The Boy in the Red Dress

by Kristin Lambert

  Our faces were inches apart, closer than we’d ever been. The entire room was reduced to the pressure of her arm and the warmth of her palm against mine, the invitation in her golden eyes and the smile that curled up one corner of her lips.

  Our bodies started moving together without even trying to, like they were meant to do it. Like they’d know how to do it just as well without these pesky clothes in between us.

  My cheeks flushed hot, and I told myself it was from the dancing. I tried to concentrate on making my feet flash, the way I’d learned back when Mama was still lugging me around the vaudeville circuit. For once, I was glad about something she’d taught me, because it kept me from tripping in her heels and falling on my backside in front of Olive.

  The air whipped my hair against my face as we spun together around the floor, and the silver and gold beads of our dresses spun together, too. The waves Marion had sculpted in my hair were rapidly falling, and I didn’t care. Olive reached up a hand to brush one of them out of my eyes, and I couldn’t suppress a giggle at her touch. Her smile could have melted ice caps.

  When the song was over, Olive’s arm curled tighter around me instead of letting me go. For one moment, two, my body was pressed full-length against hers.

  “You’ve been holding out on me,” she said, chest heaving, her voice low. “Didn’t know you could dance like that.”

  “There’s a lot of things about me you don’t know.”

  “I’d like to, if you’d let me.”

  I believed her. I wanted to let her. But a flicker of fear shot through me, like a flame racing up a curtain. Dancing with her, even kissing her I could do. But liking her, really liking her? Waiting, hoping she liked me the same way? Waiting, waiting for her to change her mind and leave?

  “I’m thirsty,” I said. “Want to sit the next one out?”

  Olive blinked, like she was waking up from a spell. I didn’t wait for her to answer. I spun away, and on the way back to the table, noticed we’d attracted more than a few curious stares. I didn’t know anyone here, but Olive did, and I peeked back at her to see if she minded. As if she read my thoughts, she leaned closer and said, “I wasn’t the one who wanted to quit dancing.”

  I reddened. “Olive, that isn’t why—”

  “Oh, look,” she said abruptly. “My friend is coming.”

  I turned to see the band taking five and the bass player weaving his way through the crowd in our direction. “See?” I said. “We couldn’t have danced another anyway.”

  Olive ignored me and moved to meet Boots halfway. They embraced, and I saw him whisper something in her ear. She glanced over her shoulder at me, then shook her head. She turned back toward me at last, towing her friend along by the sleeve.

  “Boots, this is Millie. Millie, this is Boots.”

  I stuck out my hand. Boots shook it warmly, but his eyes were understandably wary. I was a stranger here, an intruder in a space that wasn’t for me.

  “I hear you need a favor,” he said in a voice almost as deep as his upright bass.

  “I do. Can you talk to us about a blonde girl my age who came in here a few times?”

  “What for?”

  “She was murdered a couple weeks ago.”

  Boots’s stance changed to a defensive one and his head tipped back. “And you think somebody in here did it, huh?”

  I held up my hands. “That’s not what I’m saying. But she told people she was coming here and I’m trying to piece together what happened during her last days alive.”

  Boots snorted, looking like he wanted to tell me to get the hell out—and I couldn’t blame him when I’d want to do the same to anyone snooping around the Cloak—but Olive gave him a sharp dig in the ribs with her elbow. My ribs were still bruised from her earlier jab, so I felt a sympathetic ache.

  “Ow!” he said, rubbing his side through his shirt. “Okay. Okay. For you, Olive. I’ll tell you what I know. But not in here.”

  “Then where?” I said.

  “Outside. Follow me.”

  CHAPTER

  25

  WE WERE IN front of the Pelican under the streetlight and the gnarled branches of live oaks, this time with Boots. The street was mostly deserted, but I heard the echoes of someone’s laughter, and a scuffing sound like someone’s shoes on pavement. I had the feeling we were being watched—and maybe we were. There were plenty of houses with windows overlooking this corner, plenty of massive trees to hide behind.

  “You got a picture of this blonde girl?” Boots said.

  I already had my notebook flipped to the photograph of Arimentha from the newspaper, and I handed it over. Boots pushed the fedora farther back on his head and angled the notebook toward the light.

  “I heard about this. Somebody shoved her off the balcony, right?”

  “At my aunt’s speak, the Cloak and Dagger.”

  Boots whistled. “So, you’re in bad shape.”

  “My friend’s the one in hot water—the cops think he did it. That’s why I’m here. Because he didn’t do it.”

  “And you’re hoping I’m just gonna hand over the dude who did, right? Let some friend of mine take the fall instead?”

  He was saying everything I would say to a customer asking nosy questions. “I’m looking for the truth, that’s all,” I said. “I don’t think the cops care about that enough.”

  Boots snorted. “You got that part right. But I’m not interested in putting a black man in their sights instead of your ‘friend.’”

  Olive laid a hand on his arm. “We don’t want that either. You don’t have to trust Millie, but you know me. If that was her thing, I wouldn’t have brought her here.”

  “I promise you, nobody innocent is going down because of me,” I said. “I’m just trying to find out who she’s been sneaking around with. The guy might not even be responsible for anything, but he might know who did it. Please . . . can you tell me, Boots—have you seen this girl here before?”

  Boots stared at Minty’s photo in silence for so long I’d almost decided our goose was cooked. But then he handed the notebook back to me and sighed heavily. “Yeah, I’ve seen her. Came in maybe four, five times the last couple of months. Always alone. Sat right at the end of the bar, close to the band. Downed a couple drinks, looking at her watch. Then right at eleven o’clock, she’d take off, like she had an appointment to keep.”

  I leaned forward eagerly. “Did you ever see who she met?”

  Boots shook his head. “She always went back out the way she’d come—alone. Way I figured it, someone was meeting her outside. Or maybe at the Felicity Inn over there. They rent rooms by the hour.”

  I whirled to look where he was pointing. There were nothing but gnarled live oaks and tall, dark houses. “Where is it?”

  “They don’t splash it around that they’re a hotel. If the city knew about them, they’d have to follow the city’s rules, know what I mean?”

  “So it’s the kind of place you’d have to hear about from somebody else,” I said, looking at Olive.

  She nodded slowly. “And how would an Uptowner like Minty hear about it? Surely, they’ve got their own version of this kind of hotel on their end of town.”

  “That means she probably heard about it from the guy,” I said.

  “Maybe he’s the one who told her about the Pelican, too.”

  “You’re saying it’s one of our customers,” Boots said, shaking his head. “Just like I figured you would.”

  “Not necessarily,” I said. Quickly, I flipped the notebook to Roy’s picture and held it out to him, just in case. “What about him? Did you ever see him around here?”

  Boots looked and shook his head. “Don’t think so.”

  It was a long shot, but I showed him the pictures of Jerome Rosenthal, Claude Holiday, and Philip Leveque, too. Boots hadn’t seen any of them either.
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  “Then did she ever talk to anyone when she was here?” I said, feeling nonplussed.

  Boots rubbed a hand across his face. “Not that I saw. Tell you the truth, she looked like trouble waiting to happen, and nobody wanted a part of that.” His gaze passed over me top to toe. “And you? You got that same look. I have to get back inside. My break’s about over.”

  “But wait, what—”

  “Let the man get back to work, Millie,” Olive cut in and flashed him a smile. “Thanks, Boots. I owe you one. If you think of anything else, call us at the Cloak and Dagger. Hemlock 5163.”

  Boots touched the brim of his hat and backed toward the courtyard. “Don’t be surprised if you don’t hear from me.”

  Olive nodded. “We won’t.”

  * * *

  When we were alone again outside the Pelican, I noticed a fog was rolling up, hazing the light around me and Olive. The air was turning damp and cold, too, like the night Arimentha died, and Olive tried to hide a little shiver.

  “You’re cold,” I said, and took off Cal’s tuxedo jacket. “Put this on.”

  She took a step back, shaking her head. “But then you’d be cold.”

  “Marion says I’m a human furnace.” I held out the jacket. “You wear it.”

  Olive hesitated another moment, then finally let me help her put it on. It was a little bigger on her than it was on me, so the sleeves came almost down to her fingertips. She looked so cute I had to resist a strong urge to throw my arms around her and lift her off her feet.

  “My switchblade’s in the pocket,” I said instead, “so if we get in mortal danger, it’s all up to you to save us.”

  Olive smirked. “I’ve already got that covered—I have a knife in my garter.”

  If I hadn’t already liked her, that would’ve sealed the deal. I liked her so much I couldn’t think of a single witty thing to say in response.

  “Want to try to find that Felicity hotel?” I said.

  Olive raised her brows, her lips curving. “For business or pleasure?”

  My cheeks heated, and I backed out of the circle of light under the streetlamp so she wouldn’t see them turn red. “I just meant—”

  Olive laughed and closed the distance between us. “I know what you meant, goose.” She tugged gently on a lock of my hair. “We can look for it if you want to.”

  “Boots pointed that way, toward home,” I said, trying to sound like my face wasn’t still an inferno.

  Olive smiled sweetly and offered me her arm. “Then let’s go.”

  We started walking arm in arm down the dark banquette, looking for signs of life in the houses on our right, but it was hard to notice anything except the feeling of Olive pressing against my side, warm and alive and wanting to be there with me.

  “Minty might not have even gone to the hotel,” I said after we’d gone a block without spotting it. “Whoever she was meeting could’ve had a vehicle. She could’ve hopped in and driven off with them anywhere.”

  “Maybe. Or Romeo could live around here.”

  “Yeah, maybe he lives with his mom or at a rooming house with a strict landlady like Mrs. A. He’d wait until the coast was clear at eleven o’clock, and then slip downstairs and let Minty in the house the back way.”

  Olive’s nose wrinkled. “I guess that’s possible.”

  “We could knock on all the doors,” I said, only half joking.

  “It’s the middle of the night,” Olive said, seeing on my face that it wasn’t fully a joke.

  “We could do it tomorrow then.”

  She slid me a sly glance. “Millie Coleman, do you just want an excuse to see me again?”

  “Of course not,” I said, failing to hide a grin. “I just think it’s a great plan. We’ll say, ‘Hey, were you having an affair with a girl named Minty, oh and by the way, did you murder her?’ We’ll solve the case by noon.”

  But Olive didn’t laugh like I expected her to. She went stiff and quiet, and I noticed how the dense fog seemed to have dampened the sounds of car engines and drunken laughter and jazz that were common in the French Quarter, even late at night. It felt like Olive and I were far away from any other humans, even though we’d almost made it back to my apartment.

  “At the Pelican,” Olive said, her voice soft but still startling in the silence, “why didn’t you want to dance with me anymore?”

  My steps slowed. “I . . . I told you I was just thirsty.”

  “Please don’t give me that old song again.” She tipped her head to look up at my face. “Were you scared of people looking?”

  “No.”

  “I know it’s different there than at the Cloak. I forget sometimes that not everyone thinks the way we do.”

  “I forget that, too. But that’s not why. I—”

  Olive stopped abruptly under the last streetlight before my building and spun around in front of me, blocking my way. We stood in a halo of light, fog everywhere beyond it, so that the entire dark city disappeared. I wanted to avoid her eyes, but there they were, staring up into mine. Even swallowed up in Cal’s jacket, everything about her looked soft and curvy and smooth. My hand moved to her waist under the jacket almost involuntarily, and a smile flitted across her lips, triumph in her eyes. Her small, pretty teeth bit her berry-painted lower lip.

  “I could kiss you now,” she murmured, close enough that I felt her breath on my cheek.

  “You could,” I whispered back.

  She leaned in the rest of the way and closed the last small distance between us. My nerves trilled like violin strings; my fingers tightened on the rough beads of her dress. Her parted lips touched mine, and I tasted the warm sweetness of her breath. Her fingertips trailed up the back of my neck into my hair, and I regretted every minute that I’d wasted not kissing her, not touching her.

  But then, uninvited, unwanted, an image appeared behind my closed eyes. My mother, the day she’d left me four years ago, wearing her favorite green dress, her eyes avoiding mine as she’d turned toward her man of the moment, turned to leave me behind.

  The pleasure that had been zinging through my body transformed into something ugly, making my heart beat double time and sweat bead on my temples. I had time to think how funny it was that pleasure and panic almost felt the same, and then I opened my eyes to make the feeling go away. When that didn’t work fast enough, I took a step backward, breaking the kiss.

  Olive stood there looking at me, tenderness and confusion drawing her curved brows together. I made myself smile and pressed a hand to my chest like I needed to catch my breath. Come to think of it, I did. My heart was beating too fast, the old familiar pain surging through it sharper than I’d felt it in a while.

  Where did that come from? I’d kissed other people before, some boys, some girls, and this had never happened. But Mama had still been gone then, and the pain of her leaving hadn’t been all stirred up again like a hornet’s nest. And, a voice whispered in my head, I hadn’t cared about those people I’d kissed. I’d barely known their names.

  Olive threw her arms up. “This again? No one’s looking at us, Millie.”

  “It’s not that.”

  “Then what? Explain it to me.”

  I could try to lie, but Olive always saw through me. “I . . . I’m trying to focus on this case,” I said, fumbling to find my way between a lie and the truth. “I need to concentrate. I can’t be distracted.”

  Olive stared at me. “You’re saying that’s all tonight was about? The case?”

  I hesitated.

  “You’re trying to tell me you really needed me to get you into the Pelican?” Her voice rose. “Really needed me to introduce you to my friend?”

  “Of course I did. Boots wouldn’t have talked to me if you hadn’t.”

  Olive shook her head. “I just thought . . .” Her lids dropped shut and she hugged her
arms tighter around herself. She noticed Cal’s jacket then and started taking it off. “Never mind.”

  “I did need your help,” I said. “And . . . and I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know how I—”

  Olive’s head jerked up, her eyes gone fiery. “You don’t know?” She thrust Cal’s jacket into my arms. “Millie Coleman, I don’t sit around waiting for somebody like you to throw me a bone.”

  “I don’t expect you to sit around.”

  “You don’t, huh? So, it won’t bother you if I step out with someone else next weekend?” She started walking away from me.

  Jealousy stabbing me sharply in the gut, but I moved to catch up with her. “Olive—”

  “No.” She held up a hand to cut me off. “I see how it is. You like me when I’m useful. Just like everybody else.”

  “That’s not true, I—”

  “See you at work, Millie.”

  “Olive, wait—”

  But she was done waiting. She stalked off down the street, past my building and up another block, until the fog turned her into a shadow and then swallowed her whole.

  Regret throbbed in my belly. Of course Olive felt like I was only using her; I’d done a terrible job of explaining. I only wished I knew how to tell her the truth.

  But maybe this was for the best. Marion might go to jail, might even hang if I didn’t find the right killer. I didn’t have time to like anyone—not Olive and not Bennie—especially not with Mama back in my life.

  Me and Marion—that’s all that mattered right now.

  Olive would just have to understand.

  * * *

  I’d hoped this evening would give me some answers, but it had mostly given me more questions. As I slipped off my wretched shoes and trudged up the stairs, suddenly aware of my sore feet, I was more confused than ever. And not only about the murder case.

  Before I’d even reached the top of the stairs, Marion flung open the door. “I saw you down there,” he singsonged, his voice echoing in the stairwell.