Chapter 3 - The Girl from Thirty-Third Street
The apartment on Thirty-Third Street smelled of boiled cabbage, isopropyl alcohol, and old paper.
Ellie Kelly sat at the kitchen table beneath a single bare bulb, watching her mother sleep in the adjacent room. The small oxygen concentrator beside the bed hissed every four seconds—a rhythmic, mechanical breath that was the only thing keeping Mary Kelly in this world.
It was three in the morning.
On the laminate table lay her father’s old union book—a small, dark-blue booklet with gold lettering on the front that had faded to a dull gray. Inside were sixty small stamps, one for every month Dan Kelly had paid his dues into Local 419 between nineteen-eighty and nineteen-ninety-five.
The last three pages were blank.
Ellie ran her thumb over the rough paper.
When she was ten years old, her father had taken her to the union hall on a Saturday morning while he checked the grease traps on the main hoist. She remembered the big, dark wood paneling in the main lobby, the smell of cigar smoke and floor wax, and the framed photograph of the union executives hanging near the front doors.
In the center of that photograph had been a handsome, dark-haired man in an expensive gray suit—Lorenzo Vitali, Nico’s father.
Standing two steps behind Lorenzo had been a pale, pretty woman with sharp eyes and dark hair pulled back into a neat bun.
Eleanor Vance. Vanessa Sinclair’s mother.
Ellie had never made the connection until tonight. To a ten-year-old girl, people in photographs were just furniture. But now, with her wrists still red and sore from the florist's cord, the pieces were sliding into place with a terrifying, greasy click.
Her father hadn't been fired because he was incompetent. He had been fired because he was the head shop steward, and his signature was required to authorize the annual audit of the pension books. When he refused to sign an audit that was missing four hundred thousand dollars, he wasn't just an inconvenience—he was an enemy.
A soft knock came at the alley door.
Ellie jumped, her heart leaping into her throat. She looked toward the small kitchen clock: 3:14 AM.
She didn't own a gun. She picked up a heavy cast-iron skillet from the stove and walked quietly to the door, pressing her ear against the thin wood.
"Miss Kelly," a voice called out—not loud, but clear enough to cut through the rain outside. It was a voice she didn't know, old and dry as autumn leaves. "I am Arthur Barone. I work for Don Nico Vitali. Please open the door before the neighbors start looking out their windows."
Ellie held the skillet higher. "If you come inside, I’ll scream."
"If I wanted to hurt you, Miss Kelly, I wouldn't have knocked," Arthur said through the panel. "And I wouldn't have brought your coat from Asheford Grove."
Ellie hesitated. She slowly unlatched the deadbolt and opened the door two inches, keeping the chain engaged.
Arthur Barone stood on the narrow wooden porch, holding an umbrella in one hand and her light winter coat over his arm. Behind him, parked in the alley beneath a dark tree, was a long black sedan with two men sitting silently in the front seat.
"Your pay is in the pocket," Arthur said, handing the coat through the gap. "Three hundred dollars from the catering agency, plus an additional five hundred from Don Nico for your... inconvenience."
Ellie didn't take the coat. "I don't want his money."
Arthur’s old eyes locked onto hers through the opening. "It isn't a bribe, child. It’s a debt. The Vitali family pays what it owes, whether it’s blood or green paper."
"Why did he let her marry him?" Ellie demanded, her voice dropping to a fierce whisper so as not to wake her mother. "He heard her! He knew what she was planning!"
Arthur looked down at the wet floorboards of the porch.
"Because a war fought in the open destroys houses," Arthur said softly. "A war fought inside a room only kills the people who deserve it. Don Nico wants you to come to the office on Grand Avenue tomorrow at eleven."
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"Why?"
"Because your father’s name is still on three documents in our cellar, Miss Kelly," Arthur said. "And it’s time somebody took it off."
