Murder at the Flamingo

by Rachel McMillan

  Hamish smiled at the story. He had asked her to tell it again and again. It sounded a bit like poetry. Like some of the prettier lines in Notre-Dame before Paris burned and Quasimodo turned to dust. Epic and lasting.

  Hamish finally turned the tap on the claw-foot tub in his bathroom and promised himself he would try harder. He wasn’t Toronto Hamish who tucked his knees to his chin in a corner of the library or kept his black head over his books at school so he wouldn’t have to make eye contact. He was in a new city. He would just become a new person.

  Look at a girl. Approach a girl. Talk to a girl. It seemed so easy. Luca did it all the time. He, too, when on the dance floor. He whispered to the ceiling, “Fall in love with a girl.” He investigated the slight moon scars on the palm of his hand, from years of digging his nails in. The trick was to have the girl fall in love with him too.

  What he was falling in love with was the city. Just as he had hoped when he first stepped from the station and began imprinting it on his brain. Hamish was someone who liked to find the affinity in places. His father had told him that a person could usually know within a short amount of time if a place would be something special—something familiar—or if you were destined to always be a visitor. But Boston wore at the seams like a stretched sweater. Luca took Hamish to another game at Fenway, Phil’s car rimming the Emerald Necklace in the hazy dusk, Hamish navigating the packed stadium to their seats. He pedaled through the Common and the Public Garden, swerving into Beacon Hill and over the fragments of cobblestone between stately brick houses holding hands in a narrow barricade. Many of the homes dripped red, white, and blue with flags draped patriotically, catching the tickle of the summer breeze. There was a pattern in stalling outside of the Paul Revere house, sloping into it, dismounting his bike, steadily climbing while the clouds puffed out in the sky over a towered building blending with many of similar breadth and height rising up along the North Square, all the while hoping to see her again when he stepped into Leoni’s for cannoli.

  CHAPTER 9

  At night, the cares of the day unraveled with the pulse of the clubs. Prohibition was still on the lips of the teetotalers in their Salvation Army uniforms hoisting up signs of prudent disapproval in front of the bronze doors. Inside, of course, awaited a world of sheer abandon: far from the soup kitchen lines and the panhandlers in the Common, the headlines from Europe growing bleaker by the day.

  The moon rose and life began, as it would soon underneath the garish pink and green flash of the flamingo, cocky beak in the air, one leg raised saucily.

  Sweat and gin. Smoke and bright lights. Voices raw from rising over the din of the music and the unending wail of the trumpet. A corner of the world protected from figures and numbers and the ennui of the day. And Hamish DeLuca adjusting his braces and counting his heartbeat, which pulsed in time to Go home. He ignored its thrum. He had spent enough time with his cousin to know that even he was not immune to the Valari charm. If Luca decided to freefall off the Grand Canyon, Hamish had no doubt he would spread his arms as wings and pretend to fly.

  “When I am not around, you will be my extension at the Flamingo.” Luca clutched Hamish’s lapel. “And so you need to see as many clubs as possible to give you an idea of how we want to run our joint.” But Hamish was bored of clubs. Tired by the late nights. Most excited at the prospect of kicking his bike into gear, throwing his leg over the crossbar, and taking Boston in stride. Every day it became more familiar as he had hours at his leisure. Sure, Luca passed a few of the promised contracts to him and he was asked to go through catering and pay lists line by line.

  Yet when Luca referred to “our Flamingo,” something buzzed inside of him. He had never thought of the club as theirs. It was Luca’s club. Luca’s affair. Luca’s conclave of men like Tom Schultze and Brian MacMillan—who was far brighter and more engaging than the taciturn patron of the MacMillan family, or so Hamish had learned the day before.

  Luca knew all of the city’s watering holes. The ones hidden in back alleys people would never think of entering, others flounced proudly out on Washington Street, contributing to the waterfalls of light cascading from the theaters and billboards to glisten the tarmac. And in all of the clubs the owners would immediately cross their floors to welcome Luca and ensure he had a drink in his hand. While they shot the small talk of the day and pandered to Luca’s incessant need to list the Flamingo’s virtues, there was a tightness in their spines and a slight uneasiness in their eyes. Hamish assumed it was because of the way his cousin carried himself. Luca Valari made a room smaller just by entering it, and with his silver-screen good looks, deep voice, and charm, Hamish supposed the rival club owners found themselves in immediate competition.

  Luca subsisted on black coffee, which he indulged in from the time he woke late in the morning to the first peals of the afternoon bell from Park Street Church at a diagonal from the penthouse at Tremont and Winter streets. Then he leisurely explored his liquor cabinet. Hamish furrowed his brow every time his cousin took another sip from a glass. It wasn’t that his behavior changed—Luca was too in control of himself to let his habit overtake him—but there was a tiredness in Luca’s eyes. As excited as he was about his new business venture, Hamish wasn’t sure exactly how set up he was for taking this plunge. His accounts looked good to Hamish’s amateur eye—he always could put a few figures together—but were augmented by investors. Hamish didn’t know how much capital his cousin had or where it came from. There were baseball games and nights out and a beautiful apartment as well as the rising costs in preparation for the club’s grand opening. Hamish’s presence added expenses.

  Then phone calls and Fidget attentively seeing to their laundry and food. One night she set shortbread on a plate before him and Hamish felt such a pang for home that he nearly leapt for the phone to call his mother. But as he nibbled, the pastry melting in his mouth, Fidget surpassing her skills yet again, he stayed strong. The attendant had posted a letter for him the week after he arrived, leaving his parents Luca’s address and contact information at both the penthouse and the office. He knew he would hear back eventually and that he would finger the letter guiltily before opening it when he did. Then there was the young woman he had met at Leoni’s, gathering pastries to give to the people waiting outside of the Temporary Employment Agency. At least working for Winslow, Winslow, and Smythe, he had the opportunity to do some pro bono work.

  Spira Spera. As long as he breathed he could find a new way to approach this new adventure. No chain was tugging him back, just the promise of a summer to finally move his grip off the handlebars. And if that meant following Luca to clubs night after night until the Flamingo opened the week after, then so be it. It was the finish line in some way and Hamish mentally looked at it as a crossing point. After, he would decide what to do. But he was so invested in seeing his cousin succeed that he wouldn’t make any sudden plans until then: either to return home or to stay.

  CHAPTER 10

  They arrived at that night’s chosen club, Luca parting people like Moses the Red Sea. “Let’s find the owner.” It was Luca’s usual habit: show up, charm the attendees, sweet-talk the owner, and then have Hamish survey everything about the dance hall. Hamish didn’t think he was at all qualified, but Luca waved away his concerns.

  “I’m going to take some of the pressure off.” Luca smiled and led Hamish toward the bar. “I’ve invited my secretary. She comes from a long line of class and will be helping me with last-minute preparations. She’s pretty too. You’ll want to take her for a spin. Though this band leaves something to be desired.”

  Several murmurs around the bar resulted in the appearance of a balding man in a slick suit, the easy smile on his mouth not reaching his watery eyes. “Mr. Valari, I hear that to welcome you is a first-class honor.” He gave a little bow. “I also hear that you are poaching for your Flamingo and that I’m to keep an eye on you.” He looked over his shoulder in the direction of more murmurs.

  Luca’s smile stilled th
em into silence. “Nonsense! Charles Galbraith, right?” He shook Galbraith’s hand. “What is a bit of healthy competition? As you know, I am new to this game and I want to learn from the professionals. I also”—Luca extracted his gold money clip—“want to throw money on wine, women, and song. Or, in this case, the best martini your man can rustle up.”

  Galbraith rapped his knuckles on the bar. “Wet Mr. Valari’s whistle.” He put his hand around Luca’s. “No payment needed. What are a few drinks between friends?” He noticed Hamish for the first time and sized him up with reptilian eyes.

  “This is my cousin, Hamish DeLuca,” Luca was saying. “Oh! And here she is now looking rather remarkable! I say, Regina Van Buren!” He gave a low whistle. “What a vision!”

  Hamish turned as the rhythm of the upbeat Cab Calloway number pulsed through the dark and found himself face-to-face with an apparition in cranberry tingling his tongue and widening his eyes. “It’s you.”

  She smiled at Luca and Charles Galbraith and then at him. “Bruttiboni,” she said by way of greeting, shaking his hand.

  She looked remarkably pretty under the lights of the bar. Her hair rich in finger waves, her brown eyes bright orbs in their lining. Her lips were cranberry like her dress and an interesting contrast to her powdered ivory face and hair.

  “You two know each other?” Luca asked.

  “We met over cannoli. Well, we didn’t actually meet because we were never introduced.”

  “Then allow me.” Luca was watching Hamish intensely. Hamish tried to avert his eyes politely, but the woman in front of him was a magnet, her dress knowing just where to curve in and where to flounce out. “Regina Van Buren, this is my cousin, Hamish DeLuca.”

  Hamish took her hand lightly. “Hello, Regina.”

  “Please, my friends call me Reggie.”

  “Does that go for me too?” wondered Charles Galbraith, eyeing her with an intensity that made Hamish finger his bow tie.

  “Of course.” She took his hand and gave it a firm pump. Galbraith turned to the crowd then, excusing himself.

  “I’ve a few people to see.” Luca laughed quietly. “Actually, a few people I want to see me. Remember, you two. Dance, drink. Assess the band. Assess the cigar girls and see if we should snatch anyone up for my club.”

  Luca squeezed Hamish’s forearm and leaned into his ear. “Dance with her, Cic. Don’t just gape at her like a lost puppy.”

  “Well, Quasimodo,” Reggie said once Luca had left. “Are you going to ask me to dance?”

  “Quasi—” Hamish started, then smiled. “Ah. My book.”

  “Looked like it had been read to within an inch of its life.”

  “It has.”

  They stepped to the side of the throng, watching Luca command the room, shaking hands and moving in to sprawl his arm around someone’s shoulder. He was accessible and smooth, taking the floor like an elaborate dance of which only he knew the steps.

  “He’s something. And you’re sure he’s your cousin? Oh, I’m sorry. Don’t look like that. I just meant, there’s not really a family resemblance. He’s very handsome and . . . well . . . Regina . . . put your other foot in your mouth, why don’t you? I just mean that in a way he’s aware he is very handsome. You . . .” She looked him up and down, Hamish’s eyes widening under her scrutiny. “You are a different flavor.” She warmed to her assessment.

  “Flavor?” Hamish chuckled. “Like cannoli?”

  “Exactly! If he’s all pistachio crust and icing sugar, you’re . . . well . . .”

  “Bruttiboni?”

  “Ha! No!”

  Hamish raked his fingers through his hair. “I have absolutely no idea what to say to that. Thank you, maybe?”

  Reggie had a clear, alto laugh. He wanted to hear it again. And again. It lifted him a little. “Would you like a drink?”

  He led them to the crowded bar. He waited for a few patrons to finish, not having Luca’s ability to part crowds like a stream, and handed her a requested Coke.

  “Nothing stronger?” he asked.

  “I’m on the clock.” She took the glass and sipped. “Working for your cousin.”

  “My cousin seems to work best when he has had several martinis.” Hamish studied the fizz in his own Coke glass.

  “Hamish DeLuca. What a name. Where are you from?”

  “Toronto.”

  “And do all Canadians have names like Hamish DeLuca?”

  Hamish grinned. “When their father’s Italian and their mother’s Scottish, they do.”

  “Canada! Maybe that’s what’s so different.” She narrowed her eyes in concentration, studying his face. Hamish willed himself not to blush or avert his gaze. “You all live in igloos, don’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  Reggie sipped her Coke. “So I suppose I should start work! Let’s see.” She gave the room a once-over. Hamish followed her eyes over the well-dressed crowd and in the direction of the monogrammed bandstand. “On a scale of one to ten, how would we rate this joint?”

  “We?”

  “Well, if you’re Luca Valari’s cousin, you must have some semblance of taste. You’re certainly garnering attention.”

  Hamish tried to see what she was seeing. “Attention?”

  “I am spotting . . .” Her eyes swept the room. “One. Two . . . Oooo, no, four! Six! And . . . ah yes, one more. There. Seven! Hamish, I spot seven women who are dying to dance with you.”

  “How can you tell that?” He traced her visual path. There were pretty girls all over, leaning into their friends, inspecting their pocketbooks, some with long fingers embracing the stems of cocktail glasses. Many on the dance floor or at its edge, tapping their feet and watching the ebb and flow of the movement from its shore.

  “When you aren’t looking, they look at you. And their looks become a little more attentive the closer”—she shrugged closer to him—“we”—closer still—“stand together.” Now even their shoes were touching. “I bet, Hamish”—she tipped her chin up and looked into his eyes—“that if we started dancing we would have their rapt attention.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Reggie tugged at his shirtsleeve just above the rolled fabric at his elbow. “Not every woman wants to dance with Luca Valari.” She looked at him expectantly and, when he didn’t answer, continued. “You have lovely hair and a dimple when you smile and those blue eyes. There”—her laughter was a glissando—“there’s that smile. Smile more often. Really, truly smile. It illuminates your whole face like a lightbulb.”

  Hamish stretched the smile a moment then scratched at the back of his neck. If he were to return the compliment, he’d tell her she was radiant. He liked the way her hair brushed over her shoulders and the way her neck curved gracefully like a swan’s. He liked the way she held herself and the way her painted nails caressed her glass. “Thank you, Reggie. That’s very helpful.”

  She laughed. “Hamish, you are deliciously hopeless.” His heart started up. He absently moved his palm over it as it thrummed and quickened. “If you were William Powell and I were Myrna Loy, we would be on the floor already!”

  Hamish studied his Coke glass.

  “Do you ever go to the pictures?”

  Hamish looked up. “Sometimes.” He hadn’t been to a theater in months.

  “What’s your favorite?”

  “Oh, I don’t . . .” He trailed off. Suddenly self-conscious at what she had observed. Were all these women watching him? He scratched the back of his neck again, suddenly feeling exposed. He knew she was just being playful and nice, but he felt a quickening in his heartbeat. Was it something that needed to be monitored? A harbinger of an episode? Or was it just her? “Did you ever see the Robert Young picture Death on the Diamond?”

  “Is it a heist movie?”

  “It’s a baseball movie. St. Louis Cardinals. A fellow tries to figure out who is killing his teammates.” Her eyes were saucers on him. “There’s a wonderful girl in it,” he added for her. “Madge
Evans.”

  “So you like murder mystery stories?”

  “And I like baseball.” He shrugged. “This movie has both.”

  A girl sidled past with a smile and Hamish returned a half-moon one, keeping his attention on Reggie.

  “Cicero!” Luca’s voice was an unwelcome barrage. Next to his cousin, a young woman with rosy cheeks and chestnut-brown hair giggled and bopped, her drink casually tipped a little too steeply, its lapping liquid about to spill onto his shoes. “I brought you a dance partner just in case you hadn’t asked Regina to dance yet. This is Ethel. She was asking about you.”

  “Cicero.” Ethel’s voice was shrill. “Such a funny name!” She gripped Luca’s bicep. “Cicero.”

  “Cicero?” asked Reggie.

  “Nickname,” Hamish said.

  “That’s a funny name. Hamish Cicero.” Ethel’s voice climbed higher.

  Hamish shot Luca a look. Luca’s smile spread. “Cic, Ethel is eager to dance and I told her that you were waiting for an absolute vision before you stepped to the floor.”

  “Thanks for the crumbs from your table,” snorted Reggie.

  Ethel was a vision all right—buxom and red-lipped, curving in at the right places and out at others. He set his Coke on the bar. Hamish DeLuca was many things, but never impolite. But just as he was about to accept, Reggie stopped him.

  “I’m sorry, Ethel. But his dance card’s full.”

  Reggie tugged Hamish to the crowded floor as a spotlight crossed over the crowd and the band swung into a three-quarter tune.

  “Now let’s see how you dance.” He was a little stilted at first, taking his time and measuring, but once he started, really started . . . He was different when he was dancing. Something happened to him that made the shy man from the cannoli counter seem miles away as he held her waist and pulled her assuredly into a spin.