EIGHT DAYS AGO: CHICAGO

Her eyes burned.  Her mouth tasted of old pennies, her lips were a brilliant shade of red but not from a new shade of lipstick – this time it was blood.

Tamsyn ran down the alleyway, the gun she’d taken from Levey held tight in her grip.  She’d lost track of how many shots she’d taken.  Was it six?  Seven?  Would she squeeze the trigger again and be let down by her last friend.

Tears filled her eyes creating halos around the street lamps.  It made the evening pretty.  She choked back a sob and tried not to think about Dean’s lost duel and the chaos that had erupted after.  She’d tried to find members of her family, but everyone had scattered in the wake of the bloodshed.  Either they were fighting to avenge the memory of the handsome Winchester who she’d come to admire so much – or trying to find a safe haven from the hell that had consumed Chicago’s streets.

Emerging onto the next street she found herself face to face with two men in suits.  The way back was blocked by the men who had chased her. 

Six? 

Seven?

It didn’t matter.  Regardless she didn’t have enough bullets. 

“I’m Winchester’s Gal Friday to the fucking end – you lousy bastards!”

“Just put the iron down little lady… we don’t wanna hurt you… much.”  The man with a toothpick hanging on his bottom lip chuckled. 

“FUCK YOU.”  She snarled point her gun at him.

“She ain’t gonna do it,” The man with the massive knobby nose snickered.  “Ain’t got the stones.”

Tamsyn pulled the trigger and toothpick guy fell to the ground dead and she wheeled back on the other three who had their guns on her in return.

Why haven’t they shot me?

“Well fuck me!” The nose chuckled, his Italian accent so thick she could have cut it with a knife.  “She is a Fazzone after all.”

“I’m gonna send you to hell for shooting my friend you dumb cunt!”  The shortest one growled.

Convinced he meant it, Tamsyn pressed her luck.

**CLICK**

The sound might as well have been the lid of her coffin closing shut.  She swallowed the lump in her throat and waited for the bullet to rip into her.  Imagine her surprise when instead they grabbed her up and began to beat her.  A small part of her found a sense of relief that they weren’t going to kill her… another part of her, a slowly growing part of her, was terrified.  That small part of her wondered: if they didn’t want her dead… what did they want? 

These were the last thoughts she had before she went unconscious.

HOURS LATER, UNKNOWN LOCATION

Everything hurt.  Her eyes came open only a tiny bit and for a moment she could see the silhouette of a man standing over her.  A hat?  Did he say something?  Had he said… howdy? 

“Cowboy …” She whimpered.

The man grabbed her by the collar of her shirt and lifted her up to her knees.  Closer to her face now and in the light, she could see a dark haired man she did not recognize.  In Italian he asked her, “Where are the Mastrosimones?”

“Who?”  She managed through lips that felt mangled and chewed up, stuck together with old blood.

“Don’t play stupid.  We know you’re working for them.  Now, where are they?”

“I don’t know anyone called Mastrosimone.”  Her voice trembled.  “Please…”

The man put her down and said to someone in the room she could not see, someone hiding in the shadows.  “Let’s see if we can’t help to jog Miss Fazzone’s memory.”

PRESENT DAY – CHICAGO

Harlow got off the plane, holding her hat so it didn’t fly away in the wind.  If Tamsyn was still alive… she was gonna find her.  If she was dead, well, she’d help Levey get closure.  One way or another she was going to help settle the books on this matter.  Mr. Posner deserved that much for all he’d done for her. 

Now… where to begin?

Harlow's calves burned, she'd been kneeling down for the past ten minutes and the lock on the door was still stuck fast.  She'd paid handsomely for the girls at the boarding house to tell her where their fellow prostitute Tamsyn lived now... now she just needed to get inside.  Pushing a stray bit of blonde hair from her face she manipulated the picks again and again.  Another two minutes passed before the satisfying click and the feel of the tumbler sliding out of place caused her to leap up. Turning the knob she quickly slipped inside the darkened living space.  

The apartment was a studio.  It was small and rather unadorned.  Shabby stained up wallpaper, mix-matched furnishings, the trash which stunk after a week not put out.  It wasn't quite what she expected of the woman who had (presumably) been Levey Posner's lover.  She walked into the room and began looking around.  First, there was the mail on the floor near the mail slot.  She picked it up & began looking through the pile.

"Bill, Advertisement..."  she paused and looked at the postcard.  She flipped it over and read aloud.

"I'm sorry I couldn't send a letter sooner.  Your Aunt told me you were in trouble, seems that must run in the family.  Things are calming down but I'm still not home and still not able to send you help.  Keep your chin up and your nose to the grindstone.  Whatever the life is throwing at you, you can handle it.  Remember who you are.  You're my daughter.  The great-niece of Lucky Lucy.  You are a Fazzone & there is nothing you can not overcome.  I love you.  -Dad"

She paused before repeating, "Fazzone.  Tamsyn Fazzone."  She had a name.  

Walking over to the phone she picked it up and dialed Levey_Posner's office, "I need to speak to Mr. Posner.  Can you tell him that Miss Harlow is on the line for him?"

"Oh Leeeee."

Margie was sweet, she really was, but the way she called his name grated on him.

"Yes Margie, what is it?"

"There is a Harlot on the phone for you. Oh, no sorry, Harlow, Miss Harlow, not harlot, silly me."

She gave him a smile and batted her eyes as she did.

"Put her through, right now."

The tone of his voice was clear and she backed out meekly. A split second later he heard the ring. Miss Paige was a good secretary when Lee cracked the whip that is.

"Harlow? What can I do for you? You need anything?"

Harlow sat down on the couch and began looking through the items on the coffee table.  "Lee, I thought you'd like to know that I've made some small progress in my hunt for your friend.  I've uncovered a few of her friends, some local haunts including her home and I just hit on the biggest bit yet... I got her family name and their location."

She looked at the postcard, "Seems she's from Catania, Sicily.  Her father is still back there.  Family name is Fazzone."  She paused, wondering if the name would mean more to Levey than it did her until she read the rest of the letter's context.

Levey grabbed a pen and paper and wrote down the information Harlow was giving him.

"Well, it's a start at least. You got names for the friends? I don't have any contacts in Sicily myself so I'll have to reach out to an old employer of mine. Unless you know some folks?"

He snapped his fingers as he wrote down 'Charlie Bryant, phone, now.' and shoved that toward Margie. She nodded and made her way back to her desk. She could see he was in business mode and that meant not disobeying him.

"Nah.  I'm not tied up to Sicily... well, maybe I am.  I wouldn't know.  I was an orphan.  Suffice to say I don't have any family in the old country that I'm aware of."

She sighed.

"The friends are some working girls.  They live at a boarding house down by the docks on Lake Michigan.  It's a little hole in the wall place.  The owner of the house is a baud named Mrs. Whitehead.  Terese Whitehead.  The girls go by the names Edith, Margo, and Lauren.  I didn't press for last names.  They had a few of her belongings and claim not to have seen her since the night that Wincester had his duel."

She picked up a pad of paper from the table and was silent for a long moment as she read the paper.

• Shopping
• Laundry
• Pick up gift for Cowboy, 6pm on 9th at dock #17

"That Texan accent of yours ... she ever call you Cowboy?"

Levey sighed and donned the accent he hadn't put on for weeks.

"Well I'll be damned. How'd you come to that little nugget darlin'?"

He let it go and made a note of the docks, the boarding house, Edith, Margo, Lauren and Terese Whitehead. There was a damned good chance Levey was going to spend some time and some money at a boarding house over the next couple weeks.

"So what can I do for you? Anything you want or need, you name it."

She smirked at the man's now silly-sounding accent.  He'd not talked that way often to her, but she'd heard it once when they first met.  Now it just sounded comical.

"I don't know where she is yet Levey... but I do know where she was when everything began that night.  She left a to-do list on her table.  Says here she was going to pick up a gift for Cowboy, the night of the duel, 6pm at dock #17.  So... I think that's probably my next stop.  If you want to know... her apartment it's located at 1187 South Sixth Street she's apartment 2e." 

Levey nodded and wrote down the building. He was going to have to get in touch with the city council, find out who owned it and maybe make a purchase with some of his cashflow.

"Hey, be careful. You don't know what's down there. At least let me send you some help to meet you huh?"

He paused a moment and thought about who he could send her way, realizing how scant the place was and settled on his answer.

"Don't be stubborn about this either. Why don't you come by the trust? We can have lunch and then head down to the dock together. I'm sure Miss Paige will be happy to see you."

"I'll come by."  She allowed.  "Just need to finish looking through the place but it looks untouched.  I'm sure she wasn't here when she disappeared."

Margie came in dragging her phone with its long cord.  She mouthed the barely spoken words, "Charlie Bryant for you, Sir!"

As soon as Levey got on the phone, Charlie greeted him, "Mr. Posner, good to hear from you.  What can I do for you today?"

Levey nodded.

"Charlie, one second."

He picked up the other phone.

"Alright Harlow, see you soon then."

He hung up and gave Margie a stare.

"Mister Bryant? I have an odd question for you considering your last name. You wouldn't happen to know anyone in Sicily I could talk to would you?"

Charlie sighed heavily as the man who he once hired to do a nasty job for him asked him a question that cut far too deep for the moment.

"No, not anymore. Not unless I want to put them at grave risk. I'm sorry Lee, I can't help you with that." He almost hung up the phone and instead turned back to AddieMoretti.

"You don't know anyone else in Sicily do you? Someone we can maybe contact so we can make sure arrangements are made out there? I'll do all the talking, you just tell me if there's anything specif..."

Then it hit him.

"Nevermind, he had a wife. I'll call her."

He turned back to the phone again.

"Yeah, I might know someone, why?"

"Just ask them if they know anyone by the name of Fazzone would ya?" 

Levey was clearly busy and didn't want to be on the phone longer than necessary.

"I'll do that lee. And I expect to see you in Philadelphia soon."

Harlow went through the apartment of a girl who was clearly a fish out of water.  An immigrant who had come to these shores thinking she had a family supporting her... only to find them absent when she needed them most.  She had big dreams, dreams of entertaining people and of a beautiful life full of joy... and now she might well be dead.

Harlow walked silently into her bedroom.  The walls were covered with the faces of beautiful people and clothes and jewelry.  She longed for a life of creature comforts and dazzling things - but the truth was that Tamsyn was poor.  Tamsyn was desperate and working the only way so many women in her position had known how... on her back.  If not for Levey and later Drax, Harlow realized that this could have been her fate too.  She'd just gotten lucky.  She'd met the right people at the right time.  Life had dealt her a kinder had, even in her suffering there was hope.  As a child, it had been a mysterious businessman and his wife buying the orphan train she'd landed on... and later that same man introducing the people who became her parents to her.  Later in life, it was Levey, Drax, Alessandra, John Walton, and of course Wayne.

Harlow smelled the woman's perfume.  She went into her drawers and imagined the sort of girl she was and why it was that Levey had fallen so very hard for her that he was willing to pay so dearly to find her.  And only once she felt she had an understanding of who Tamsyn was, and she was sure she would find nothing about the woman here that could help her, did she finally leave locking the door behind her.

---

Harlow arrived at Levey's HQ.  Margie gave her a look that didn't seem to convey anything nice but she ignored the secretary.  Harlow wasn't here to compete for Levey's affections.  Their relationship wasn't like that and so far as Harlow knew, she wasn't looking for anything like that at the moment.

Her work was her lover for the time being and it was a demanding companion.

As Levey_Posner joined her in the room she gave him a friendly smile hoping to cheer her friend up some and give him hope - they'd made progress and that was something.

"So what are we having to eat?"

Levey smiled and put his paper down on the table in the middle of the room.

"Whatever you want, Miss Paige will gladly procure something for us, or one of the boy downstairs if she's too busy. So long as it's not hot dogs I'm fine with it, no expense spared."

He gestured toward Margie and let Harlow a moment to figure out what she wanted.

"I'll have what she's having."

He smiled and nodded toward the paper on the table.

"You ever need to invest any of that extra dough you've got lying around you should consider buying in to a mutual fund. Might pay off."

He winked at Harlow and then sat, waiting for her to order lunch, and tell him what she knew.

"Turkey on rye, please.  A cold beverage too, if you please."  She said to Margie before turning back to Levey.  "I think I might have a small investment with your company currently.  With any luck it will grow into something more.  I've been passing a lot up to Drax of late, my coffers are thinning out.  I'm far from destitute but thanks to wise investing this is the lowest amount I've had in some time... no regrets, but it is what it is."

She leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs, "Her name is Thomasina."  She said digging into her purse and pulling out the postcard from Tamsyn's father and handing it to Levey.  The card had her address but the name was clearly - Thomasina Fazzone.

"She came to the United States drunk on the motion picture industry by the look of her belongings.  She clearly wanted the life of a Hollywood Starlet and much of her belongings seem to indicate she's obsessed with that world.  Her bedroom wall is plastered with photographs of leading men and beautiful actresses.  Her clothing... all of it is far pricer than her apartment leads to me to believe she can afford.  She was living well above her means at least outwardly.  Her private residence... not so much.  Its in a bad part of town, it's falling apart, she had a huge stack of bills and the girls tell me that Tamsyn still worked with them from time to time."

She shook her head realizing the boneheaded thing she'd just said, "I'm sorry, maybe you didn't want to know that..."

She sighed.

"It makes me wonder what gift we'll find she was picking up at the docks and if she ever managed to get it or if it's still there."

Levey sighed and shook his head.

"She didn't have to do that you know. I have jobs lined up from a man back east. Could set her up for life. Hell, could set you up for life if you want them, but I think you've got your own ambitions by now."

He looked at the postcard.

"Never knew her real name, not sure she knows mine to be honest. Didn't matter really. She is a firecracker and I am Cowboy, simple as that."

He chuckled.

"Well either we find out what that gift was, or we don't find anything and I pay you another fifty large to keep looking. How's that sound?"

"I can't say no to that kind of dough."  She accepted the sandwich that was brought to her by Margie and then looked back to Levey.  "The good news is that she seems resourceful.  It's entirely possible she went to ground after what happened to Dean and she's just not stuck her head out again cause she doesn't yet know it's safe to do so.  Or maybe she ran to another city.  The whole country out there after all... hell maybe she went to LA and tried to break into pictures finally.  I presume it's safe to assume she's pretty enough for pictures being that you like her so much?"

She took a drink of her cola from the glass bottle in front of her.

"If you don't mind me asking... how is it you fell for her when you know so little about her?"

Levey nodded when she asked if she was pretty enough.

 "Oh she is pretty enough that's for sure. As for how I fell for her, that's a simple story. When we met she was stealing lipstick from some store, along with some food. So I offered her work, with me, not for me. I needed a pretty distraction. There was a man you see, and he was dealing to children. I was not alright with this, and so I decided to teach him a very permanent lesson. That was about half an hour into our first foray together."

He took a bite of his own sandwich and leaned back.

"After having watched that man literally fall to pieces feet away from her, she kissed me. It was, I admit, quite the opposite of what I expected, but I liked it. So, we rifled through his pockets, made it look like a deal gone wrong and went back to my place. Well wouldn't you know it, I wake up the following morning and my wallet is EMPTY. She took my gun too!"

He shook his head and laughed, taking a sip of his own soda before continuing.

"Well, from then on I knew I had to have her in my life, she was perfect."

Harlow was silent as Levey talked about Tamsyn and after he'd gone silent for a long while she quietly offered, "She IS perfect."  She reached her hand across the table and touched Levey's for a moment, her bright blue eyes connecting with his own, "Don't give up yet.  Your firecracker might yet be out there... and if she is, we'll find her."

Realizing the touch might not have been wanted or welcome she withdrew it, "I promise."  She said looking back down to her lunch and returning to eating it.  

"I hope," She said, more to herself maybe than Levey, "That one day I find a fella who talks about me the way you talk about Tamsyn.  She's a lucky dame your firecracker."

Levey shook his head.

"Yeah, lucky. Lucky isn't the word I would use Miss Harlow. She's gone missing at the very least. Don't sound lucky to me."

He finished his soda and his sandwich then and watched as Margie came in an took their plates. She gave Harlow a sneer as she left again and Levey sighed.

"I hate how much of a good secretary she is sometimes. I know what she wants, she wants to get out of that job and just be a housewife with a lot of money and no kids. She's aiming at me too, but I'm not touching that with a ten foot pole."

he stood up and donned his jacket again.

"Alright, now that we've eaten, shall we go investigate? Find out what's going on down at the dockside?"

Harlow put a hand on her hat as she and Levey_Posner exited their car and made their way toward dock #17.  Her skirt whipped about madly as the two of them strode in the direction of the water.  A small shack was set up there and a large shipping vessel was put into port where it was being prepped to unload.  Harlow wasn't sure what cargo was on the ship in front of them, perhaps it was lumber or coal from the far northern Michigan reaches or maybe goods from as far away as New York State.

A short balding man with a clipboard came waddling out of the shack before they could reach it.  His wrinkled shirt bore the stain of his lunch near the buttons over his round belly. "LOOK ALIVE LADS, I NEED THOSE CRATES ON THE LOWER DECKS OFF BEFORE NIGHTFALL!"  He called out to some workers trudging back from their breaks.

"Excuse me?" Harlow marched up to the man.  His eyes took her in from top to bottom and back up again.  To her credit she didn't wither under his lustful examination but ignored it utterly.  "Where would someone go if they wanted to inquire about a shipment that might have come in last week?"

"Well, dollface, I'm your man."  He offered his squat hand forward, dirt under the nails, and Harlow took it for a shake though she made a note to herself to wash her hand at her next opportunity.  "Why don't you and your husband step into my office."  

"Oh no, he's not my husband he's..."  The man was motioning them into the small shack as she tried to decide what to refer to Levey as, "... just a friend." 

This seemed to be the news the fat man was looking for, again Harlow ignored his reaction.  

"Your name?"  He said walking over behind his desk.

"Abigail Harlow, but the shipment wasn't coming addressed to me."

The man nodded and explained, "I'm really not supposed to give out information about my customers to anyone.  It's bad business you know?"

She nodded, "Of course."  She said politely, "I understand how costly breaking the trust of your customers can be..." 

Harlow began to open her purse and pull out a small wad of cash.

"... and I wouldn't dare ask you to do it if this wasn't very important."  She pushed roughly one hundred dollars to the man who hesitated before picking it up - again looking at her as if hoping he had a prayer of spending time with her privately.

"What's the name of the person who was receiving the package and when did it come to port?"

"Thomasina, or maybe, Tamsyn Fazzone?"  she arched an eyebrow as he was already looking through papers.  However, the moment she'd said the woman's name the man stopped.  He looked up at her, brow furrowing.

"The red-head dame!"  He snarled.

Harlow exchanged glances with Levey before asking, "You met her then?"

"Oh yeah!  I was about to unload her shipment.  I'm not a damn storage company.  She can't just come here, see her goods and decide to leave them like that.  Do I look like I'm fucking made of money?"

"Well... we'd be happy to take it off your hands whatever it is."

"You or the damn glue factory, one way or another I'm unloading the beast today!"   The man stood up and waved for Levey and Harlow to folllow.  "This gorgeous dame shows up to pick it up.  I take her out to see the thing and some of the guys, you know, they hung out with her for a bit.  I had some calls I had to make so I wasn't here when it happened - but the men told me she ran off.  Literally.  One moment she's laughing and joking with the boys and the next... gone."

Back outside they crossed the shipping yards to a massive shipping crate isolated from the others.  With a key, he opened a lock and slid open the heavy steel door revealing Tamsyn's gift inside.  Harlow gasped.  

"Oh, Levey... she's beautiful."  She said stepping into the smelly, dark container, reaching a hand out toward the horse who lowered her head to nuzzle at Harlow's hand.  

"She's a pain in my ass."  The fat man said.  "She's eating three times the value of what I made on her and if the girl hadn't already paid for the damn thing I would have sold it days ago.  I just figured no one leaves behind something they paid that much for ..."

Harlow shook her head, still looking at the horse, "No, no one does.  Something happened here."