Chapter 9

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keep shtum
If someone “keeps shtum,” they’re keeping their mouth shut, often deliberately, to avoid trouble or revealing a secret.

chorine
A chorine was a chorus girl — that is, a female dancer or singer who performed as part of the chorus line in stage revues, musicals, or night-club floorshows.

Club Palermo
As for a Prohibition/’30s Hamtramck nightspot, the one most often cited is the Venice Club on Joseph Campau Ave. It served as HQ for Chet “Chet” LaMare’s East Side Gang and was a notorious Hamtramck joint of the era. There's no record of a "Club Palermo"; "Hamtramck" joint just off the Joseph Campau midway of sin, 58;

Hamtramck
a city in Michigan, 6 miles north of Detroit.

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skip-steppin
“Skip step” or “skip-stepping” could refer to a kind of light, bouncing dance footwork, akin to skipping or hopping. It may also have been used colloquially to mean leaving quietly, sneaking away, or taking a quick move.

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the suicides' bridge
By “Suicides’ Bridge” in Chicago, people almost always mean the old Lincoln Park High Bridge (sometimes called “Suicide Bridge” or “Bridge of Sighs”) — a pedestrian structure over the Lincoln Park Lagoon that gained a dark reputation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By some estimates, around 100 people took their lives from it over its existence.