The Night Vincent Kane Locked Every Door

Rory Carter had not planned to meet Chicago’s most feared man.

She had only planned to find the bathroom.

Her mother, Mara, had brought her to Sterling’s Bistro because the babysitter had canceled and Mara could not afford to miss another shift. Graham Sterling had already warned her that one more absence would cost her job.

“You stay in the staff room,” Mara had told Rory, kneeling to zip the child’s red hoodie. “Color quietly, don’t touch anything, and don’t leave unless you need the bathroom.”

Rory had nodded solemnly.

She understood rules.

Rules were important when grown-ups were tired.

For three hours, she sat on an overturned crate beside boxes of napkins, drawing purple stars on scraps of paper. Whenever Mara passed the doorway carrying plates, Rory smiled. Mara always smiled back, although her eyes looked darker each week.

Rory knew something was wrong.

At four and a half, she did not understand payroll, rent notices, late fees, or wage theft. She understood that the lights in their apartment had gone out twice. She understood that cereal sometimes counted as dinner. She understood that her mother had stopped buying coffee because coffee cost money.

Most of all, she understood the phone call from the previous night.

Rory had been supposed to be asleep, but the walls of their apartment were thin.

“Please, Mr. Sterling,” Mara had said. “It has been eleven weeks. I worked every shift. I stayed late whenever you asked.”

Graham Sterling’s voice had carried through the phone.

“My accountant is fixing it.”

“You said that last month.”

“Then be patient.”

“My rent is overdue.”

“That isn’t my problem.”

“You owe me more than five thousand dollars.”

Sterling had laughed.

“Mara, people like you should be grateful I let them work here at all.”

After the call ended, Rory had found her mother sitting at the kitchen table with her face pressed into a dish towel.

Rory had climbed onto her lap.

“Did someone hurt your feelings?”

Mara had wiped her eyes and smiled.

“No, baby. Mommy’s just tired.”

On the table lay a sheet of paper covered in dates, hours, and numbers. Mara had been keeping records of every unpaid shift.

Rory had added the stars.

The first star was for the night Mara claimed she had already eaten at work.

The second was for the evening Mara divided one bowl of soup between them and said she preferred crackers.

By the seventeenth star, Rory no longer believed her.

That afternoon, while searching for the bathroom, Rory heard laughter behind a velvet curtain.

She peeked through.

A group of men sat around a polished wooden table. Their suits were dark, their watches shone beneath the chandelier, and several had hard expressions that reminded Rory of the police officers she had seen on television.

At the center sat Vincent Kane.

Even Rory knew his name.

Customers whispered it. Employees lowered their voices when he entered. Sterling himself had spent the morning ordering everyone to polish every glass twice because “Mr. Kane expects perfection.”

Rory remembered something else Sterling had said.

“Vincent Kane owns half this neighborhood. Nothing happens without him knowing.”

So Rory made a simple decision.

If Mr. Kane knew everything, then perhaps he knew why her mother had no money.

She returned to the staff room, took Mara’s record sheet from the pocket of her coat, and walked through the curtain.

Several men reached inside their jackets.

Vincent stopped them with one raised finger.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Rory Carter. I’m four and a half.”

“And does your mother know you’re here?”

Rory looked down at her loose shoelace.

“She thinks I’m in the bathroom.”