My name is Izabella Czarnecka but everybody always calls me Bella. I grew up a good Polish girl in a mixed neighborhood in Chicago and when I say mixed, I mean about half Polish and half Italian but all Catholic. There were more girls from my neighborhood in the Catholic school I went to than there were in public school and I'm sure it was the same with the boys and their school Mater Dai.
I've kept my story secret for all these years, never telling a soul, not my mother, not even my sisters. Of course, I told the priest during confession but that don't count. Now that there's no one left alive but me I want to write it down before I die. As it happened almost fifty years ago, some details might be inaccurate due to my bad memory but I will do my best.
It all started in the year of my eighteenth birthday for as soon as I graduated from St. Agnes I went to work for my Uncle Tomasz at his candy store. I mean it said candy on the front of the store but everybody in the neighborhood new it was a bookie joint. My job was to be in the front and sometimes I even sold candy but mainly I was there to hit the warning light so my uncle could flash the evidence if we were raided. We never got raided except maybe during election time and even then, we always got warned. So you see my job was easy, I use to read or do my nails or maybe talk to the locals if they stopped by but my uncle didn't like that, he said it was bad for business.
One day these two men walked in, one I never saw before but the other was Fedele Fallaci who everybody called 'Fallguy Freddie' but not to his face. Now I knew Freddie from the neighborhood he was a couple years older than me and I think I always had a crush on him. He was tall, slim with dark eyes, and coal black hair that he kept combed back with lots of Wildroot on it. Oh, he knew he was good looking and he always flirted with us girls but none of us dared go with him for fear of a ruined reputation. That's not to say we didn't talk about him among ourselves, or even think about him in bed at night with our hands between our legs. I know for myself that he was the cause of a lot of Hail Mary's.
The other guy says where's my uncle, he even called him Tomz like he knew him real well. I told him he wasn't in but the whole time I was looking at Freddie. Then the guy wants to know how I know he's not in if I didn't go check. Well I knew he wasn't here because as soon as these gumbas walked in I hit the light like I'm supposed to if I don't know the guy. Of course, I can't tell him that so I say he's at the doctors. Then he says,
"That just made this your unlucky day, your coming with us. If your Uncle wants you back he can come get you."
They each grabbed me and hauled me out to their car; they didn't even let me close up the shop. I said,
"Mister, Uncle Tomz gonna be real mad at me for leaving the shop open."