I was unable to locate Mr. De Lora within the smoky confines of the speakeasy, however. I even worked my way through the maze of tables, thinking perhaps he was seated with a customer, but there was no sign of him. At last, I made my way to the bar, where I had met him the previous evening.
“I’m looking for Mr. De Lora,” I told the bartender. “I was here last night, and he told me to come back.”
The bartender shrugged. “I ain’t seen him yet this evening.”
I nodded, pushing down my disappointment. Perhaps he didn’t mean to meet me after all. “All right. I’ll just sit over there,” I said, pointing to a table in the corner. “If you see him, will you tell him I’m here? Rose Kelly.”
“Sure. I’ll tell him.”
“Thank you.”
I was about to make my way to the table in the corner, but the music started then and Esther Hayes moved to the center of the floor. Tonight she was wearing a gown of silver satin. She began to sing, her voice flowing through the room, subtle changes in her expression conveying the emotion behind the lyrics.
“She’s good, ain’t she?”
I turned at the sound of the bartender’s voice. He was leaning against the bar, watching Miss Hayes. It was the first sign he had shown of any interest in conversation with me.
“Yes,” I said. “Very good. Mr. De Lora tells me people come a long way to see her.”
He nodded. “She has her share of admirers.”
There was something in the way he said it that drew my attention.
“I imagine so. She sings so well.”
“We joke sometimes that she casts a spell with her voice. Like one of those sirens from mythology.”
I looked at him. With his rough and foreboding demeanor, and the hairy, brawny forearms, smattered with tattoos, leaning against the bar, I would not have thought him a student of mythology. I was reminded once again that it was never prudent to judge a book by its cover.
“Perhaps she’ll be famous one day,” I suggested.
“Maybe so. A couple of guys came in here once, wanting her to go away and make recordings, but she wouldn’t. She’s too loyal.”
“That’s admirable,” I said, though privately I wondered if such a thing would have provided her with more opportunities than singing nightly in a speakeasy, however much notoriety it possessed.
“And there are gentlemen admirers, I suppose,” I said.
He nodded. “Though the boss doesn’t let them bother her. He even had to talk to one of our employees who wouldn’t leave her alone.”
My ears perked up at this. I wondered if it could possibly have been Grant Palmer. After all, I was coming to learn that the man had been infamous for his relentless pursuit of women.
“I see,” I said, hoping that he would elaborate. He didn’t, however, and for a moment we stood without talking, listening to the soothing sounds of Esther Hayes’s voice coating the room like honey.
I was just about to attempt to find the right way to inquire about the identity of this troublesome employee, when the barkeep straightened suddenly and I heard a voice beside me.
“Hello, Rose.”
I had been so absorbed in the music that I hadn’t even noticed Mr. De Lora approaching. Or perhaps it was that he moved with a predatory grace, appearing out of nowhere with little warning. Yes, he was very like a panther, I decided. Sleek, dark, and deadly.
“Hello, Mr. De Lora.” I turned to face him, offering a confident smile. “I’m back.”
“So I see. I’m glad Eddy here was keeping you entertained.”
His dark gaze flickered to the bartender, and I could sense the man had stiffened slightly behind me before he went back to wiping down the bar with a rag.
“We were just enjoying Miss Hayes’s singing,” I said.
Mr. De Lora motioned to a nearby table. “Shall we?”
I preceded him to the table and he pulled out a chair for me before taking the one across the table and lowering himself easily into it. There was something very elegant about his movements, though there was clearly that menace below the surface.
“I thought maybe Esther would’ve given you enough for a story.”
“I think Miss Hayes is very interesting, but I was looking for a different angle from the entertainment one. People are interested in you, Mr. De Lora.”
Mr. De Lora said nothing as he pulled a cigarette from his gold case and put it between his lips.
He felt his pockets, but it seemed that there was no lighter to be had, so he motioned to a woman who was wearing a low-cut gown and carrying a tray of cigarettes. She came quickly to the table.
“What would you like, Mr. De Lora?” she asked, flashing her dimples at him.
“Some matches.”
She handed them over. “Anything else I can do for you?” I had the distinct feeling she wasn’t talking about the items in the little tray she carried.
His eyes swept over her. “I’ll let you know, baby.”
She gave him another smile, then turned and walked unhurriedly away. He watched her retreating figure for a moment before turning back to me.
“Smoke?”
“Thank you, no.”
He lit his cigarette and tossed the matches onto the table.
“Now, where were we?”
I looked down at the book of matches. The cover of the book showed a cocktail glass, with the words De Lora’s written across it in gold letters.
My brows rose. “It’s a bit brazen to advertise your speakeasy on a book of matches, isn’t it?”
He smiled. “It’s a show of pride, of sorts. Nothing illegal about matches, after all.”
“No, I suppose not.”
“We’ve got several different designs. One has a drawing of Esther on them. Another one has just my name printed. Good advertising for my nightclubs.”
So we were back to that again. I was going to have to find a way to redirect the conversation from his talk of the De Lora nightclub chain. But then he did it for me.
“One of my competitors, Frankie Earl, even stole the idea for his place, the Lightning Lounge,” he said. “That’s not the only thing he’s stolen from me. No honor among thieves, eh?”
My ears perked up at this mention of Frankie Earl. His name had been hovering in the background of this case, and I was curious to learn more about him.
“What sort of man is this Mr. Earl?” I asked.
“A two-bit thug,” Mr. De Lora said succinctly. “A crook and a cheapskate, to boot. I heard a rumor he was too stingy to order enough custom matches to give out at his place, so he’s currently giving them only to his ‘trusted associates.’ He’s billing it as some kind of badge of honor.” He gave a derisive chuckle. “My guys prefer money to matches.”
Esther Hayes had gone backstage by this point, and the band resumed playing. This one was a lively tune, and several couples rose from their tables to make their way to the dance floor.
“Do you dance, Rosie?” Mr. De Lora asked.
Somehow I did not imagine that he meant the waltz. “Not really,” I said.
I was worried for a moment that he might press me to attempt some American dance with which I wasn’t familiar and my ruse might be discovered, but he didn’t suggest we move to the dance floor. He really didn’t strike me as the type of man who might enjoy dancing.
“So what do you want to know?” he asked.
I had considered this from many different angles. I had come to realize that Leon De Lora was not going to let something slip unintentionally. He was too smart for that, too wary. If I wanted answers, I was going to have to ask him direct questions.
“There … there is something I’ve been wanting to ask you,” I ventured.
He waited, his dark eyes on my face. I imagined that tougher people than I had looked into those eyes and lost their nerve, but I had come this far. I might as well press forward.
“I’ve heard some rumors,” I said.
Still he said nothing.
His expression didn’t so much as flicker. It was enough to make me wonder, just for a moment, if it was possible I had been mistaken and he didn’t know Grant Palmer at all.
He said something then in a low voice, but it was growing difficult to hear amidst the raucous music.
I leaned a bit closer. “I beg your pardon?”
“Let’s go to my office and talk,” he repeated.
I felt a hint of wariness at this suggestion, but it was true enough that it was hard to hear over the music.
He stood and waited for me to follow his lead. I hesitated momentarily, then rose from my seat. He turned and wove his way among the tables, through the crowds, and toward a door located unobtrusively in a wall to the left of the bar. There was a man standing outside, arms folded in front of him, who gave a slight nod to Mr. De Lora as he pulled the door open.
He led me through a door and into a dim corridor. I had the vague feeling that it might not be the best of ideas to follow him to this secluded part of his club, but I also knew that if Leon De Lora had determined I was a threat then there was probably little I could do to protect myself.
It wasn’t exactly a comforting thought.
The corridor was not as elaborately finished as the rest of the club. Here the bare brick of the basement walls was exposed and a procession of pipes followed along the ceiling above our heads, branching off in various directions like the roots of some great metal tree beneath the ground. A short way beyond the door, a little alcove was stacked with wooden boxes and crates, the shipping containers for his liquor, I supposed. Beyond the alcove there were several closed doors.
He led me past them to a wooden door near the end of the corridor. Stopping before it, he pushed it open and motioned for me to precede him through it.
I stepped into the room, unsure of what to expect, but I definitely had been picturing something more sinister than the comfortable, well-appointed office that lay before me. The floors were parqueted in an alternating pattern of light and dark wood, which glowed in the light from lamps that sat on tables placed around the room. A pair of deep, green leather chairs sat before a bookshelf that lined one wall and another pair faced a large desk on which sat neat stacks of paper.
Mr. De Lora walked to one of the chairs near the bookcase and motioned to it. “Sit down, won’t you?”
I sat, and he moved to the little sideboard that sat against a wall. “You want a drink?”
“No, thank you.”
He poured himself something from a crystal decanter then came and took the chair across from me, crossing one leg easily across the other.
“Now,” he said, offering me a smile. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re really here.”
There was nothing overtly threatening in his words, but I felt it would behoove me to tread carefully. Nevertheless, I had come this far now, and I did not intend to back down.
I drew in a breath and plunged ahead. “I’d like to know why Grant Palmer was killed.”
The smile changed, a certain hardness creeping into the corners of his mouth, and he sat back in his seat. “You working for the police?”
“No,” I said.
“Then what’s your stake in this?”
I debated on how much of the truth I should tell him. I thought it would be best if I continued the ruse of being an American reporter on the trail of a good story.
“I heard that he was killed and that he worked for you. I thought I would try to get a scoop.”
“You’re a reckless little thing, aren’t you?” I couldn’t tell if there was amusement in his tone or an accusation. Whatever it was, it was vaguely annoying.
“I like to think of myself as persistent.”
He took a sip of his drink before he answered. “I don’t know who killed Grant Palmer.”
I could tell that I was going to have to be direct. I recognized that look, the look of a man who was closing himself off from my questions. I didn’t intend for that to happen if I could help it. I had worked too hard building a connection with Mr. De Lora. I knew that he appreciated action, and so I decided to be bold.
“There are rumors that someone who works for you might have killed him.” I didn’t say, of course, that I had heard this directly from the police.
This accusation didn’t bring about any sort of intense reaction. He almost seemed bored by it. “Anyone gets iced in the city, chances are it’ll be blamed on me or one of my associates. That doesn’t mean we did it.”
“That doesn’t mean you didn’t,” I countered.
He studied me for a moment, and I took the opportunity to study him in return. The lighting in this room was much better than it was in the dim, smoky speakeasy.
He was just as handsome in the light as he had been in the shadows, but there was an edge to his attractiveness. I judged him to be about Milo’s age, perhaps slightly older, but there was something very hard about his dark eyes that made me certain he had lived a difficult life.
“You want the truth?” he said at last. “I’ve killed a lot of guys.”
I wondered if my face betrayed my surprise at this admission. I certainly hadn’t expected him to say such a thing.
He studied me for a moment, then added, “Of course, that was a long time ago. In France.”
In France? Of course. The war.
“You were in the army,” I said.
“American Expeditionary Forces. I saw a lot of action.”
He leaned back in his chair, swirling the liquid in the glass in his hand.
“There are a lot of stories about me, baby. This, for example.” He pointed to the scar on his cheek. “The papers have claimed it was a knife fight, or a broken bottle in a barroom brawl. But do you know what it really was? A German bayonet.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
He shrugged. “The other guy got the worst of it.”
I didn’t doubt it. I had met men who presented a front of bluster and bravado, but I felt instinctively that there was no pretense about the danger in this man.
“I did my part for this country,” he went on. “When I came back from France, I figured it was time that this country did something for me.”
There was a certain logic in what he said, I supposed. At least I could see how one might make that assumption. There were, I had noticed, several different ways men went about dealing with what had happened in the war. Some of them had shut down, closed their minds off from the memories they could not bear to live with. Some had soldiered on, doing their best to forget. And some, as I suspected was Mr. De Lora’s case, came away with a determination to make life pay for the hand it had dealt them. I had not faced the horrors they had faced, so I could not judge the decisions they made.
That didn’t make his career in crime right. But I had not come here to pass judgment on his career as a bootlegger. I had come here wondering what he could possibly tell me about the death of Grant Palmer.
“And so it has. I’ve made a good life for myself, and I don’t regret any of it.”
“I’m not here to talk about bootlegging, Mr. De Lora,” I said.
“No,” he replied, a smile touching the corners of his mouth. “I suppose you’re not.”
He seemed to consider something for a moment, and I sincerely hope it wasn’t “icing” me, the fate he had mentioned befalling other unfortunates who had crossed him. At last, however, it seemed that he had made up his mind.
“Palmer worked for me at one point, but he was never what I would call one of my most trusted associates,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Because I have good instincts, and I knew Palmer wasn’t the kind of man you could trust.”
“Everyone I’ve spoken to found him very amiable,” I said, only narrowly remembering not to say that I had met him.
“Oh, he was likable enough. The ladies liked him, certainly. But I don’t think there was anything especially loya
l about him. He went to work for Frankie Earl, but he could’ve just as easily decided to talk to the police if it benefited him. He was the kind of guy that would be willing to sell you out if the opportunity arose.”
It occurred to me that perhaps just such an opportunity had arisen and that Mr. De Lora had not taken kindly to it.
“So I gave him a few small jobs. I let him bring in some of his friends. He ran in high circles after he got out of prison.”
This caught my attention. “What do you mean?”
“A few years ago he was practically out on the streets. I knew him back in the neighborhood. Then he went to prison for a few months, and when he got out his luck improved. He was spending time with a much classier group of people and he had adapted himself to their world, did a decent job of it from what I saw.”
My mind was beginning to turn in an uncomfortable direction. It seemed possible that Grant Palmer’s imprisonment might have some connection to the secret in Tom’s past. Was that where they had met? It was just possible that Grant had been demanding money to keep it a secret, and that might be reason enough for Tom to have killed him.
“What did he go to prison for?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I never asked.”
“But you said he no longer worked for you.” I remembered what Detective Andrews had said, that Grant Palmer had gone to work for Frankie Earl, Mr. De Lora’s rival. I wondered if he would admit as much to me.
“No, I cut him loose. Like I said, I value loyalty and Palmer wasn’t the loyal type. I had no reason to kill him, though, and if I had I would’ve done a cleaner job of it.”
I studied him, trying to determine if he was telling the truth. He was an interesting character, Leon De Lora. There was more to him than met the eye, more than the caricature of a killer that was presented in the papers. I had no doubt he was a killer. He talked about killing with ease, and there was no hint of tortured memories in his eyes, the remorse that burdened those of tender conscience after the heat of battle was past. But I was not here to solve New York’s crime problems or to accuse him of whatever deaths lay in his professional wake. My focus was much narrower than that.
A Dangerous Engagement Page 21
