The Theater of Emerald Tears

Chapter Three

Jimmy Caravello was twenty-five. He paused at the entranced to the Scandalous Flame club. The mirror there did not show him what Sunny saw, and he found himself turning to face the mirror. People passed behind him, dressed in evening attire, just as he was, glittering with the dangerous glamour of the most fashionable speakeasy in New York. This was the real world. This was his world. He supplied this club, his people, his organization. He owned New York.

Nothing in this world gave him what the stars in Sunny\'s eyes gave him. Only an accountant that he\'d walked by nearly every day for the last five years, just a little no one who liked the movies, and saw something Jimmy didn\'t really see.

It had been three days. No, less than three days. Jimmy looked through the arch into the sea of white covered tables, looking for the table he\'d sat at the night before, where Sunny touched his hand. It was like one of Sunny\'s movies, love at first sight.

\"Is everything alright, Jimmy,\" Sue asked, leaning against the arch way. She wore a gold dress that lay over the curves of her body the way sunrise could put gold to the horizon at dawn. Red curls framed her face and no one could have any doubt that she\'d been the most beautiful singer in all of New York in the 1920\'s, was still the most beautiful woman in some people\'s minds. This was really her club; Jimmy just facilitated the illegal part. She was five years his senior, and they\'d been lovers, off and on, for about that long. \"You\'re looking a little lost.\"

Jimmy caught her hand, lifted it to a slow kiss across one finger. He couldn’t be in love with Sunny. He wasn\'t that kind of man. He turned her hand over and kiss the palm, tickling the very center with his tongue suggestively. \"What if I\'m lost, Sue?\"

She stepped closer, carnal desire incarnate. Her voice was a whisper against his ear in a time when whispers were privacy and it was dangerous not to be what people expected. \"You\'re not lost, Jimmy. I saw how he looked at you. We\'re not law abiding people, Jimmy, but we\'re honest.\"

Her kiss against his ear ached, cracked a reserve within him. \"I\'m going to leave.\"

She melted against him as he wrapped both arms around her, pulled her close. \"Where will you go,\" she whispered, her arms around his neck. \"Take me with you?\"

Lifting her off her feet, he felt it then, the freedom, a lightness, because he knew, he was really leaving. This was his father\'s business, his father\'s life. \"He wanted a theater, wants to call it Emerald Tears. I\'ll get him, and we\'ll go to Washington, the Emerald City. I\'ll take him to Seattle.\"

\"Jimmy Caravello, you\'re the bravest man I\'ve ever known!\" She said out loud, pulling back and smiling at him. \"And god help me, you\'d make Saint Anne slide off her chair!\"

People near them laughed and Jimmy spun her around lightly. He was free. No one else knew it, but he was free. The Theater of Emerald tears formed in his mind like a misty sanctuary, where anything was possible, where no one would care that they were both men or what Jimmy had done with his hands to make his family business work. They\'d sit up in the back of the theater, on red velvet chairs and watch Sunny\'s movies and no one would care who they were or who they loved. He bite Sue\'s ear lightly, then whispered, \"You\'re right, Sue, I\'m not lost.\"

From behind him, up the stairs and into the restaurant, he heard his name, and ignored it. It wasn\'t Sunny\'s voice, so he didn\'t care. Everything else would get taken care of in time.

\"I have to see him! Let go of me! You don\'t understand! Jimmy Caravello!\" The woman screamed again, angry and loud.

\"Have you been cheating on me with more than just that doe eyed guy you had in here last night,\" Sue whispered teasingly.

Sheepish, habitually guilty in that regard, Jimmy set her down and ran a hand through dark hair. \"No.\" He said, \"You know there\'s no one, except you, well, except for….\"

His words trailed off and he turned to see a thickset white woman in an apron and an air of beef stew barreling towards him. He held up both hands and she ran right into him anyway, grabbing both lapels of his evening jacket and shaking him like a non-paying customer. \"You\'re Jimmy Caravello! You\'re Sunny\'s Jimmy?\"

At least one of his men had quietly drawn a pistol, but Jimmy motioned for patience, then took the woman firmly by the shoulders. \"I\'m Jimmy Caravello. Who the hell are you?\"

\"Marge! Sunny eats at my diner. He called me! Oh god! He called me!\"

Fear dropped like a rock of black acid to the pit of Jimmy\'s stomach. Sue knew he was homosexual. No one else really did. His lieutenants did, but they would count on him to keep that quiet. He could see the headlines now, \'crime boss arrested for illicit affair with half Japanese accountant.\' \"Be quiet!\" he hissed at her, eyes narrowing.

Her face lost what color it had, as if she\'d finally realized she\'d just accosted Jimmy Caravello. Chubby fingers smoothed his lapels down, though she had the unwashed hands of a waitress and a cook so that wasn\'t really helping. She bit her lip, just like Sunny did, and for a moment, Jimmy thought he was looking at Sunny\'s mother. \"I\'m sorry. But quietly, what did Sunny tell you?\"

\"He was at your house and he was scared. He said he killed a man,\" she said, not aware of the tears washing her face. \"A woman came on the phone. I heard the gun shot. She said she shot him and that her boss wanted what you had and he had a good start in Sunny. Mr. Caravello, he\'s gonna hurt Sunny. You gotta help him! You gotta! Sunny ain\'t never hurt anyone and they\'re gonna hurt him bad.\"

People had stopped now, all around them, filed up from within the sanctity of the speak easy to stand in the foyer watching the Jimmy Caravello hold a hysterical diner owner.

Sue laid a hand on his shoulder, then pulled it right back. \"Sue, I was wrong about where I\'m going. First I have to go to war.\"