The Boy in the Red Dress

by Kristin Lambert

  VIKING

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York

  First published in the United States of America by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2020

  Copyright © 2020 by Kristin Lambert

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Viking & colophon is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us online at penguinrandomhouse.com

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA IS AVAILABLE

  Ebook ISBN 9780593113691

  pid_prh_5.5.0_c0_r0

  For Shannon, who took me to my first drag show. And for my sister Kelly. I’d solve a murder with you anytime.

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  CHAPTER

  1

  MY STORY BELONGS on the front page next to a photograph the size of the Saint Louis Cathedral. That’s what the reporter told me. She said I should picture my name and hers in capital letters, and imagine showing her editor and the whole city of New Orleans that girls can be the heroes of stories and write them, too. But I know the truth—newspapers only care about girls who are rich and pretty and blonde, especially when they’re dead.

  The real story is one the paper would never print.

  The real story isn’t about me or that dolled-up debutante either. It’s about my best friend, Marion, undisputed queen of the Cloak and Dagger and definitely not a murderer, no matter what the cops and the papers said.

  It started on the last night of 1929 with a knock on a door. That night, my aunt Cal had run off to Baton Rouge for a last-minute vaudeville engagement and left me in charge of her speakeasy, the Cloak and Dagger. In all the four years since my mother ditched me with her sister, Aunt Cal had never trusted anyone else with the club, so I thought something might be about to change for the better. Maybe I wouldn’t be stuck mopping floors, busing tables, and cooking Cal’s books forever. Maybe if this night went well, she’d let me quit school early and run the place on weeknights.

  New Year’s Eve is second only to Mardi Gras in the French Quarter, but Cal said I shouldn’t expect any more than the usual amount of trouble. The beat cops were bribed extra, the hidey-holes were stocked with double the hooch, Marion was getting beautiful in his dressing room, and while Frank the bouncer broke up a fight over a boy between two sailors, I was running the door.

  So, when the girl knocked, I was the lucky one who slid back the slot in the club’s front door.

  “Jittersauce,” she said confidently through the sandwich-size opening. All I could see of her were long-lashed eyes and one bright curl plastered to the middle of her forehead. She wasn’t a regular, but she was pretty and about my age and, most important, she had the password. I lifted the latch and let her in.

  Right away, I regretted it. She swept inside the club, leading a conspicuously wealthy pack, all of the kids except her sweating in oversize raccoon-fur coats. Even in dead winter most nights in New Orleans produced no worse than a clammy chill, but the girl was the only one with the sense (or the vanity) to leave the fur at home. She wore a slinky dress covered with an angular pattern of gold beads, and enough jewelry to fuel the fencing trade in the French Quarter for a month—a gold necklace with translucent green dragonfly wings spread across her collarbone, an emerald ring, and nickel-size emerald earrings that sparked light under her helmet of silvery-blonde curls.

  I tried not to roll my eyes as the Uptowners stopped just inside the door and gaped at the scene before them, tugging their fur collars away from their necks. The sign hanging over our door said we were a soda shop, but everybody who made it this far knew the truth. Including the cops we bribed to keep the feds off our backs and overlook some of the less-than-lawful things going on inside. My aunt’s club was a risky joint to be seen in, for lots of reasons, but we still got our share of looky-loos, mostly kids my age or so, who came purely for the sensation of being somewhere scandalous once in their strait-laced lives.

  Oftentimes, folks like these wandered in, took one look at the boys dancing with boys, girls with girls, and wandered themselves right back out again. This bunch looked like they were about to do the same, but their blonde ringleader jabbed an elbow in her date’s ribs, and he skittered forward like an agitated crab.

  “Go find a table,” she told him imperiously. His hair was equally platinum and looked like it was molded out of porcelain. “Please,” she said a little nicer. “I’ll be right there.”

  “You got it, peach,” he said agreeably, and the others followed after him into the smoke-hazed belly of the club.

  The girl, though, stayed put and turned to me. She opened her handbag, all covered in gold beads to match her dress. For a second, I thought she was going to give me a tip, and I’ll admit, I wasn’t going to turn it down.

  “Hello, Miss . . . ?” she said, like she was waiting for me to fork over a last name.

  I leaned forward on my stool, fingering the collar of the tuxedo jacket Aunt Cal didn’t know I’d borrowed. “Call me Millie.”

  “Okay. Millie.” She looked flustered all of a sudden, different from when her friends were around. It made her seem younger, less like a queen. She held out a small photograph. “Have you ever seen”—she edged closer, as if afraid of being overheard, though the jazz band’s blasting made it unlikely—“a boy who looked like this? In here?”

  “Can’t say that I have.” I adjusted Cal’s top hat over my chin-length black hair to avoid taking a closer look at the picture. It was one of Cal’s rules for all of us working at the Cloak and Dagger club; you didn’t give out names and you didn’t confirm you’d seen anybody here. We’d had wives and husbands come looking, fiancées, boyfriends, mothers. They didn’t get far with us.

  The girl’s tidy penciled brows came together in a frown, and she stamped her little gold-clad foot. “But you didn’t even look!”

  Two knocks sounded on the door, and I held up a finger to silence her. I flipped up the panel in the door. Three of the Red Feather Boys, which is what Marion and I call his most devoted fans, wa
ited outside. I didn’t bother to ask them for the password and jerked open the door on its squealing hinges.

  “Welcome! Welcome!” I said, sweeping off the top hat with a flourish. The boys grinned, and I waved the hat toward the bar. “Drinks are thataway, fellas!”

  “Lookin’ swell, Millie,” one of them said, nudging me with an elbow. “Is that lipstick I see?”

  “Nah,” I lied. “Just ate half a jar of maraschino cherries.”

  Truth was, I’d found a tube of stage lipstick in the flotsam on Aunt Cal’s dresser and swiped it on, then quickly rubbed it back off with a handkerchief. It’d felt too waxy, too red, and false as a three-dollar bill.

  Not that I minded a good lie. It just had to be one that suited me. And red lipstick didn’t. That was Marion’s affair.

  When I turned back, the rich girl was still standing there. I sighed and stuck my hands in my trousers pockets, touching the pearl-handled switchblade in one and a brass money clip in the other.

  “Please look again.” She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and looked up at me through those unreasonably long lashes. She was a number, all right. Too flashy for me, but maybe our waitress Olive would like her. Might even steal her away from that porcelain-doll date for a smooch at midnight. Not that I particularly liked the thought of that either.

  I rolled my eyes heavenward, but I plucked the photograph from Blondie’s hand, only to make a show of taking a closer look.

  But once my eyes were really on the picture, I couldn’t even blink. The boy in it was handsome, with shining hair and dramatic cheekbones like a movie star’s. It was Marion. Our Marion.

  His brows were thicker instead of plucked into fashionably skinny arches like they were now, but his smile was the same, showing all his million white teeth. He looked happy in this picture, at least for this moment. It didn’t exactly fit what I knew of Marion’s past.

  “You’ve seen him,” the rich girl said, the words sucking in on a breath.

  I forced myself to blink, to look up at her, away from the picture, and stretch my lips into a languid smile. “Nah. Handsome fella, though.” I tipped back in my chair. “Your date know you’re on the prowl for another guy?”

  The girl’s lashes fluttered. Her lips pursed into a high-hatty expression, little nose pointed up, eyes narrow. She snatched the photograph out of my fingertips.

  “I know you recognized him. So I’m not leaving. Not until I find him.”

  “Be my guest, sis.” I spread out my hands, grin broadening. “Buy all the liquor you want while you wait.”

  “Thanks for nothing,” she said, and whirled away so forcefully the strands of beads on her dress whipped against my trousers.

  “You’re welcome!” I called after her.

  I half turned to let another group in the door, but I kept one eye on Blondie. She sashayed her way through the maze of crumbling red-brick columns and tightly packed round tables, dodging around a pair of women leaning their heads so close together I knew they’d probably sneak out to the balcony later for some privacy. This building had been a cigar factory in its less-sordid past, and Blondie passed all eight of the tall windows we’d boarded over to dampen the sounds of our music and block the view from nosy cops and neighbors. The girl’s bright hair and dress subdued in the warm, smoky cave, she sat down at the table her group had chosen, right near the stage under one of the electric candelabras hanging on the walls. I had a perfect view of her, and she had a perfect view of Marion’s next show.

  A shiver of misgiving traveled up my spine. Marion rarely talked about his past. All I knew was he’d been from the rich part of town once, too, but something had happened with his family and he took off.

  If this girl thought she could drag him back into that world, she had another think coming.

  “Frank,” I said, tapping the bouncer on his oversize shoulder.

  He held up a hand to hush me while he finished dealing with the sailors, whose friends had showed up and joined the argument.

  “You fellas will have to leave if you can’t get along.”

  “It’s a free country,” yelled one of the sailors, jabbing a finger toward Frank’s face. “We can go where we want!”

  I knew what was coming next and took a step backward to give Frank room. He snatched up the sailor by the collar, so that his toes barely scraped the floor. I held open the door, and Frank tossed him out, right onto the concrete banquette bordering Toulouse Street. His friends quickly followed.

  I let the door slam shut behind them and brushed off my hands like I’d done the dirty work.

  Frank grinned and cuffed me gently on the shoulder, his teddy-bear side breaking through the tough demeanor he put on for the customers. “What’d you need, Mill?”

  “If you’re still in the mood to throw somebody out . . .” I pointed to the rich kids’ table. “There’s an Uptowner here looking for Marion.”

  Frank smirked. “The fella with the yellow hair?”

  “The girl next to him.”

  Frank gave me a skeptical look. “I’m not in the business of knocking around little girls.”

  “C’mon, you don’t have to punch her in the teeth. Just escort her out. Ladylike.”

  Frank snorted, crossing his muscled arms over his broad chest. “What would your aunt say? They look like big spenders.”

  “She’d say kick ’em to the curb,” I lied.

  But Frank’s known Cal almost as long as I have, and his dubious expression only deepened. “Go tell Marion they’re here. If he says throw ’em out, I’ll throw ’em out. But not until then.”

  “Fine. I’ll ask him.” I held up both hands in surrender. “But keep an eye on ’em, okay?”

  Frank nodded, the lamps shining yellow on his pale bald head. “Count on it.” He hitched a thumb toward the front door. “First sign of trouble, and they’re out.”

  * * *

  “It’s me,” I said after a three-beat knock, though he’d already know. I was the only one allowed in his dressing room before a show. No one else bothered to try anymore, even the Red Feathers, who could be a tad overeager in their admiration.

  Marion slid the latch, and his eyes went wide. “God, is it ten thirty already?”

  He dashed back to his vanity table before I had the door full open, his silky red dressing gown trailing behind him. He jerked pins out of his hair and tossed them in a little bowl on the table, clink-clink-clink. In the mirror, his fine collarbone peeked above the lacy edge of his slip; the smooth slope of his thigh stretched out below it.

  I shut the door behind me and propped against it. “Ten. You got plenty of time.”

  “Easy for you to say.” Marion waved a hand impatiently behind him. “Pass me those stockings.”

  The stockings were draped over the edge of the Chinese screen in the corner. I snatched them down, balled them up, and tossed them to Marion.

  “Watch it!” he cried, shooting me a horrified look and examining the stockings for snags.

  “How much those things set you back?”

  “You don’t want to know.” He rolled them up his legs one by one, letting his dressing gown fall open. When it was just the two of us, he never bothered to hide the tight undergarment he’d sewn to disguise the parts of his body that spoiled his sleek silhouette in a dress.

  “Big crowd tonight,” I said. “Even for New Year’s. All your Red Feathers are here.”

  Marion swiveled on his stool toward the mirror and began laying out his makeup in an orderly row on the dressing table, trying not to look excessively pleased.

  “There’s . . . something else I need to tell you.” I fiddled with the pins on his dressing table and slid my gaze sideways toward his face. “There’s a bunch of raccoon coats out there. Look like they’re from over in your old stomping grounds.”

  Marion smiled at my reflection as
he selected a pencil from his collection. “Pretending they’re at the Pansy Club tonight, are they? New York City entertainment for New Year’s Eve?”

  I didn’t smile back or even smirk. “I don’t know. But one of them is showing around a photograph. Looking for somebody.”

  “Who?”

  “A boy.” I bit my lip. Hesitated. “A boy who looks an awful lot like you.”

  Marion’s face froze into a mask as he traced his plucked brows in dark brown pencil with long, confident strokes. “Oh? And which one of them was doing the asking?” His tone was casual, flippant, but I detected a catch in his voice, a higher pitch even than the one he feigned onstage.

  “Some girl,” I said. “A real ritzy kitten. Blonde hair. Emeralds. The works.”

  Marion dipped his finger in Vaseline and rubbed it across each gracefully arched brow to make them shine. If I wasn’t mistaken, his finger trembled.

  “You know anybody like that, Mar?” I said.

  “Can’t say that I do.” He took his time filling his lips with Siren Red, his eyes not meeting mine in the mirror. “Must’ve been some other kid in that picture.”

  “Marion,” I said, laying a hand on his shoulder.

  But he abruptly rose and went to the clothes rack, dropping the dressing gown from his shoulders. He took his favorite red dress off its hanger and carefully stepped into it.

  “Come be a doll and button me up?” He smiled at me over his shoulder, as if nothing was amiss, but he wasn’t fooling me.

  Six tiny red buttons at the small of his back held the flimsy contraption together. He could do them up himself, but it took some contortion. He might break a sweat.

  “Marion,” I said quietly to the center of his back as I finished the last button. “They’re sitting right near the front. If that girl—”

  “Don’t worry, Millie.” He tugged on a pair of long white gloves and turned, smoothing his dress in the full-length mirror on the open door of the armoire. Side by side, our reflections were almost the same height, with the same lanky arms and angular hips. With him in a red dress and me in a black tailcoat and wide-legged trousers, there wasn’t much to say which of us was born a girl and which a boy.