Dave Neesley-Dk Digital Photography

She turned her face toward her lover’s. He stared back, but his dark eyes appeared blank. With effort, she rolled her head back and gazed downward at a thick, crimson liquid that spread slowly, like spilled red paint, outward from a writhing, bloody mass in her center.

Josie Crane arrived in Chicago four days shy of her sixteenth birthday to escape her drunken step-father’s sexual advances. He’d never succeeded in getting anything from her, but after she kicked him in the crotch and ran the sharp edge of a blade across his back, she knew it was time to blow.

She stripped for cash tips and helped “Big” Bill Sullivan, a North Side Irish gangster, unload stolen jewelry, dresses and furs to make ends meet. While working at a dance hall as an “instructor”, she was approached by a scout for Chicago’s premier madame, Minnie Beaulieu. Madame Beaulieu had at least nine houses across the city. She offered Josie free room and board in return for six twelve-hour shifts with five days off per month—on the days of her period—and twenty-five percent of her take. After facing dispossession week after week and occasionally, having to steal groceries to keep the gnawing in her belly at bay, the proposal seemed like a ticket to Easy Street. She took the job.

One evening, Madame Beaulieu came to her room with a rather short, dark man in tow. Dressed in a heavy wool overcoat, white scarf and large gray fedora, he had the distinct, cocky swagger of a mobster.

“Josie, this is Salvatore Gandolfo. Mr. Gandolfo, Josie.”

She was familiar with Salvatore “The Grinder” Gandolfo. She’d seen his thick, dark features in the newspaper often enough. A member of the Southside Chicago Outfit headed by Capone, he was “Bloody” Angelo Genna’s bodyguard.

“Well, hello, Mr. Gandolfo,” purred Josie, dressed in a filmy, peach wrapper with nothing underneath. He pulled off a glove and reached out his hand. She took it, slowly pulled him inside and shut the door behind him.

Although he was a stranger to her, the first-time sex was curiously passionate. As they lay in the sweat-soaked sheets catching their breath, the door crashed open.

Suddenly, a hoarse scream fill the room. Was it her own? There was no time to decide, because in the same instant, she heard a loud burst of staccato gunfire. Shocked into silence by the sudden burning in her belly, she watched the man lower the rifle, walk around the end of the bed and place a card on Gandolfo’s chest. When he reached the door, he turned to her.

“Sorry, baby. Nothing personal,” said Big Bill. He gave her a wink, and then stepped through the open door not bothering to close it.

She lifted the card from the dead man’s chest. On it was stamped a four-leaf clover. She lay her head back down on the pillow. Her eyes widened as a blinding white light shimmered, then dimmed into darkness along with her life.

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