by Angie Fox
We reached her group of girls, and they waved their greetings as they cocked their hips and swung their arms and danced. I joined the small circle of ladies and let the music lead me. It felt perfect and free. Jelly Roll banged on the piano and I stomped the floor along with it and it was like flying.
I wanted to come here every night.
I wanted Ruth as my friend.
I wanted Frankie to stay away when I saw him winding through the crowd straight for me.
His pencil-thin mustache had disappeared, exactly as I’d warned, and his brow furrowed.
“That’s Jelly Roll Morton!” I hollered to him. It felt good to be hip, even if I was 1920s hip.
“I don’t care if it’s Mickey Mouse,” he said, drawing up next to me. “Lou isn’t in the crowd. We gotta act fast,” he added, keeping an eye out. “Word is starting to spread I’m here.” The girls I was with waved at him. He half-heartedly returned the gesture and turned his back. “Technically I’m not allowed in here.”
“The guy upstairs let you in.”
“I had a disguise.”
Truly? I raised an eyebrow. That was the worst disguise I’d ever seen.
“That, and I slipped him a Benjamin,” Frankie said. “He’ll get to keep it because it was one of his I lifted off him while we were walking back.”
Always the charmer.
He glanced over his shoulder, toward a closed door near the stage. “There’s a private card game in the back. You got two grand?”
“Not quite.” If he’d brought me along as his moneybags live girl, he’d made a big mistake.
Frankie cursed under his breath. “I’m not going to spend it,” he said as if I were holding out on him. “I gotta show a wad of cash to get to the back room, past the bouncer packing heat.”
“I brought a few fives for the church raffle,” I said, “but that doesn’t even impress me, much less a bunch of dead gamblers.”
Frankie rubbed his jaw. “Okay,” he said, turning it over in his mind. “We have to be slick. This isn’t our turf, and I don’t want to start a mob war.”
“That’s the smartest thing you’ve said all day.” The last time he took me to a party, I’d accidentally knocked the skull off a dead gangster skeleton, and that guy was still after me.
“I got a plan,” Frankie said, easing toward the room.
That didn’t sound so good. “Your plans have a way of backfiring.”
He didn’t bother denying it. If anything, he started gliding faster. “Follow my lead,” he insisted. “If we team up, we can pull this off.”
Chapter Nine
Right when I thought we were headed for the hidden gambling room, Frankie shifted directions and made a beeline for the bar.
I did my best to keep up, careful not to touch anyone or anything. He got way ahead of me, and I watched in horror as he slipped around the end of the drink-prep area nearest the wall and beckoned me to follow.
It was inconceivable, irresponsible. Unless Lou himself was bartending back there, Frankie had no business stirring up trouble.
“This is not the time to call attention to yourself,” I hissed. Not when his disguise had worn off and he was afraid of being recognized. “And this is definitely not the time to drink.”
Frankie ducked his head past the cash register and blinked at me innocently from the other side. “You need to be on my side of the bar for this to work,” he said as if he were the practical one. At the same time, he waved the bartender over. So much for not being spotted. “Trust me. I’ve done this before.”
“Done what?” I demanded.
“Hurry up,” he hissed. “You said you’d help.”
”Fine!” If he got me in trouble, I was going to leave his urn at home for a week. A month. I’d cover it in kitten and puppy stickers.
My stomach clenched as I skirted around the side of the bar and back behind it, where I plainly should not be. It rubbed against every fiber of my nature.
Frankie studied me like a bug. “You shimmied in through the window upstairs, yet you’re worried about sneaking behind the bar.”
“That was different.” Somehow. I’d figure it out later.
“Sometimes, it’s best to breathe through the bad emotions,” Frankie said, quoting from the self-help book I’d read to him from outside his shed. “Let yourself feel.”
“Can it.” I felt like I was back in grade school, sweating bullets in front of the class, expected to do a math problem I had no hope of solving. “I told you I’d do this and I am.” I’d agreed to back up Frankie. I was his secret weapon. “Now, what’s the plan?”
Nathan Fillion’s slightly younger ghostly twin appeared mildly annoyed, but not surprised as he grabbed a cocktail shaker and closed the distance between us. “What do you two want?” he demanded, his features clouding. He was bigger than he looked. I could hardly see around him.
Frankie drew his revolver and held it low. “I want the money in your drawer.”
Sweet baby Jesus. “This is a stickup,” I gasped.
The bartender eased his shaker onto the bar and held his hands up slightly. “I don’t want any trouble, sweetheart,” he said to me.
To me? I wasn’t holding him up.
Although I had just told him I was.
Frankie hit a button on the side of the metal cash machine, and the drawer flew open.
“I see you brought a professional,” the bartender gritted out.
“Do you see me holding a gun? I’m not the one robbing you,” I pointed out, insulted he’d even think it. It was Frankie who grabbed the stack of bills.
“I’m not robbing you, either,” Frankie said, shoving the cash into his coat pocket. “I’m borrowing this. Like when I pawned that armored bank truck in ’35. I don’t need the O’Malleys hating me any more than they do now.”
The bartender cursed under his breath. “I knew it. Frankie the German. They told me to watch out for you.”
“Good job, you saw me,” Frankie said, slamming the drawer closed. “Now you keep facing toward the wall,” he ordered, and I realized the way the bartender stood, he blocked the room’s view of the gun.
Maybe Frankie was kind of smart after all.
His ruse had worked in the short-term, but I could think of no way to get out of here without being seen, chased, and shot like Swiss cheese.
And it wouldn’t take long for the patrons at the bar to pop their noses up from the party and start looking for another drink.
“Now for phase two,” Frankie said as if he’d had this all planned out when I was almost certain he didn’t. “You take this,” he said, handing me the ice-cold ghostly revolver.
I almost dropped it.
I probably should have.
“Point it at him,” Frankie growled, his temper short.
That was the absolute worst idea in the world. Only I couldn’t think of one better that would still get us out of here.
“What are you doing?” I hissed at Frankie, keeping the gun on the bartender even though I knew I should drop it and run.
I’d never make it out on my own.
The bartender eyed me as if he were thinking the same thing.
“I’m going to go crash a card game,” Frankie said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I will bring this right back,” he added to the bartender, patting the cash in his pocket. Then he left us—he left me!—and ducked back into the party and toward the back room.
“He’s gone,” I said. I couldn’t quite believe it.
“Yet you are still robbing me,” the bartender pointed out. I could almost see him thinking about going for my gun.
“I’m not,” I said, struggling to maintain my icy grip. This was pure self-preservation, not greed. I was stuck. Trapped. And if I showed any weakness, the bartender would grab me or shoot me, and it would be all over.
Worse, ghostly objects disappeared when I touched them, much less held them for too long. My fingers had already gone numb from the chill of the revolver. It wa
s like gripping a block of ice. Not to mention the fact I was taking part in an armed robbery when I didn’t even like to speed, jaywalk, or fail to compost Lucy’s banana peels.
“Um…” the bartender managed.
“Okay, I am robbing you,” I said, keeping the gun steady.
Anything to keep living and breathing for as long as I could.
Any moment now, the crowd at the bar would realize what was happening, and I had no idea what to do next.
I most definitely did not sign up for this.
The bartender sized me up. He probably had his own gun hidden in his pocket and would kill me the second he realized I’d never in a million years pull the trigger on him.
And the barrel of my gun was halfway gone now.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered to the bartender.
“Then drop the gun,” he told me, his voice hard, his hand moving slowly toward the back of his pants.
“Don’t even think about it,” I said, leveling the revolver at his head, still hesitant to shoot him but very much against getting shot myself.
Maybe I should shoot him. It would only knock him out since he was already dead. I heard it stung like the dickens. Still, it was better than what he’d do to me.
“This’ll be over in a second,” I promised him, repositioning my finger on the trigger. It was more a promise to myself, because when it came down to it, it horrified me to think of shooting a person, even a dead person. “Frankie needs to hurry the heck up and find his brother in that secret card room.”
“Is that what he’s after?” A glimmer of amusement touched his lips. “Lou’s not in there. Lou’s got a safe room up above the shop.” He cocked his chin up toward the ceiling. “It’s the only apartment up there. You can’t miss it.”
“Really?” I asked, lowering the gun a fraction before I realized and corrected it. “Thanks for telling me.” That was sweet.
“You’re holding a gun on me,” he pointed out. “What choice have I got?”
“Right,” I said. “I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do to help you?” When he started to speak, I added, “Besides putting the gun down?”
He looked at me like I’d asked him to dance a jig and call me Mary.
“Sweetheart”—he shook his head slightly—“you need to ditch that gangster and go back to Sunday school.”
I barked out a laugh. “I’m not with him.” Well, I kind of was. “I’m alive,” I clarified. “Look, do you have any unfinished business on the mortal plane? I have a knack for helping the dead with their problems.”
When I wasn’t holding them at gunpoint.
He paused for a moment before a bemused expression bloomed over his features. “No regrets, doll.”
“Even now?” I asked. “Because working nights at a mob bar doesn’t seem like a good life choice.”
He raised a brow. “Says the woman holding a gun on me.” He looked me up and down. “Although you are a sweet little thing, aren’t you? If you like the bad-boy type, I’m available.”
Was he actually hitting on me? My finger tightened on the trigger. “I’m not dead,” I reminded him.
“Not yet,” he replied as people at the bar started looking and pointing. “Go out with me and I’ll tell them it’s all a joke.”
I had a boyfriend, one who would be very unhappy to see where I’d ended up tonight. And I didn’t want to give my ghostly bartender friend any hope that I’d be dead soon—or any incentive to make it happen.
But as a man in a polka-dot bow tie two seats back drew a revolver out of his suit pocket, I changed my mind. My heart sped up as he pointed it at me.
“You can take me out if I live through this,” I promised.
But the truth was if I got out of this, I’d be gone so fast I’d blow his hair back.
He treated me to a saucy grin and cocked his chin over his shoulder. “Put the gun away, Milo. I don’t need any help with my girl trouble.”
Milo laughed and slammed his gun down on the bar. “Jeez, Brennan. Maybe treat her nice next time. Or don’t get caught.”
The guy next to him craned his neck to see. “You and your love life. I’m missing my drink here.”
“Next round’s on me,” Brennan said to them before smirking at me like he’d won the prize. “I’m gonna take you out for pie.”
I wasn’t even sure what that meant. And now the entire barrel of my gun had disappeared into thin air.
“Neat trick,” Brennan said, lowering his hands and advancing on me.
I caught Frankie out of the corner of my eye, darting through the crowd. “Hurry up!” I urged as he whipped around the bar, tie askew.
“Lou’s not in the card room,” he said, grabbing the gun from me. He cursed under his breath when he saw what was left of it. He pocketed the half-vanished revolver and drew a spare out of his jacket.
“Now give the man his cash back,” I ordered Frankie.
He gave me a quick side glance. “I think I lost it,” he hedged.
Once a gangster, always a gangster. “Do it,” I insisted. “He told me where Lou is.”
Quicker than lightning, Frankie raised the butt of the gun and clocked the bartender over the head. I fought the urge to catch poor Brennan as he fell, out cold.
“That’s my chaperon,” I said to the gaping bar patrons.
Two of the ladies cheered while a man at the very end of the bar pointed toward Frankie and shouted something.
“I think he recognizes you.”
“Let’s go,” Frankie said, leading the retreat.
“Put the cash back,” I said, not budging.
Frankie gritted his teeth but didn’t argue. We had no time, as more and more of the party crowd began looking our way.
He yanked the cash out of his pocket, jammed it in the bartender’s apron, and ushered us both the heck out of Dodge. “Where to?”
“Third floor,” I said. “Lou’s got a safe room above the shop.”
“This way.” Frankie led me toward a pair of black swinging doors. I hadn’t even seen them until we got close. They opened into a galley-style industrial kitchen, with no staff and no food that I could see. Cases of booze lined the walls.
“Been here often?” I asked as Frankie barged into a small broom closet, opened a door at the back, and led us straight into the lobby.
The lady at the corset check room waved. “Hiya, doll.” As if she saw this every night.
Maybe she did.
We dodged a trio of incoming patrons and escaped out to the stairwell.
“You think they’ll follow us?” I asked as the door slammed shut behind us.
“Hopefully they just want me out of there,” Frankie said, moving fast, with me hustling to keep up.
“What did you do to get banned in the first place?” I asked as we took the stairs two at a time.
“The owner made a pass at my girlfriend in ’32,” Frankie said, rounding the landing on the second floor. “So I broke into his establishment and left him a present.”
“I shudder to think,” I told him. My toe caught on a stair and I stumbled, but I hauled myself up and kept running.
“A live pig. Figured he’d want to hang out with his own kind.” Frankie snickered as we raced to the third floor. “How was I supposed to know the old boar would tear the place apart?”
“Because it’s an animal,” I said, breathing hard as we made it to the third-floor landing.
“So am I,” Frankie said, having finished our dash up the stairs with not a hair out of place. “This it?” he asked, eyeing a wood door with 3A painted in white letters. On the mortal side, it said “Office.”
“I don’t see anything else,” I said. This had to be it. “Brennan said Lou has the third floor.”
“All right, then,” he said, eyeing me. Frankie appeared a little hesitant as he squared his shoulders, drew his gun, and kicked the door open.
Chapter Ten
With a swift, efficient kick from Frankie, the ghostly door cra
cked and swung open.
“Come on,” Frankie drew his gun and rushed inside, straight through the still-closed, very solid wooden door on the earthly plane.
“Wait.” I tried the handle.
Locked.
I heard the muffled sound of Frankie swearing.
“What do you see?” I called, rattling the handle again as if that would make any difference.
“Get in here,” he demanded.
“I’m working on it,” I said as if wishing would force it open.
“Kick it in,” Frankie ordered.
“In kitten heels?” The only thing worse would be trying that type of ninja move in bare feet, and honestly, I didn’t have the strength. Or the skill. I mean, I’d kicked in a door once before in a rotted mill, but that thing was halfway to collapse before I’d gotten there. Most days, I had trouble opening jars in my kitchen.
But I was decent at thinking on my feet. A flash of inspiration hit, and I dropped down to check under the plain brown rubber door mat. If the restaurant owners had moved out, they might have left a…my fingers closed around it. “A key!”
I slipped it into the lock and rushed inside to find Frankie standing in the living room. The room lay empty in the real world. On his side, in glowing ghostly gray, I saw how it had appeared in the past.
A metal pole lamp with beaded fringe stood next to a wooden floor-model radio. A pair of beat-up wingback chairs flanked a round coffee table. A magazine lay open on the arm of the chair closest to the window.
The room smelled of violet and vanilla.
Through an open door near the radio, I saw a deserted back bedroom. A small kitchen with a checkered floor jutted off to the right.
“I’ve been here before,” Frankie said, walking around, studying the place. “Lou used this room to hide out from Lucindo the Rat when he blew into town.”
I studied the magazine closer. A woman in a black silk kaftan graced an ad for Humming Bird Hosiery while on the opposite page, an article explored the eating habits of various celebrities. It seemed some things never changed.
“Can we focus on what we came to do?” Frankie asked, walking over to a drink left on the side table. He picked up the crystal spirits glass and sniffed it. “Water,” he said with a wrinkle of his nose.
