids laughed.

“It’s take a dive or throw a game, Father,” said Jimmy.

No longer smiling, Lina said, “I never fix games.”

“And I never throw them.” Jimmy wasn’t smiling anymore, either. Good. A common enemy, or at least irritant, was drawing them together.

“Are you aware of the dangers involved?”

“Are you aware of the danger of getting a stupid answer?” the girl asked. The headmaster turned his smile to the wall, but Jimmy’s dazzled like sunshine through a private detective’s window.

Frobe said, “James gets extra credit in Civics for this, even if it doesn’t work. But fewer points in that case.”

“And you, Adelina?”

“A chance to make Missy Ottendorf.”

When they left, Frobe gave me a print of what had to be Jimmy’s yearbook photo, and one each of the cheerleading squad and girls’ tennis team, with Lina circled.

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For the date, I provided another common irritant. Our parish accountant was in an amateur production of “Around the World in 80 Days.” Afterward, all I could think to say was, “How authentic! It really felt like 80 days. And inspiring! Made me want to get up and travel.”

I bought Jimmy, Lina and Philippe tickets to the last Saturday matinee. They left early, Philippe reported, adding, “Thank God!”

The teens arrived at Julien’s before the reserved hour. Preferring not to wait, they simultaneously flashed wads of cash. Lina shouted, “Snap!”

Heads turned. One head bore three scars on its left cheek. Another head at that table sported a bent nose. The brow ridge on a third made Philippe decide to invite Professor Ondelnicht, the anthropologist, for rummy sometime soon. Philippe was as surprised by their presence as I was on hearing of it. Julien’s was in the heart of enemy territory.

While the maitre d’hotel led Lina and Jimmy to the bar, Philippe took the two steps up from the vestibule and slipped over to the gangsters’ table.

“Patsy.”

The oldest man said, “Phil.”

“It would be impolite to try anything here.”

“Really?” said Capone. “I was going to try the duck a l’orange.”

“Most people don’t know that it’s a Neapolitan dish. Must be your homing instinct.”

“My homing instinct would zero in on a Nathan’s hot dog. Patsy pointed across the table with his chin. At vestibule level, Philippe had seen neither women nor children.

“Afterwards?”

Capone answered for him, shrugging. “That’s a family matter.”

Philippe killed time making apologies to the handsome Haitian headwaiter and checking his wraps. The “subjects” were quite animated at the bar and during the meal.

He tailed them to South Indiana and 68th. Jimmy kissed Lina when he opened her door.

He did not get out to hold it, much less walk her to the porch, but he stayed there watching.

Chivalrous yet shrewd.

Left of the front door a light was on. Lina snapped open her purse, but someone pulled the door inward, so she didn’t bother digging for keys.

A bent old woman and a straighter middle-aged woman started ranting in Italian or Sicilian and mostly English, respectively. From the dark hall, a baritone added to the noise.

Lina put her fists on her hips, letting the purse hang, and addressed the stars. When the old woman backhanded her, Jimmy stiffened, but stayed put.

The girl hissed something. The women and the stars kept quiet, but the baritone hissed back and the hag grabbed Lina’s upper arm.

“Get off your high button horse,” Philippe scoffed.

“Who’s that?” snarled the baritone.

“Phil Merlot. Friend of Patsy Lolordo’s, Droopy.”

“Don’t call me that!”

“Relax. I meant your eyelid, not your - “

“Hey!” said both adolescents.

“Not in front of Ma!” harmonized with “Not in front of Lina!”

“Snap!” said the girl.

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In a year and a half there was a truce, through no effort of mine. Nor did the real Cupid fare too well, as we learned a few Valentine’s Days later.

True to form, Lina Tedesco gambled on Jimmy Cullen. They asked me to officiate.

At the reception, I toasted them. With Merlot.