Thread: If it hadn't been for love...(Plaidism and Cosmic)

Smoke hung in the air like a feather-weight cloud that spiraled and colored everything some shade of shady. The inhabitants milled about, most dancing on the dance floor though women wearing bright scarlet lipstick and short knee-length dance dresses sat with men laughing. All practiced of course, though the hardly cared, the night was invented to give men a chance to drink, to make love to women he wanted to instead of suffering his wife. And the club was all about wine, women, and song. Mercella Daniels was a mix of all three. A bootlegger, woman, and singer by birth the lady had a finger in nearly every pie that was in a fifty mile radius. A Georgia-bred southerner, the excited nightlife of New York City was all the girl ever dreamed of--well combined with her career. The latter bit wasn't going too well, after all she hardly had time to practice really with all the rum running she had been roped into doing. It paid more, for sure, but certain things weigh in a girl's heart that don't exactly equal what they do in the real world. Money and happiness being two for instance. She flashed a smile to one of her friends , a leggy blonde in a sequined green dress and beaded cap walked by her empty table, hanging on to the arm of a married man. Mercella shook her head slightly and lit a cigarette, the polished ivory of the holder bringing out the blood colored lipstick she was wearing even more than the black glimmering dress she wore. For being no more than eighteen, the young woman was certainly doing good--she had her daddy's gin recipe to thank for most of it--and to be her age, working at a place like this...well she was lucky she had that gin recipe that's all. She didn't own the club, that belonged to Mr. Marcus Snyder--though from what she could tell he was a mob grunt and a low one at that. He lived in constant fear to be too high up and all but begged Mercella on his knees to lend her voice and time into this place in order to please his boss. She obliged but only on the condition that she had absolute protection in the club and half of all of the profits. In the nine onths she had been here, she had made a very decent profit, and the work really wasn't all that bad. Neither cops nor mob suspected a woman rum-runner so she was safe from most repercussions. In fact the only terrifying thing in her life was the constant looks the new men would give her, expecting her to...perform to their desires. However that was not the reason why she sat at a table all alone, a sherry bottle in front of her and her black curls in a slight disaray. No, she was waiting for him. The same man who would come every night to watch her sing and never order a drink. The same man who would look at her with such wanting in his eyes. The man who she had seen with other gangsters, their serious of quite whispers and forced laughter haunting the dark corners of the club. The man who she was more or less positive was sure of her role in the city of crime and wanted to kill her. But Mercella Daniel's was no coward and she knew that he under no terms would dare to act out publicly against her, especially on her own turf. Tonight was a night of answers, not threats. An opportunity to expand her business, or go back on the run. A night to sing, or a night to die.