Reggie was delighted. “You’re a wonderful dancer.”
“You sound surprised.”
One bar. Two bars. Three and four. Their movements a whirling dervish of weight released and pulled back—in and out. Full count and the rumble of the drums, Hamish setting their pace while her brain drifted to Vaughan. He didn’t dance like this. Not with this uninhibited smile that pressed a dimple and the world wrapping around him. Hamish letting it. Reggie couldn’t take her eyes off him. Then, as was her custom, she looked to see who was watching her watching him: a defense she learned long ago, knowing that staring at someone or something too long was just more fodder for speculation and gossip.
“I guess we should tell your cousin the band is pretty good,” she said, as the music slowed to a stop.
Before Hamish could answer, a girl cut in. “My turn,” she said with a sly smile at Reggie. Mary Finn. Yes. Schultze’s girl. She recognized her from the office.
Hamish looked at Reggie, who shrugged. “You go on. I can’t keep you all night.” She picked up her pace before another man could step in and found herself back at the bar ordering another Coke.
“On Luca Valari’s tab,” she said with a twinkle as Luca stepped toward her.
“He’s a lawyer, you know. Graduated top of his class.”
Then what is he doing here? “He’s a wonderful dancer.” They watched him a moment. Mary spun out and Ethel finally broke in.
The skirts got shorter as girls spun into him; their lips grew redder and their laughs louder. “And they’re talking to him and laughing at him over the music and he is trying to think of what to say.” She felt unsettled but wasn’t sure whether it was the prickling feeling that his business ventures dabbled in something darker or her annoyance that he’d pulled Hamish from her and thrown him into the arms of a fluff-head on the floor. “I don’t think I’ve ever met two more different people belonging to the same family.”
“And you’re like your parents?” Luca’s charcoal eyes bored into hers, startling even in the dim light.
“I just meant—”
“You speak your mind, Reggie. I like that. But I don’t think I require your opinion on my cousin.” He brushed his thumb over the rim of his martini glass.
Then he tapped the bar and another drink appeared. He indicated a refill for Reggie. “You’re Johnny Wade. I know you. I’ve seen your band.”
The bartender leaned into the light. Reggie saw his fine features clearly.
“You’re Luca Valari.”
“I am.”
Johnny handed Reggie a drink with a smile, then turned to Luca. “It’s an honor to have you here, Mr. Valari. All my friends are talking about the Flamingo. You got Roy Holliday. He’s the best in the city. Hey, how did you know I play?”
“It is my business to know the lineup of every club in the city. And you? I hear you’re the best tender in Beantown. Can whip up a martini in seconds flat and have the art to an alchemy.” Luca peered closer. “You’re a looker too. Girls in my club would frequent a bar tended by a movie star face.” Luca took a long sip then gave a decisive nod. “I’ll pay you double what you make here. And maybe audition your band on an off-night. Can’t promise anything, but we’ll need an alternate for Holliday.”
“Are you serious?”
“I don’t throw out jobs like confetti, Johnny Wade. I want the best. If you’re the best . . .”
“They say that if people get in with you they’re golden. Even from the ground floor.”
Luca feigned modesty. It fell as flat as a fizzed-out Coke. “We open a week from tomorrow. We’re hosting a little warm-up the night before. The staff, the band, my illustrious secretary here.”
Reggie took this as a cue. “Regina Van Buren.” She shook Johnny’s hand.
“Pleased to meet you.” He flashed her a million-watt smile.
“I’ll expect you there at six thirty. Gives you time to give your notice and transition.” Luca rapped his fingers on the bar, demanding something other than a drink. “Don’t let me down.”
You couldn’t scrape a smile off this fellow’s face. It was like his ship had come in. No, his fleet.
“Well, just you and me,” Luca said a moment later. “A pretty dame like yourself. Want to take a turn, Reggie? Nothing untoward. We’re friends.”
Reggie took a sip and shook her head. “I like watching.”
“Don’t think I don’t appreciate your caring for dear old Cic like you do.” Luca raised his glass slightly in her direction. “He needs someone to care about him.”
“Does he?”
“He’s just a little shy.”
“You truly do care about him, huh?”
“You sound shocked.”
Reggie shrugged. “I am just trying to understand your . . . what’s the word? Dynamic.”
“Our dynamic.” Luca whistled. “You need another drink.” Luca rapped the bar.
Reggie put up a staying hand. “Does secrecy run in your family, Luca Valari?” She was trying to put her finger on Hamish from their two meetings. Confident on the dance floor, but like a poor lost puppy out of the rain at Leoni’s. Showing up in Boston just as his cousin’s club opened. And not to practice law either. Reggie had the name of a lawyer above her desk at the office.
Luca laughed it off but his eyes intensified a little. “I think—”
“Who is this vixen?” Reggie recognized Schultze’s voice through the film of smoke. The incessant tap of his walking stick followed. “Ah!” His eyes trundled over her with recognition. “Your little secretary cleans up quite nicely.”
“Pick your jaw off the floor, Tom,” Luca said lightly.
Reggie watched another man join their conclave, making the room smaller with his height and breadth. Reggie smiled at him, but his face was stone.
Schultze ignored his companion, painting Reggie’s figure with watery eyes. “If you can spare us,” he said, locking eyes with Reggie. She broke her gaze. “They’re here.”
Reggie looked from Schultze to Luca. Luca, for all his Clark Gable charm, faltered.
“Reg—”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. Business.”
His voice had a strange note to it. He reached into his pocket and pulled a bill out of a gold clip. “For a taxi home. See Hamish home, too, when he’s finished dancing. We might be a while.” His eyes fixed on her and in them she read a thousand words. He was putting his cousin in her charge.
Reggie accepted the money but only because she wanted something to distract her from Schultze’s unwelcome stare and the big man’s lumbering gait. The trio slipped past the bar into a hallway beyond.
“Anything you want, Miss Van Buren, on the house,” the bartender was saying. “I get to work for Luca Valari! We get to work for Luca Valari.”
Reggie blinked a few times. “Imagine that.”
The evening pulled toward midnight, the liquor loose and the band in a heated fervor. Just as she wasn’t sure she could handle the suffocating rise of echoed trills and thumps and riffs, they took a break and the waves of sound gave way to laughter and raised voices.
Reggie was about to make for the coat check to collect her wrap; for every moment that ticked on, men forgot to look at her eyes, their own drifting to the cut of her dress.
“Hey, Reggie.” Hamish’s tongue tripped a little. His hair was dampened with a glisten of perspiration, his eyes radiant with exercise. His glasses were falling down his nose. He took them off and ran his hand over his face, then repositioned them.
“See? You were the most popular man here!”
“I saw you talking to Luca. And I saw Tom Schultze and Luca’s driver. Phil.” Hamish looked around him, as if his cousin might materialize.
“Phil? That’s the name of that lug of a man?”
Hamish nodded. “He’s from Chicago. I think Luca uses him as a kind of bodyguard.”
“Why does Luca need a bodyguard?” It was a more innocent question than
the dozen she wanted to ask about Chicago.
“More for show than anything.” Hamish paused, panted.
“You’re exhausted.” Reggie looked him over. “Your cousin gave us cab fare. We can split. Would you like a nightcap?”
Hamish shook his head, dabbing at his forehead with his sleeve. His eyes moved in the direction of the back—beyond the bar—where Reggie had watched Schultze and Luca and that man Phil disappear earlier.
“I am sure he is fine, Hamish.” Reggie smiled, squeezing his arm. The cotton of his shirt was damp and stuck to the sinewy outline of his forearm a little.
“Something isn’t right.” Hamish sounded distant.
“Chicago?” wondered Reggie.
Hamish shrugged. “I just get an uneasy feeling.”
“I’d say you watch too many pictures; but that’s me.”
“You want something on the house?” Johnny leaned toward Hamish. “You’re a friend of Luca Valari’s, right? He just hired me. For the Flamingo. Do you work there too?”
Hamish exchanged a glance with Reggie.
“This is Johnny Wade, the best tender in Beantown.” Reggie pulled out her familial knack for pleasantries. “And this is Hamish DeLuca, Luca’s cousin and”—she winked at Hamish—“right-hand man.”
“Geez. You’re related? Is he really as high life as they say he is?”
Hamish stole Reggie’s earlier line. “He’s something, all right.”
Johnny was lured by a voluptuous blonde and Hamish looked over the sea of heads.
“Did they go to the back or something?” He searched the crowd. “If it’s business and the two of us are here, he would want us nearby.”
“You really are worried.”
“Just an instinct.” His hand was tucked under his brace and his two forefingers rapped slightly. If she didn’t know better, she would say he was counting something. But what?
“Well, you can’t go find him by yourself,” Reggie said. “I’ll come with you. That way, we can say we were on our way to the coatroom or whatever if we’re caught.”
Hamish smiled. “I think you should take the cab fare.” He touched her shoulder lightly. “I have this under control.”
“Tsk-tsk, Hamish DeLuca. William Powell would never leave Myrna Loy out of the adventure.” She winked up at him. “It’s the least you can do after dancing with every woman in the joint and never coming to give me another spin.”
“It’s not that I didn’t want to—”
“I’m teasing you, Hamish. I am glad you had a good time. You did have a good time?”
“I don’t like trying to talk to these girls. They were pretty but I—” He stopped a moment, then ironed the slight stutter that threatened to hiccup his sentence. “I didn’t have a lot to say to them.” He shrugged. “That’s why I wish I had still been dancing with you.”
“And Luca thinks he is the flatterer.”
Hamish ducked his head a little. The smile whispering over his lips was full enough to tug his cheek into a dimple. “Let’s go see if we can figure out what my cousin is up to.” His voice was light but undercut by an uneasiness that pricked Reggie. Then he added, “All right, Myrna Loy?”
Reggie beamed.
Reggie walked ahead, parting the crowd with her straightened shoulders and a regal air that evaded her in cotton and oxfords. The dress she wore spilled over her like liquid. Even a gentleman would be hard-pressed to ignore how her hips moved under the sheath of fabric.
When they approached a door with a filmy window, clouding the view beyond, a man with broad shoulders stood with crossed arms beside a sign that said Management.
“My, my.” Reggie’s voice was crisp glass like Katharine Hepburn’s. “And wouldn’t you know, Luca told me to just go straight through. Just go straight through is what he said.”
The man didn’t budge. “I highly doubt that, lady.”
“Well, it’s true, isn’t it? This is his business associate, Hamish DeLuca. And I swear on my grandmother’s grave that Luca told us to meet him down there. He’s with Tom Schultze, isn’t he?”
“Why should I trust you? You’re just dropping names.” The man transferred the steel of his gaze to Hamish.
“It’s true. I’m his . . . his . . . legal counsel.” It was an improvisation.
“Luca Valari deciding to get legal counsel? What kind of counsel do you give? The kind with a tommy gun? A few kneecaps shattered here and there?”
He wouldn’t falter. He erected his spine, Adam’s apple bobbing over his loosened tie and open collar.
“Where I come from,” Hamish seethed, his voice straight and steady, “we mind our own business. I graduated summa cum laude from the most distinguished law school in Canada. And I am, I assure you, Luca Valari’s legal counsel. Is there a password to get by you, you badgering oaf? Open sesame, perhaps?”
Hamish looked over his shoulder at Reggie.
He could feel her subtle tics and twitches. He inched closer, surging with a need to block her from the odious man. He didn’t like the way the man’s gaze kept returning to Reggie: to the dress that accentuated her feminine lines, to the crossed-ribbon top of her dress.
“Perhaps”—Reggie opened the clasp of her purse—“we might reach a better understanding.” She retrieved a sizable bill. “Might we persuade you now?”
The man uncrossed his arms and took the money. He raised his eyebrows. “Legal counsel?” he said, not meeting Hamish’s eyes, instead focused on the stern etch of a magnanimous president on the greenback.
“Legal counsel,” Hamish repeated.
And the door opened.
Hamish motioned for Reggie to stay behind him as they descended the creaky stairs. The stairwell boasted an interesting mixture of alcohol and mold. Hamish could hear his breathing and wondered if Reggie, in the sudden silence, only the drumbeat beyond the now closed and still guarded door, could sense its rhythm.
A slow drip percolated from the ceiling as they reached the midpoint of the staircase. Hamish heard funneled voices through the wall. He swallowed and turned to check on Reggie. In the much brighter light, a single bulb extending from the ceiling, swinging and bathing them in its glow, he could make her out more clearly.
Now that she was no longer framed by the entrancing neon lights over the bar, he could see the slightly smudged color over her tense lips, the paleness of her skin more than compensating for the powder that was wearing off, the slight circles under her beautiful, black-rimmed eyes. He conjured a half smile he hoped was reassuring.
In return she reached out her manicured hand and clutched his shoulder.
The muffled voices were growing louder. Harrowing. Angry. Spewing curses. He heard a shrill cry and stopped in his tracks, petrified. Reggie collided with his backbone.
“It’s all right, Hamish.” Her lips were at his earlobe. “We’ll figure it out.” She nodded her head, waiting for him to acquiesce.
Hamish clenched his right hand. It was cold and clammy and the nerves in his fingers were aching for the reprieve of a slight shudder. His heart was beating faster now. And its puncturing count took him down to the floor level.
He found his footing and moved slowly toward the noise coming from what he deduced must be a heavily shrouded room. Nearly soundproof.
Hamish exhaled and turned to Reggie. “Please stay here.”
Raised voices, another shout that startled both of them. Reggie jumped slightly, gripping his arm.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” It was Luca’s voice responding to a man whose tone was like that of a gangster in a radio serial. Before the organ pounded. “I’ve told you.”
“It has to be somewhere.” This came from Tom Schultze. “But I don’t think he would lie, gentlemen.”
“He’d better not lie,” seethed another voice. “How many digits do you need on your right hand, Valari? Get this pretty ring after I saw it off.”
Reggie swallowed. Hamish paled. “I think that Luca needs his legal
counsel now.” Reggie shuddered as Hamish swallowed a sudden wave of nausea.
Hamish nodded, his fingers undergoing the slow metamorphosis from loose clench to tight fist. Then he rapped at the door.
The muffled noise beyond stalled. “What’s that?” Someone cursed.
Hamish and Reggie awaited the insufferable click of the locked latch.
The door creaked open slightly. A sliver. Hamish frantically looked beyond. He heard Luca more clearly through that teasing slice. Luca pleading in Italian. Bargaining.
“What do you want?” It was Tom Schultze.
“I was looking for Luca.”
“He’s in a meeting.”
Hamish strained over Tom’s shoulder. Tom lifted his walking stick and pressed it into Hamish’s chest. “You should stay put. And what’s this?” Tom chuckled as he spotted Reggie. “Ah, my little vixen. Well, before we can move forward with the Flamingo, we need your cousin to spill a few secrets. And these gentlemen.” Schultze inclined his head toward Phil, then to two figures Hamish had never seen before. One on either side of his cousin, whose hair was matted to his head, his suit wilting around his shoulders, his collar buttons undone. Hamish saw the flash of a blade dangling by one man’s pant leg and, squinting, saw Luca’s pinky finger tilted back. Hamish blanched.
“I-I can help,” Hamish said. “I am sure I can. What is it that you think Luca has?”
One man’s menacing smile curved. “What is this? And a girl too.” He gripped Luca more tightly. Hamish frantically took in the room with wired eyes. Luca’s mouth bled and his arm was twisted at a strange angle by a man who was the same height as Phil. Why wasn’t Phil intervening?
“Who is this?”
When Luca’s eyes met Hamish’s, they filled with immediate terror. “What are you doing here? Get out! This is none of your business! This is just my stupid little cousin and his girlfriend. They must have been looking for the coatroom!”
Murder at the Flamingo Page 9
