“We need our peace of mind more,” Zuzana retorted.
“The papers say he’s powerfully built—tall and strong. He would have to be to lug the bodies to the base of Jackass Hill. Maybe we should just rent the room to someone weak . . . and small,” Lenka suggested, hopeful.
“I still think he rolled those men down the hill and then walked down to arrange his bit of theater,” Zuzana inserted.
“The papers said there was no indication of that. No drag marks or broken underbrush. No sign on the bodies at all that they’d been dragged or tossed,” Lenka argued. The two of them had speculated about this same thing a thousand times over the last two years, as had all the papers.
“I would feel so much better if he only killed men,” Lenka confessed, and Daniela felt her lips twitch. Her aunts were delightfully undiplomatic.
“Well, so far, he doesn’t seem to kill old ladies,” Daniela said. “So I think you are safe.”
“But you’re not old, Daniela,” Lenka argued. “It is you I am most afraid for.”
“No. But I’m also not his type. And you know it.”
“You’re not a hobo,” Lenka said.
“No. I am not.”
“And you don’t live in Kingsbury Run,” Lenka said.
“Though we live mighty close to it,” Zuzana interjected.
“And you don’t frequent houses of ill-repute.” Lenka kept her tally going.
“Not often.” Daniela nodded.
Her aunts gaped at her, their stitches forgotten, momentarily stunned. Daniela grinned and their shoulders wilted.
“Though if we do not rent our empty room, I might have to consider it,” Daniela warned.
Zuzana slapped her leg in censure. “Stop that. Now it’s final. You are young and beautiful, and we can’t have a boarder in this house while you are living here.”
“I will always live here, Tetka.”
“Oh, Daniela, my dear. Don’t say that. Don’t say that,” Lenka chided. “There is a man out there for you. He is coming. I know it.”
“Then he will have to move in with us,” Daniela said. “Because I live here.”
“A man in the house . . . imagine it,” Lenka whispered. And they were right back where they started from.
Irene had a black 1935 Lincoln Model K town car parked in her garage that Malone could drive to Cleveland. He wanted something new. Something clean and shiny that hadn’t been hers. But he settled for hardly used.
“You bought it, Michael. You might as well use it,” Molly told him.
He thought about taking the train and then decided he’d want—and possibly need—his own wheels. He wouldn’t be playing a specific part, and he had no identity to adopt. He would just be poking around to start. Elmer Irey, his boss with the agency, said he would expect updates and regular reports, though Malone’s presence in Cleveland would not be official. Officially, he was on paid leave.
Molly had kept a few of his things from the years with Capone. Two silk suits, a white fedora, and a pair of glossy white-and-black spectators that he’d loved but that were too flashy for a man who constantly needed to blend in. He’d lived out of a suitcase for so long, buying what he needed when he arrived, and a year in the Bahamas had left him lacking for cold weather wear. He decided he would figure it out when he got to Cleveland. If he was going to be mingling with the shantytown crowd, he wouldn’t want new. He packed the suits and the assorted items anyway. He might need them. A good silk suit opened certain doors, and he had no idea which doors he would be knocking on.
He thought he might enjoy the drive from Chicago to Cleveland. He liked to drive, but he hit snow and holed up for a long night in a roadside inn on Highway 20 that might as well have been Timbuktu for all the warmth and comfort it offered. He was so cold, he slept in the ill-fitting wool suit and the overcoat he’d bought for the funeral, wrapped in a ratty bedspread. He left as soon as the roads were clear, but not soon enough.
When he finally arrived in Cleveland, a day later than he’d intended, he was exhausted, angry, and in no mood for nightfall, which was rapidly approaching, though it was barely four o’clock. Euclid Avenue was still lit up for the holidays, but the city seemed tired, and the few folks he saw out and about moved quickly, faces down, hands shoved in their pockets.
Everything was dreary.
He turned south onto East Fifty-Fifth, following the map to the address he’d plotted out when he’d last stopped. It wasn’t the most direct route, but it gave him a feel for the area, and looking around, he didn’t feel so good. Broadway crossed East Fifty-Fifth on an angle, and he turned right again, studying the neighborhood, making a mental note. Bank, theater, library. He went a few blocks. The address should be on the south side of the street. He passed it once and flipped around at the intersection so he could approach on the right side.