Free Gods of Chicago: Omnibus Edition by AJ Sikes Page B

sheepish look and then told him how it went down, how all three of them had been waylaid by teams of gangsters who picked up the whole set of papers and rolled off in their cars with them. The kid smiled when he got to the part about the guy handing him a sawbuck, but his face drooped when he mentioned Jenkins’ name a second later. Brand let him finish and ushered them into the lift for their meeting with the Commissioner. On the way back to his office he promised himself a double from the bottle. Knowing that every copy of the special edition had been nabbed by Capone’s Outfit gave Brand a sinking feeling. The mobster had it in for him on this story. Capone didn’t want word getting out about the crime scene. Brand remembered the touch of Frank Nitti’s glove on his cheek. The Outfit had no problem making more crime scenes for Brand, and if he kept it up they’d make him one special, all his own. At the door to his office Brand turned to watch the lift slowly rising away with Digs and Conroy inside. He hoped that whatever the Commissioner had to say it was short and sweet, but something told him the worst was yet to come.

Chapter 9
    Emma closed the door behind her quietly and slowly stepped down the porch steps. Snow began to fall, dusting the heavy coat Eddie gave her. She tugged it on tighter and looked back at the house, knowing Eddie was sleeping upstairs, alone. Their conversation from earlier played over and over in her mind as she went to the car.
    “I don’t have anything to lose but you, Eddie Boy. But I can’t let them get away with this.”
    “You’re talking crazy, Lovebird. Crazy as crazy gets. Come back in the house now. C’mon back inside before you give me the vapors. I love you, Emma. And you’re wanting to go out gunning for Frank Nitti like that don’t mean a thing, like I don’t mean nothing to you.”
    She’d followed him back inside. Let him hug her. Hugged him back, tight and warm against him. “You do, Eddie, you mean everything to me. You’re the only thing I have left. But the Outfit took my family apart. Mom left when dad started drinking. He drank because he couldn’t keep up with the loans he took from Nitti to keep the plant running. I was a dope for believing his story about how mom ran off to live in the Seaboard with some guy from New York City. She left because she was sick of watching dad drink himself to sleep every night, and watching me clean up after him.”
    “Dammit, I know it means we wouldn’t never have met, but what kept you from going with her?”
    “She didn’t want me to go. I remember the day she left. She just looked at me from the door and blew me a kiss. I could tell she’d been crying, but she didn’t give me a chance to ask why. She just left me behind. She left me to make sure he had somebody to look after him.”
    “And you did, and what’d he give you back for it? Huh? A lotta lip and not much else, some nice clothes maybe. This car here. But—”
    Emma had cut him off with a look. Her father may have been a lot of things, but he’d looked out for her, given her chances other girls could never hope for. And he’d let her make her own way instead of insisting she go out and find a guy to marry her. Maybe he hadn’t been able to love her enough to trust her with running the plant, or maybe he was just protecting her from Nitti’s hooks.
    “Emma, I know you had love for the man, but you told me plenty how you hated him, too.”
    Emma had looked away, out the window, watching the snow fall on the muddy ground where it collected into grey and brown drifts against fences and porches.
    “Maybe I did hate him, or maybe I didn’t,” she’d said, feeling Eddie’s hands caressing her shoulders, his breath hot on her neck. “Maybe I loved him like every girl loves her daddy, no matter how rough it goes on her to love him. And now he’s dead because that damn crook, that rat named Frank Nitti, got into my family’s cupboards and chewed