The Hustle (An Agent Carter Fanfic)

The Hustle

Angie knows places hidden in the depths of this city. Illegal places that could get you killed. She knows the seedy underbelly of the mafia, of the thugs and the fights down at Hell's Kitchen that ain't sanctioned by any gaming board. She knows all about that boxer who throws fights like it's his job and the men who pay him good money to do it. She knows where the gamblin' halls are tucked down into basements, and she knows the handful of places in town where she can gamble her way to three thousand flush where no one will think twice if she shows up with a girl on her arm.

Her plan isn't to show up at any old gin joint and hope for the best. She lacks the proper plumbing for that, after all. Men don't take her seriously in a full uniform at the automat, and she's sure to get run out if she shows up with English. Maybe, if Peggy hadn't been home when this all started it would be easier to play into that expectation. She's done it before, got herself a reputation back home for it too. Tito's right to say she's better, even if she doesn't play much anymore. It's like riding a bicycle down by the beach, you never forget it.

She isn't going back to Brooklyn.

Slick Betty - Elizabeth Markowitz in a professional light - has been on the periphery of Hoover's watch lists for close to two decades now. They can't actually arrest her, her father is too powerful and she isn't technically doing anything wrong hosting parties for a certain sort of well-to-do ladies at her home, but everyone knows that it's really just a front for a safe place for women of a certain predilection to gather and carry on the way society would find uncouth.

Angie's known Betty for years now; they met on the recommendation of a long-lost love. She'd tried to be good for her mother, tried to date a nice navy man at Fleet Week, but it had fallen apart so quickly. She'd brought him round to dinner and even her Ma, who hated to even discuss Angie's wrongness could see it was killing Angie to be around him. She sent him away with a slice of pie and sat next to Angie silently on the couch, her fingers twisting her rosary over and over again.

Good girls don't go out to bars alone, her ma always said, but it was only at bars that Angie could fade into the shows and look at the girls and catch them looking back at her. She was cured, her illness stamped as 'in remission' and she hated putting on the airs. There were whispers of places that she could go back at that place. Places that wouldn't get you tossed back into the asylum, the key thrown away. Angie memorized them all.

It took three weeks to work up the courage to walk on the same street as the one establishment that Catherine - her cell mate and the first girl she'd ever kissed - told her about. A black door cut into the red brick of a building, an advertisement for Coca-Cola painted beside it. It did not look like anything at all. But it held her doom and damnation in its chipping paint and nailed-shut mail slot.

Angie spent her weekend sitting in the diner across the street, watching women walk up to the door and go inside. "You thinkin' 'bout joinin'?" her waitress asked on the second day after Angie laid out a handful of coins for pie and coffee.

Angie played dumb. "Joinin'? Where?"

"The ladies' club across the street. I see you lookin'."

"I ain't lookin'."Angie shook her head. "Besides, are they gonna want an Italian from Brooklyn? Looks to be all rich dames in there."

Her waitress pursed her lips and swept the coins Angie left on the table into her palm. "You'd be surprised, Brooklyn. It takes all sorts." She swept away with a pointed look at the door across the street.

It was another week before Angie worked up the courage to go inside. It was a Friday night, and gals were clustered around the door, waiting to be let in. Angie stood off by herself, fingers in gloves and her coat too pressed. She felt uncomfortable in a dress that barely touched her knees, but no one was looking at her strangely. She was dressed for going out and for having a good time, but inside she felt like dying.