Free Swan Song by Tracey

Chapter One
     
     
Chicago, Illinois
1926
     
     
    This city is full of predators. There are more dirty cops than clean ones, more mobsters than grocers. For a girl living on her own trying to make it in the big city, life can be very dangerous. You have to be smart, you have to be hard but most of all, you have to be heartless. I’m all of that and more. I’m also talented which makes everything both better and worse. Men want to “help” me. They want to give me my big break, discover me. But at what cost? Whatever it is, I promise you it’s more than I’ll ever pay.
    My parents died when I was sixteen, leaving me alone in a tiny cow town in Nebraska with barely a cent to my name and dreams bigger than my hands or heart could hold. Those dreams weren’t going to come true in the middle of nowhere in the Midwest so I sold it all. Every last item they ever owned. Then I took the money, took the bus and landed here; Chicago. I’d rather it was New York but beggars can’t be choosers. Though I could have afforded the bus ticket to NYC, I wouldn’t have been able to afford anything else once I got there. I’m a dreamer but I’m no twit. Desperate women do desperate things and before you know it you’re a dead eyed whore wondering where it all went wrong. That’ll never be me.
    I was smart, I took my time and I did it right. Now here I am, six years later, center stage in one of the hottest joints in town with my name on the marquis outside. Or at least the name I’m using now. No one knows my real name. They don’t need to know. That girl got left behind in a drafty house back in Nebraska with everything else of zero value that I couldn’t sell. The name in lights outside reads Adrian Marcone. That’s me, through and through. A raven haired, stormy eyed, statuesque siren. I’m lucky I’m determined. I’m lucky I’m talented. But most of all, I’m lucky I’m beautiful. I got my looks and the last name from my mother. She was half-Italian with olive skin, warm eyes and an hourglass figure she graciously passed down to me. My father was a decent man but a terrible drunk, a vice that spelled doom for the two of them one night on a dark country road, but I’m grateful to him as well. Thanks to him I know how to handle a man. I know how to calm a raging temper, sooth an angry drunk. I can also see when it’s a lost cause and time to head for the hills. Or a room with a lock on the door.
    I spent a lot of years in a lot of small clubs when I first got here. I was building my name, gaining a reputation. Then two years ago I struck gold. A guy in the audience of a small time dive bar heard me sing. He liked what he heard. He liked it so much he came back night after night for over a week listening to me perform. He told me later he wanted to make sure I wasn’t a fluke, that I hadn’t had one good night that couldn’t be repeated. He should have asked me. I would have told him I’m flawless every show. In the end it didn’t matter. He was convinced I was a showstopper, a headliner waiting to happen, so one night he came in and told me he wasn’t leaving without me. Once he told me where he worked, I went without a fight.
    That man was Ralph Capone, Al Capone’s big brother.
    He manages the Chicago Cotton Club in Cicero, deep in mobster territory. It’s the sister to the New York City Cotton Club, aka The Big Time in my mind. That’s where I want to be. That’s the dream. Right now, Ralph and this joint are just a stepping stone to the big show. I’ll get there one day, I know it. I just have to keep my head above water swimming in this tank full of sharks.
    As you can imagine, a club run by a man high up in the Crime Syndicate is swarming with gangsters. Some are gentleman, some are charming, some are assholes and some are downright scary, like Tommy.
    Tommy is a demon. He’s also one of the reasons I’ve been able to stay unmolested by most of these gangsters. He’s Ralph’s right hand man at the