Free Family Affair: A Smokey Dalton Story by Kris Nelscott Page A

the reason for the change; she had
been raped by a policeman who then continued to pursue her after his crime. Even
after his murder by one of the city’s largest gangs, she felt she couldn’t stay
in Chicago.
    I understood that, just like I understood
the toughness with which she armored herself. But I also missed the delicate
woman in the oversized dress, the one who smiled easily and had a strong sense
of the ridiculous.
    “You know,” Marvella said, leaning
against the driver’s side window, “as much of a fuss as that woman’s putting
up, I don’t think we should take her out of here at all.”
    I agreed. We were supposed to take her to
a charity a group of us had started on the South Side of Chicago. Called
Helping Hands, the charity assisted families — mostly women and children
– who had no money, no job skills, and no place to go. I found a lot of
them squatting in houses that I inspected for Sturdy Investments. Rather than
turning them out, I went to Sturdy’s CEO and the daughter of its founder, Laura
Hathaway — who, not by coincidence, had an on-again, off-again
relationship with me.
    Laura agreed that we couldn’t throw
children onto the street, so she put up the initial money and got her rich
white society friends to put up even more. Without Laura’s society connections,
Helping Hands wouldn’t exist.
    It wasn’t designed for people from
Wisconsin. We had devised it only for Chicagoans, and mostly for those on the
South Side. We had a few white families go through our doors over the years,
but not many. We only had a few white volunteers. The white face that most of
our clients saw — if they saw one at all — was Laura’s, and then
only because she liked to periodically drop in on the business and check up on
everything herself.
    “I mean,” Marvella said, “what happens if
she changes her mind again halfway between here and Chicago? If she starts
screaming from the back seat of your car, the cops will pull us over in no
time.”
    I winced. If the woman claimed she was
being taken to Chicago against her will, then there were all kinds of laws we
could be accused of breaking, not the least of which was kidnapping.
    “Tell Valentina this isn’t going to
work,” I said.
    “Not
going to tell her. She has her heart set on saving that little girl.”
    That little girl kept looking at me from
the safety of her mother’s thigh. I could see why Valentina wanted to save her.
The little girl’s eyes shone with intelligence, not to mention the fact that
she was the only calm one in the trio.
    Her mother was crying and shaking her
head. Valentina was still talking, but it didn’t look like she was going to get
anywhere.
    “You can’t save someone who doesn’t want
to be saved,” I said.
    “You tell Val that,” Marvella said.
    “Bring her over here and I will,” I said.
“Because in no way am I getting near that woman with the diner crowd watching.”
    Marvella glanced up at them and frowned. I
couldn’t quite tell, but it seemed like more bodies were pressed against the
glass around the door. One huge white man was now standing beside his pick-up
truck, twirling his key ring on his right index finger.
    “Crap,” Marvella said. “I’ll see what I
can do.”
    She walked back to the women. She put a
hand on Valentina’s shoulder and led her, not gently, away from the woman.
    Marvella and Valentina talked for a few
minutes. Marvella nodded toward the diner.
    Valentina looked up for the first time. Her
lips thinned. Then she nodded, just once.
    She walked back to the woman and her
daughter.
    Marvella walked back to me and got in the
passenger side.
    “Let’s go,” she said.
    “That’s it?” I asked.
    “Not really,” Marvella said. “We need to
call Helping Hands and tell them to put a white volunteer at the front desk,
not that I think that’s going to work.”
    “Why?” I asked.
    “Because Val’s convinced she can drive
the woman to Chicago all by herself,” Marvella