Silk & Steel

by Ellen Kushner

  Jean stood and picked up her hat off the counter. “If this is you playing a part, warn us before you make the stage your living. Give us time to take our heart pills.”

  She risked a look at Clara. She was adjusting her navy silk scarf, patting her curls. Fidgeting. Maybe she wasn’t so immune to outrageous flirting....

  Jean’s ears went hot, and she hastily put on her hat. “The car’s just in back.”

  * * *

  Ten minutes to pull up to Club Sidhe. Snow was beginning to fall. It would be rough getting home if they stayed late. Jean glanced at Clara in the passenger seat out of the corner of her eye.

  Clara’s hand, one sparkling costume ring glittering in the dim light, clutched the scarf at her throat. She was staring at the flickering neon fairy above the club’s entrance as if it were a snake. If Jean was very still and listened close, she could hear tiny, sharp breaths. Like a panicking mouse.

  “Hey.” Jean put a hand on Clara’s coat sleeve. “You don’t have to go in.”

  Dark lashes narrowed at the neon sign. “No. I rather think I do.” Clara inhaled deeply, and her expression smoothed like glass. “Open my door like a gentleman.”

  Jean was out of the car before she realized she’d moved.

  Clara took her arm, light and graceful. Jean may as well have been escorting a queen to her throne as they walked up to the bouncer.

  The man was twice as wide across the shoulders as Jean, and a few inches shorter. His eyes widened at Clara’s approach, and he opened the darkened glass doors with a grand sweep. “Ma’am,” he said with reverence.

  Clara smiled sweetly at him and stepped inside.

  “Keep up the elegance, Steve, it’s a good look,” Jean murmured as she moved past him.

  The bouncer straightened with a glare. “Cover is twenty cents.”

  Jean gawked at him. “You let her in!”

  “Yeah, ain’t she lucky she don’t look like you. Twenty cents, Fletcher.”

  Grumbling, Jean fished in her pockets and pulled out a couple dimes, then hurried in before Clara got too far away.

  A hostess in a short fringed dress was already greeting Clara and looked up with an appreciative smile at Jean. She was used to it. Also used to the moment of adjustment that smile went through once it came out she was Jean and not John. But tonight, she returned it with a brilliant grin. “Table for two, please. A bit away from the stage and the lights, if you can.” She winked.

  “Well, if the lady doesn’t mind?” The hostess raised an eyebrow at Clara.

  Nice. Good on Alan to train his staff not to let a woman get put in a tough spot.

  “As long as the hands stay where I can see them,” Clara purred, and batted her lashes just once at Jean.

  When Jean raised her hands in surrender, it wasn’t entirely a joke.

  At a small table with a single lit candle, Clara undid the buttons of her coat and paused. Jean belatedly realized she, too, was playing a part and stepped behind her to slip the coat off her shoulders.

  The thing about Clara was... she was petite all over. To the point you almost wouldn’t notice how short her skirt was tonight. The beaded tassels on the hem barely covered her garters. Neat little hips, shapely calves, and a high chest—

  Jean snapped her eyes up to the stage where a trumpeter was soloing. Safer.

  “I can take that for you,” the hostess murmured. Jean felt the coat slide out of her nerveless fingers. She barely got herself together enough to hand over her own hat and overcoat, then clumsily pulled out Clara’s seat for her.

  She smelled like tea roses when she moved, skin warm from the wool.

  Jean closed her eyes, just enough to tell herself to focus, Fletcher, then reached for the small menu as she sat next to Clara. “You drinking?” she asked, pretending to look at the coded piece of pasteboard.

  “No.”

  Jean glanced up at the stiff tone. Clara was ramrod straight in her chair, trying and failing to scan the room without being obvious.

  Jean leaned forward and tapped Clara’s wrist with the menu. “Hey,” she said quietly. “Look like you belong. Relax.” She smiled, her best one she saved for... well, no one, actually. But not the smirk she gave the boys.

  Clara made an odd half-gasping, half-laughing noise. “Look like I belong?”

  “Okay, that was vague. Pretend you like being with me, that’s a start.”

  Her shoulders did lose some rigidity then. “But I’m a terrible liar.”

  “That is a lie, and a bad one, because I saw you cover for the kid who was stupid enough to try drinking from MacMurrough’s stock last month.”

  She sniffed. “That? MacMurrough didn’t need to worry. And it won’t happen again.” There was something dark and satisfied in her smile.

  Jean chose to ignore it. “Come on.” She risked it and set a hand on Clara’s wrist, keeping up the wattage of her charm. “Act like you’re having a good time, and you can look around to your heart’s content. I’ll watch your back, you watch mine, what do you say?”

  She expected a roll of those big brown eyes, putting Jean at her proper distance. Instead, Clara faced her fully, even leaned a little close. “You mean that?” she asked.

  She sounded damned serious. Jean avoided serious, unless it was about the business. But sometimes you felt a tipping point, recognized you were on the edge of this or that. You had to go some way, and the other would cease to be an option.

  Jean knew which way needed to stay open forever.

  “Always,” she said. It was easy, in the end, to say.

  Clara held her gaze for a long moment. Then smiled, so relieved, so breathtaking. Jean wasn’t used to instant validation for life decisions, but it was there, behind her red lips, in the flash of her white teeth.

  Clara opened her mouth, smile still welcoming as heaven, then her gaze lifted to a point past Jean’s shoulder. Brown eyes iced over.

  Jean knew better than to turn around. “Hey. Hey.” She tapped Clara’s wrist again. “Look at me.”

  Clara’s breath came fast. But she focused on Jean, eyes too wide, bones too tense.

  “Winston?” Jean asked.

  “He just came out of the hall next to the stage,” Clara managed. “He’s talking to Alan.”

  “How does Alan look?”

  “He, um, he’s tense. But smiling.”

  Jean huffed. “I just bet he is.” Easier than taking a gat to the head.

  “Oh, they’re moving.”

  “Honey, you need to be less obvious. Look at me. And I hate to say this, but... smile?”

  Clara shot her an arch look.

  Jean grinned. “There we go.”

  “Alan got him to take a table close to the stage... He’s ordering from a girl.” Clara’s jaw clenched. “He’s trying to get her to sit down.”

  Jean fisted her hand on her trouser leg. “Is it bad?”

  “Alan sent her away.” Clara’s voice was barely a whisper. “Winston doesn’t look happy.”

  “Glad Alan’s got a spine somewhere in there,” Jean muttered.

  “Jean. He’s—”

  Voices rose behind her, but Clara grabbed Jean’s hand. “Don’t look.” She stood from her seat.

  “Clara?” Jean said, startled.

  “Meet me in the alley in twenty minutes.” Clara took a step toward the stage, eyes like a deer in headlights. A tight whisper: “Please don’t be late.” Then she was striding away from their table. No, sashaying. Jean whipped around in her chair and watched that fringed gold dress sparkle under the club’s low lights. The dark curls gleamed. Smooth brown shoulders moved with supple grace. Jean could almost swear she was glowing.

  Accountant? Where?

  Clara’s blue heels stopped just at the police chief’s table. He was big and muscled, and his hair was a thick, wiry gray. No uniform tonight; he wore a quality suit, well tailored. Captain Thaddeus Winston, having come out of his chair to argue with Alan, paused to smile for Clara.

  J
ean didn’t care for that at all, but she stayed put. They definitely should have at least talked about a plan for digging into the captain’s business, but there was fuck-all she could do about it now.

  Clara almost seemed to ignore Winston, instead chatting with Alan, teasing, giggling. He stared down at her, gold-wire frames obscuring any expression in his eyes. Winston didn’t stand idle for long. He leaned forward, teeth bared in the charming way of things deep under the sea, his hand extended to Clara. Jean was relieved she wasn’t close enough to hear anything. This was difficult enough to stomach.

  She flipped open her pocket watch. It was an old-fashioned clunky trinket, the only thing of any value she’d taken when she left the farm.

  1:16 a.m.

  Twenty minutes. She bit her lip.

  “Your girl is playing with goddamn fire, honey.”

  Jean turned around slowly in her seat, putting her back to the stage. A blonde cocktail waitress stood at the table, a tray in one hand, the other resting on an angular hip. Helen had been serving at the Sidhe longer than Jean had been working with MacMurrough. Tonight, she wore a satiny red dress and a tense expression.

  “Nothing wrong with making conversation.” Jean leaned back.

  Helen eyed her. “You don’t know who he is.”

  “Chief of police, last I heard. And not the first one who leaves work at the office, by a long shot.”

  Red lips thinned, and Helen looked tired. And somehow old... like a stone carved by years of rain into a new kind of beauty. “Bootlegging wasn’t enough for you?” she asked quietly. “You had to find something worse?”

  “What’s worse?” Jean whispered. Tell me I’m right, tell me it’s dope, and then I can—

  Helen straightened enough that the circle of candlelight from the table no longer cast on her face, and it was as if her cheeks hollowed and her mouth widened and her teeth....

  Jean stared.

  “I’m only saying this because you seem like a good kid.” The voice was thin and rasped over Jean’s ears like a brick across knuckles. It seemed to be coming from Helen, but it damn sure wasn’t her usual sultry timbre. “Take us off your list. You don’t see Alan’s orders anymore. Never come back to the Sidhe.”

  “What the hell,” Jean breathed.

  Helen sighed, a rather human sound, then shifted in her heels, and her face came back into the dim light. Young and blonde and pretty once again. “But for tonight, what’ll you have?”

  Jean’s brain was a stuck record of what. what. what. At last, she managed, “A Barry’s tea. No milk.” Translation: MacMurrough’s gin, neat. “Please,” she added, because she felt she’d better.

  Helen tucked her bob behind one ear. “Sure.” Her eyes darted to where Clara was conversing with Winston and Alan. “Anything for the... lady?”

  Jean cleared her throat. “Nope.”

  Helen grinned, perfectly normal. “Knew you were a smart boy.”

  Jean watched her walk to the bar. There was the usual sway of her skirt, the low laughter. Jean had probably imagined the face and the voice. And the teeth. No one had teeth like that. Like little needles all in a row....

  She glanced over her shoulder to check on Clara. She was laughing at something Winston said, her fingertips brushing his barrel chest. Alan caught Jean’s eyes, and she read subtle worry behind those glasses.

  She gave him a bare tilt of the chin across the oblivious crowd between them. He could move on; Jean was watching.

  The captain handed Clara his own drink. She hesitated before accepting it, but Jean only noticed because she was looking for it.

  Jean glanced down at her watch. 1:20 a.m.

  Helen brought her gin, set it down with a smile. “Made you this one myself. On the house.” She left without another word.

  Jean eyed the rocks glass. What was Helen playing at? Jean took a long sip. She was jumping at shadows. She scowled across the crowded club toward Winston’s table. And nearly dropped her glass.

  Two men stood nearby, clearly Winston’s boys, casual and watchful. One had a wreath of glowing green leaves above his slicked-back hair. The other had bony spikes tearing through the padded shoulders of his suit. They curved up and back, and when he turned just a little, the suggestion of a wing shifted in the light.

  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Jean’s heart slammed against her ribs. Her eyes shot back to Winston and Clara.

  He was enormous. Bigger than a man could possibly be. Where his suit couldn’t stretch, it was stitched together with scaled skins that nearly matched his pinstripes. A fiery green crown, its spires woody thorns, turned a slow circle around his gray head as it nearly touched the club’s low tin ceiling.

  And Clara—little Clara Townsend—floated several feet off the floor with a pair of sparkling, green-gold wings. They dripped like melting icicles all the way down to her satin heels.

  She smiled sweetly up at the beast in front of her and drained the glass in her hand.

  1:29 a.m.

  Winston leaned forward, rough and huge next to the fragile china of her bones. Whispered in her ear, right under her headband. His nose brushed her curls.

  Jean felt the tightness of the holster snug under her left arm. Was a gat even worth anything here? And she’d been worried about a new dope game in the neighborhood... What the hell did anyone call this?

  Clara handed Winston her empty glass. She swirled in midair, her wings tracing a warm, glittery arc that dusted her skin with its shimmer. He didn’t even pretend not to watch. Bastard all but tilted his head to one side as she floated down to earth and strolled into the dim hall running alongside the stage and out of sight.

  1:30 a.m.

  Winston didn’t wait a full minute before he followed. Impatient. Sure sign of someone confident in his own safety. Well, if you were seven feet tall and three times as wide as a Barnum strongman with your own goddamn magical crown....

  Jean’s breath picked up the pace, never mind her attempts to keep it even. Maybe the gin had some new drug in it after all. Damn Helen anyway. Did Alan know what his people were shilling here?

  The man with the bony wings tearing through his suit threw a whole dollar onto Winston’s table and followed his boss into the hall by the stage. He paused halfway down, spread his feet, and folded his hands patiently. No exit through the stage door, it would seem.

  Jean clenched her glass. 1:32.

  The second flunky, the one with the glowing wreath above his head, left to stand by the bouncer at the front door. Steve looked uncomfortable but didn’t tell him to piss off.

  Nobody in or out, then.

  1:33.

  Close enough.

  Jean tossed some change on her table and headed for the restroom. Alan had a bolt-hole in the gents’ that let you slip into the kitchen and then, if your luck held, out the back door to the alley. You just had to know where to tap on the cinder block wall.

  A drunk was trying to fix his necktie in the mirror above the one sink. He had two tiny goat’s horns sticking out of his forehead. Jean shoved him out the door and flipped the deadbolt. No sense making it easy for anyone—anything—interested in following.

  The cinder block wall took longer to open than she remembered. 1:34.

  Damn, damn, hurry.

  It spilled her out into the club’s little kitchen next to a box of onions. She swept her eyes around the counters and shelves. Only one cook tonight? His back was to her, evidently focused on...an empty skillet on the stove. She had just enough time to note how his chef’s coat stretched badly over wide shoulders before he turned around, his hands loose at his sides.

  His fingers were too long. He had nails like rooster talons. Gray eyes pale as ice glinted in a rough face, and the man smiled. “Going somewhere, pretty boy?” He had the faintest brogue, but it was trapped in a high, raspy voice. Like Helen’s.

  “Told a girl I’d take her home,” Jean said, all pleasantness. “She’s waiting for me, so—”

  “Ah. The sparkly dish you
came in with?” He was in front of her suddenly. She hadn’t seen him move. “She found someone more her type.” His grin widened. “Why don’t you go back inside, listen to some music?”

  Jean wondered if he knew she could see the unreality of his hands, the otherworldly color of his eyes. “I said I’d take her home.” She took a slow step toward the door but didn’t look away from him, whatever he was.

  “Now don’t be like that. You’re gonna get your nose broke, poking it in places it don’t belong. End up looking like me. Nobody wants that.” A heavy boot took a step forward with far too little sound.

  She was wasting time.

  She yanked her pistol from under her jacket and had it leveled at his nose before she blinked.

  Icy eyes stared, but only with surprise. When he laughed, her gut rose in her throat. There was a difference between a bluff and someone who really wasn’t worried at all.

  “You should try,” he encouraged. A talon tapped against his wide chest. “One of my hearts is somewhere around here, maybe.”

  She pulled the trigger. The gun barked in her hand, and the bullet may as well have hit a wall of cotton in front of him. She saw it hang in midair, as if it was confused about not going forward, and then it dropped to the kitchen floor with a ping. Her pistol followed.

  She’d never heard anything like his laugh before. Eyes grew larger, neck stretched long, and joints popped as limbs lengthened like cottonwood branches. And she remembered, vaguely, the horseshoes over the barn doors at home....

  She lunged to the left, ripped the skillet from the stove, and brought the iron down on his right wrist. The bone cracked loud.

  The man roared, and he grabbed the front of her nicest shirt with his left hand. “The hell’d you do to me!” he screamed.

  “Fae shouldn’t fight in a kitchen!” She stiff-armed a counter to keep from falling into him. He brought his head down low and fast, and she just barely missed the headbutt, taking the brunt of the blow to her shoulder. “Motherfucker!” she yelled.

  She raised the skillet again, couldn’t get it up past the tree-branch arm that fisted her shirt, and settled for slamming it into his knee. He screamed and collapsed, still yanking at her shirt. She switched the skillet to her left hand and caught the counter with her right to keep from being dragged to the floor. The buttons gave way and scattered all over, under the counters and into crates of cabbage and onions.