The Girls at the Kingfisher Club: A Novel

by Genevieve Valentine

  “They all ran for it.” Jo crossed her arms despite herself. “There’s no knowing for sure, I guess. I warned them nothing was safe, so even if they all made it, I don’t think I’d see them around.”

  “You think they all made it?”

  Jo shrugged. “They know how to get out of a tight spot.”

  “All except you?”

  Point taken.

  “Can’t win them all,” Jo said. “Besides, being a jailbird has come in handy since then.” And, after a beat, “I hope.”

  Myrtle blinked. Then a pack of cigarettes materialized in her hand, and she shook out one for each of them.

  “The real problem, it sounds like,” Myrtle said after her first drag, “is that there’s no way of knowing what your father is up to now.”

  Or ever, Jo thought, recalling an office door that was almost closed but never quite.

  “Assume the worst,” Jo said. “That’s probably about right.”

  Myrtle didn’t argue it. “And you don’t have any other friends here?”

  I had one, she thought, but I sent him away.

  “Jake,” Jo said. “He tends bar at the Kingfisher. He helped me once already, when I was desperate. I hope he’d be willing to help again.”

  “He’d probably be willing to help you with plenty,” Myrtle said, with a glance up and down at Jo, “but you should go in and tell him yourself.”

  “I can’t risk it. My father’s watching the place, and he won’t hesitate to call the cops. If I get pulled in this time, I’ll end up in the Willows or back at home.”

  Myrtle made a face.

  After a moment she shook her head. “You know, I always thought my father was cruel because he told me my shoe store would never make it in a city where they had a Macy’s.”

  Jo, softened by the cigarette smoke, only smiled.

  Myrtle dropped the butt of hers, ground it decisively into the pavement with the toe of one shoe. Jo admired the deep-green velvet before she remembered that, of course, what else was Myrtle going to wear?

  “I feel for you,” Myrtle said. “That’s a tough story. But I’m not sure what I can do. It’s not like I’m a police sergeant, if you get me, and the help you need is more than I can manage. I’m on my own now, and money’s tight. I don’t have room for charity cases, and I don’t have the means to hire you.” She fastened and unfastened her purse twice. “I have a friend who might have a place for a shopgirl. I can ask her, maybe.”

  She looked worried enough that Jo was beginning to believe her.

  Myrtle pulled five dollars from her purse. “This should put you up for a night or two at a half-decent place and keep you from starving. I hope the worst will have blown over by then.”

  The street around them seemed to slow down.

  In a way, in some world far away where none of this mattered, it was a fair deal: Myrtle had been helped in a time of need by a half-sympathetic woman with a little money. This would clear the slate.

  (It was impossible for Jo to tell her that she had needed the sympathetic ear more than she’d ever needed money, that the hardest thing about facing all of this was having to do it alone.)

  The fear of losing Myrtle now because she took five dollars froze Jo cold, but still it took all Jo’s pride to keep her hands at her sides. She didn’t have a penny, and she knew what five dollars would get you.

  “Getting a message to Jake wouldn’t cost you a dime,” she said finally.

  She didn’t dare say, That’s what a friend would do.

  Myrtle startled.

  Then she laughed.

  “No, I suppose it wouldn’t,” she said.

  After a moment of holding the money, she tucked it back in her handbag with an expression Jo hoped was impressed.

  Then Myrtle pulled a little notebook and a pencil from a pocket of her bag and held them out instead.

  Jo hesitated only a moment, making some quick guesses and gathering the courage to commit to the plan she was making.

  (Things were changing every minute; there was no going back on anything after this.)

  By the time Myrtle said, “All right, let’s have it,” Jo was already writing.

  • • • • • •

  The man at the door of the Marquee knew her face by now, and when she turned to go upstairs rather than into the dance hall, he didn’t question her.

  Jo had never wanted anything more in her life than to go inside right away and strap her aching feet tighter into her shoes, and Charleston across the floor with someone until she couldn’t think any more.

  (She would, if she’d ever be able to forgive herself for dancing while her sisters were gone.)

  The door was unlocked, and she thanked every saint there was that Tom had been too distracted or angry to cover his tracks as they left.

  (That was probably how he’d ended up in trouble in his old line of work, too.)

  The little studio still smelled slightly of whatever fourth-rate moonshine had fallen. The effect was vaguely antiseptic.

  Jo didn’t mind. The last thing she needed was to run into some lingering cologne that would remind her of Tom.

  She freshened up as best she could and wished she could get a little sleep. Had it been two days? Three? She could hardly remember. It felt like one long string of panic and sadness between then and now.

  Jo was too tired for tears, but she struggled for breath the more she thought about it, slipping back into the hushed silence of the cab that first night; walking into the Salon Renaud with Lou’s hand held tight in her hand; the first song they had ever heard live, played as if it had been waiting just for them.

  What were the chances all ten of them had gotten out? Were they safe? Would she ever find them all again?

  Where were they now?

  Beneath her feet the music was playing sharp and bright, like the night of the next-door party, when Jo had been brave for the first time in her life and taken her sisters out dancing.

  When Jo passed the second doorman with a nod and entered the Marquee proper, the band was launching into a Charleston, and she watched the dancers laugh and take hands and start with flying feet.

  It wasn’t home, yet, but it was dancing, and tonight that was close enough.

  (Watch out for any princesses, she’d written to Jake, in her fit of bravery. Not safe for them there. Send them to the Marquee. Wish me luck.)

  The bar was nearly empty. Before she could even ask for a drink, Henry (the blond bartender with the staunch jaw, no older than Rebecca) was setting a glass in front of her.

  “Are you alone tonight, Princess?” he asked, disbelieving. A second glass had materialized out of nowhere, and he was still holding the bottle, looking over her shoulder for the others.

  She ignored the pang, the urge to turn.

  “I am,” she said.

  Henry raised his eyebrows.

  She rested her folded arms on the bar and gave him a smile that felt startlingly real.

  (Sometimes, once you start being brave, it’s easier just to go on that way.)

  “Tom Marlowe sent me,” she said. “I’m here about the job.”

  Henry, flummoxed, offered her a half smile back.

  “What job?”

  Behind them, the music had picked up in earnest, and the room was going wild.

  She said, “The one you’re going to give me.”

  twenty

  MY REGULAR GAL

  Doris would never have become Jo’s lieutenant on purpose, not in a hundred years.

  Doris remembered when Jo’s feet didn’t reach the floor if she sat on her bed; she remembered how Jo had sometimes fudged the passages of a dance she didn’t know for sure.

  She and Ella and Lou understood what “General” meant to the younger ones—there had to be a General if they were ever going to manage—but the three of them knew Jo too well for it to stick.

  When they began to take over the second and third cabs, it was only because Jo ran a tight ship, and they knew w
hat they were expected to do.

  (“It’s strange,” Doris said to Ella once. “I don’t think she was always like this, but really, she must have been. You can’t become a General out of nothing.”

  “Poor Jo,” said Ella.)

  They hadn’t had time to think what might happen to them otherwise.

  As Jo went up and down the stairs to speak to their father, and even as Lou departed, they had the vague but comforting sense that Jo would handle everything, somehow, and they need never become like her in the process.

  This sense lasted until the moment Jo screamed up the stairs for them to get out.

  Then they ran.

  • • • • • •

  Doris and Ella moved first, and burst from their room at the same moment—the other girls were already piling out of their rooms into the hall, charging for the back stairs.

  A few of them were clutching things in their arms; others had nothing but the clothes on their backs, but there was no time to go for anything now.

  Ella raced down the fourth-floor corridor with Hattie and Mattie just ahead, Doris and the others thundering on their heels.

  Doris fell back until they were all ahead of her—counting sheep.

  Their footsteps were enough to drown out any other sound in the place, but because Doris was last, the riot faded just enough for her to hear Jo’s voice, nearly buried, call out, “Nothing’s safe!”

  The girls sprinted past the kitchen—as she brought up the rear, Doris was just in time to see Walters rising as if to come after them, and Mrs. Reardon standing square in his way.

  (Doris wished, later, that there had been one moment’s respite in the escape, so she could have saluted the old lady on her way out.)

  By the time she reached the end of the alley, the others were running in pairs and threes, following Ella’s lead, heading across the street and around the corner and out of sight of anyone who might be looking out the windows of the house.

  Ella was cutting across the street with Hattie and Mattie close behind. The twins carried matching pairs of silver shoes—no surprise, thought Doris—but Ella was already too far away to see anything but a blond head and a pale green dress.

  Lily and Rose were next, charging hand in hand, and Araminta and Rebecca lagged a little behind (Araminta’s arms full of the ugly coats Jo had bought them a hundred years ago).

  Violet and Sophie were hanging back, glancing over their shoulders as if waiting for Doris, which made her so angry she could’ve spit.

  There was a moment’s sharp and unexpected sympathy for Jo.

  “Go on,” Doris snapped, “pick it up, this ain’t the waltz!”

  Ella and the twins were a full street away by now, and there was a flutter of panic that Doris tried to ignore. It would be all right—of course they’d stay together—wasn’t that what they were best at?

  At the corner, Doris heard the hum of an approaching truck, and from around the front of the house carried a rumble of raised voices, two of them men, and one of them unmistakably Jo.

  “Damn,” Doris breathed, but she didn’t dare stop. Jo had told them to go—they had orders.

  Ella and the twins were already out of sight. Lily and Rose seemed to have a bead on them, bearing left as they crossed the street, and Araminta and Rebecca had reached the facing curb safely and were turning to glance behind them, and even through her guilt at leaving Jo behind, Doris thought that the rest of them might end up making it after all.

  Then the truck rounded the corner.

  Doris had heard a rattle like that before—that was a passenger wagon, and the last time she’d heard it the cops were closing in on the Kingfisher to haul Jo to jail.

  “Down!” snapped Doris, and Violet and Sophie sank like magic into the nearest alley.

  Doris followed, twisting at the last second to try to get a look over her shoulder, but the rattle and thump of the truck suggested it was big and it was empty, and the only thing Doris could think of was Jo being hauled into it and disappearing. She pulled herself as far back into the dark as she could.

  She had to keep safe. There were Violet and Sophie to think about now.

  She closed her eyes and prayed the others were fast enough to get out of sight.

  (They had to be. Eight years of sneaking around wasn’t for nothing.)

  The truck slowed down. Doris pressed her forehead to the chilly stone, listened for shouting, wondered if she’d be able to run around front in time to punch the driver senseless and get her sisters back if he tried anything.

  She might be able to, but Sophie and Violet were waiting in the shadows, and then what would happen?

  For a few heartbeats, she felt like she was pulling out of her own skin.

  But then the sound of the truck puttered around the corner and was gone.

  Doris snuck to the edge of the alley and looked out, but by the knot in her stomach she already knew what she was going to see:

  Nothing.

  “Doris?” Violet whispered. “Did they make it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Doris. Then, “Come on.”

  They crossed—“Slow and steady,” Doris said under her breath, “the last thing we need now is to look guilty of something.”

  The traffic went another direction on this street, and they couldn’t be followed without fair warning from around the corner. The streets were quiet, but there were still enough kind faces that Doris could hide behind someone if she had to.

  They pulled up in a little knot in front of a church—good enough sanctuary in a pinch, Doris thought. It worked for Quasimodo.

  She looked up and down the street as far as she could for a sign of other Hamiltons, but she didn’t hold out much hope.

  They all knew how to disappear.

  They hadn’t been pulled in, at least. And if they were out in the world, and they weren’t alone, then maybe it would be all right.

  Violet and Sophie stood flat against the wall. They were out of breath, though Doris figured it was more from panic than the run. She was willing to bet the Hamilton sisters were the fittest group of girls in the city.

  And thankfully Jo had trained them well; all three of them were dressed decently, down to their catalog shoes, so that they looked like the junior typing pool leaving the office and not like a sleepover run amok.

  It was the first time Doris wanted to really thank Jo for the way she’d marshaled them. Jo had her faults, but lack of foresight wasn’t one.

  She could do this. They could do this.

  “All right,” said Doris in a stern voice, falling back on the facts—another borrowed habit of Jo’s. “We’re together, and we’re out of that damn house. So the worst is over, and now we have to decide what we’re going to do with ourselves.”

  The other two visibly relaxed at the idea that after the facts were sorted, they would be all right.

  For a moment there was the comfortable quiet of a cab as it pulled up to the curb of the Kingfisher, waiting for the night to begin.

  “Did you see where they went?” Violet asked.

  Doris shook her head.

  “They’re smart girls,” she said, which was true. After a moment she added, “I’m sure things will work out,” which was slightly more uncertain.

  “And Jo?” Sophie ventured.

  God only knew what had happened to Jo. Doris sighed.

  “If any of us is going to make it,” she said finally, “it’s going to be Jo.”

  She hoped.

  Violet looked up and down the street one last time, then laced her fingers in front of her as if it was an interview.

  “So,” she said, “what do we do now?”

  They looked strange somehow, and all at once Doris realized she had never seen Violet or Sophie outside in daylight.

  They seemed odd and out of place among the other girls on the street; they had the flinty confidence of their older sisters from years of going dancing underground, and the prison pallor of two frightened little girls wh
ose world had just flipped over.

  But they only waited for her to instruct them; Violet didn’t even look around at passing strangers, she was watching Doris so intently for her orders.

  It was almost sweet, Doris thought, even as she thought, Thank God these two hadn’t ended up on their own. They were so young, and so used to someone else having plans for them.

  Not that Doris could talk.

  She wished she’d read more novels about desperate young ladies who found sensible, lucrative jobs without any education or references.

  Her first instinct was to head for the Kingfisher, but Jo had shouted that nothing was safe, and Jo knew her business. Now wasn’t the time to test theories about where the police might be waiting.

  Going back to that house was absolutely out of the question.

  They had no money to reach someplace outside the city—and even if they did, Doris couldn’t imagine leaving until there was some idea where everyone else had gone.

  (This city was still home, even after everything; surely they would all stay here and try to find one another. Surely no one would go too far until they knew for sure that everyone else was all right.)

  There was really nowhere left to go, unless she took a very long shot.

  Finally, Doris shrugged.

  “I guess we’ll find out if I have any taste in men,” she said.

  • • • • • •

  Doris decided on the Ansonia Hotel as the place to make the phone call.

  (A long time ago, some man at the Kingfisher had told her that’s where he was staying while he was in town. He had described the hotel in vague terms that sounded interesting—“Seals in the fountain,” he’d said, and Doris still wasn’t sure if he’d been lying.

  Then he’d described the bedroom at a level of detail that made Doris nervous.

  “Just in case you’re looking for a place to spend the night,” he said, and gave her hand a squeeze like she was slow on the uptake.

  “I live in a convent,” she said. “Sorry. Thanks for the dance.”)

  She figured a hotel lobby—especially this lobby—was public enough not to draw attention, and there were a lot of places to disappear to, just in case.

  It looked enough like a castle fortress to make an impression, she’d give it that much. It soared up almost higher than they could see, round turrets and a thousand coils and curlicues, and stamps of copper and green against the sky.