Grim Shadows (Roaring Twenties)

by Jenn Bennett

  “Stella!”

  “There’s Papa,” Lowe said as he gave one last malicious look to the foreman before striding off.

  “Lowe, thank goodness.” Adam Goldberg met them halfway. “I turned my back for a second. What happened?” He surveyed the scene on the sidewalk and frowned.

  “Nothing a little hot water and salve won’t cure.” Lowe uncurled one of her skinned palms. “Stings, ja?” he said, tapping her fingers to show what he meant.

  She flexed her hand and nodded.

  Adam took her out of Lowe’s arms, murmuring a quiet prayer beneath his breath. Once he’d inspected her knees, his shoulders fell. He chuckled the sort of terrified laugh that betrayed relief and fear—a laugh Lowe had heard a hundred times from his old friend.

  “You look as if the desert sun tanned your hide,” Adam said. “And I see you’ve lost a finger. Should I ask?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Fair enough. Hungry?”

  “Famished.”

  “So much for a discreet meeting. Come on.”

  The aroma of corned beef, chicken soup, and dill wafted toward them as they stepped into the delicatessen. Canned goods and bread were sold on one side of the shop, cold food behind a refrigerated counter on the other, and hot meals were cooked in a small kitchen in the back. A short menu of choices was scrawled in chalk on a standing board by the counter.

  Adam set Stella down atop one of four tables near the windows and brushed dirt from her dress while Lowe dug around in his satchel, retrieving a windup toy for which he’d haggled in an open-air market in Cairo. He presented the black cat to Stella with a dramatic flourish. “What do you think? Hold on, you wind her like this.” Lowe demonstrated and set the cat on the table. It rolled and wagged its tail up and down.

  Stella grunted in joy, twisting around to touch it as it moved. A winner. Lowe never knew. She’d rejected half his presents. “She’s grown a foot while I was gone,” he remarked.

  Adam smoothed back her bangs. “Twice as sassy lately, too.”

  An elderly woman came around the counter, smiling in their direction.

  Adam nodded to her before speaking to Stella. “Take it to Mrs. Berkovich. You can play after washing up.” He moved his hands to sign the word “wash” and pointed at the woman. Stella grabbed the toy and Mrs. Berkovich escorted her to the back.

  “It’s times like this when I think Miriam would’ve done a better job,” Adam said wistfully as he watched his daughter disappear.

  Adam’s wife died of influenza a year after Stella was born—almost three years ago, now. The three of them had been friends since they were kids. Her death had devastated Adam. It had happened within a few months of Lowe’s parents dying in the car crash, so Lowe and Adam grieved together. But though Lowe could say he’d come to terms with losing his parents—mostly—Adam never truly got over Miriam. And Lowe was worried he never would.

  “I’ve told you a thousand times, it’s not a defeat to hire a nanny.”

  “And I’ve told you a thousand more that I’m not taking a handout from the Magnusson family. I’m a watchmaker, not a bootlegger. I do the best I can.”

  “You’re a goddamn genius with metal, is what you are. And if we can pull this off, we’re going to make so much cash, you might be the one giving handouts.”

  “I’ve heard that a thousand times from you as well,” his friend said, his mouth curling at the corners.

  “We made a pretty penny off the crocodile statue forgery.” Never mind that Lowe’s uncle screwed up the paperwork, or that Monk wanted his head for it. None of that was Adam’s problem.

  “And I spent it paying off Stella’s family debts.”

  “You’re a better man than I, Goldberg.”

  Adam playfully slapped him on the arm. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  After Mrs. Berkovich brought steaming bowls of soup, fresh bread, and half-sour pickles pulled from fat wooden barrels near the counter, Lowe retrieved the amulet base. The strange, disconcerting vibration it emitted grew louder as he unwrapped it. “Take a look.”

  Adam whistled in appreciation. “This is it, eh?”

  “What do you think? Can you do it?” Lowe glanced at Stella playing with the windup cat. She didn’t seem to “hear” the amulet, which was probably a good thing. Adam didn’t comment about it, either.

  “May I?” Adam asked, pulling out a pair of jewelers’ eyeglasses with extended magnifying lenses.

  “Be my guest. I can’t stand to touch the thing. Gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

  Adam turned it in his hand, leaning closer for inspection. “Same strange red tarnish to the gold as the crocodile statue, but completely different method of casting.”

  “A thousand years older, different place. Pay close attention to the hole at the top.” Lowe pulled out a black pocket notebook from his suit and roughly sketched the finished shape of the amulet with the four crossbars stacked on the top—or how he theorized it would look, based on known descriptions and other djed pillars depicted in stoneware and jewelry from that time period.

  “A curator at the de Young Museum looked at it—daughter of the antiquities department head.”

  “The one who offered to buy it?”

  “The very one. I just came from seeing her.” Lowe tapped his fingertips on the table and felt Adam’s eyes boring into him. “Came from seeing her father, I mean. Her and her father.”

  Adam made a guttural noise that was both judgmental and amused. “Pretty?”

  “The father?”

  “Screw you.”

  “Hadley, then.”

  “Oh, Hadley,” Adam drawled. “Ech. One day home and you’re already on first-name basis? Damn you and your crazy Viking height and that lying smile of yours. What does she look like?”

  “She’s interesting.” Well, she was. And he didn’t really know how to describe her. Part of him wanted to tell Adam about the “cock” slip and the astounding shape of her ass, but some irrational part of his brain selfishly wanted to keep it all for himself.

  “Fine, don’t tell me. Is her father still buying this from you?”

  “Even better. The man claims he found the crossbars that fit into the top. His dead wife hid them around the city years ago. He wants me to track them down and sell him this so he’ll have the whole thing.”

  Adam looked at him above his magnifying spectacles. “How much?”

  Lowe told him.

  “No.”

  “Oh, yes,” Lowe confirmed. “And God willing, if I find them, I want you to copy each piece exactly.”

  “It’ll take me a couple of weeks to forge this one.”

  “That’s fine. The crossbars will be smaller. Less detail.” Lowe slipped his friend an envelope with a rather hefty wad of bills he’d pilfered from Winter’s petty cash that morning; he’d have to replace it when Bacall’s check cleared. “Money to purchase the gold. And keep that thing in the warded vault, Adam. Just in case anyone comes sniffing around.”

  “Why would anyone have reason to?”

  “Well, for one, Monk is furious about the paperwork for the statue.”

  Adam raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Your uncle and his schemes. Are we in trouble?”

  “Maybe, I don’t know. I made sure I wasn’t followed here, but watch yourself.”

  “Hold on a minute. Am I making the amulet copy for Monk? To repay him for the statue? Why would he trust you again if you’ve cheated him once and got caught?”

  “He wouldn’t. You’re making the forgery for Dr. Bacall. I’ll give Monk the real thing.”

  “Damn. Sure you’re confident enough to pass off a forgery to an expert?”

  Lowe leaned back in his chair and smiled. “Dr. Bacall is blind.”

  “Ah.” Adam smiled. “That helps, I suppose.”

&nbs
p; “If those crossbars really do exist and you can forge the entire amulet, we’ll be rich. Still, worse case scenario is no crossbars, Monk gets the real base for no charge, and we get fifty grand from Bacall for the forged base.”

  “Fifty grand. Even that’s a fortune.”

  “Your cut’s half.”

  “Lowe—”

  “Half,” he insisted, nodding to Stella. “For her, if not yourself. All I did was dig the thing up. Besides, Miriam would whip your ass from the Beyond if you didn’t take it.”

  Adam sighed and removed his eyeglasses. “It’s so much more than the statue. Maybe you should just clear your debt with Monk, sell Bacall the forged base, and be done with it.”

  “But if I can find the pieces, it’s fifty a piece, Adam. Fifty.”

  “If you find the pieces. If.”

  “I found part of a mythical object buried in a flooded room halfway across the globe. Searching the city for a few more will be as easy as duck soup.”

  SIX

  LOWE WAS AN EXCELLENT schmoozer, as Adam would say. But several days later, when he climbed the white marble steps of the Beaux Arts–style Flood mansion and passed his things to the doorman—invitation, hat, white gloves, and overcoat—an old loathing resurfaced. Tailcoats and evening gowns thronged the Grand Hall and the adjoining rooms spilling into it. Old money. Prestige. San Francisco high society.

  Everything Lowe was not.

  Sure, his family home was in the same prestigious neighborhood, and his telephone number started with the same exchange name, but the Magnussons weren’t exactly on the same level. To start, he doubted any of them had spent the week avoiding Monk Morales’s telephone calls, completely paranoid that the man’s goons were watching him. Nothing so far, but the shoe had to drop sometime, didn’t it?

  And even though no one here suspected Lowe owed a gangster fence a fortune for a forgery, everyone did know his family’s money came from bootlegging. Hell, the entire police department knew: his brother dutifully paid them off every month.

  So, yes. The champagne these partygoers were all tossing back might very well be Magnusson stock, but Lowe wasn’t one of them. They knew it. He knew it. So he pasted on a smile as Dr. Bacall, walking with a gold-tipped cane, was steered in his direction by a much younger man.

  “Mr. Magnusson?” The young man was built like a fire hydrant, low and squat. Seemed to be Bacall’s guide dog for the night.

  “Where is he?” The old man’s white eyes stared at nothing as turned his head.

  “Here, Dr. Bacall,” Lowe answered, guiding the man’s hand in a firm shake as the younger man assisted. “Thanks for inviting me.”

  “Think nothing of it, m’boy. They’re pouring drinks down the hall, and I’m told dinner will be served soon. Miss Tilly couldn’t make it tonight, I’m sorry. She had another commitment.”

  Lowe feigned disappointment. “Maybe some other time.”

  “Quite a few people here I’d like you to meet. Stan here helps me get around, but he doesn’t know all the faces yet. So why don’t you track down Hadley.”

  Hadley. Would she tell him to shut up again? He’d thought of little else the past few days. God only knew why. Maybe he was a glutton for punishment.

  Bacall leaned closer, nearly butting Lowe’s shoulder. “Have you considered my offer?”

  Extensively. Lowe had also spent a little time getting to know Winter’s spirit medium wife. But if Aida really could call up Bacall’s dead wife, then she’d be privy to Lowe’s business. And she was, unfortunately, married to his brother.

  “I’m definitely interested in trying,” Lowe told Bacall. “But if I do, I’m going to need something more tangible than a gentlemen’s agreement before I bring my sister-in-law into this. I don’t like family mixing with business, and keeping something like this under wraps will require tricky juggling.”

  Bacall nodded. “I know precisely what you mean, my man.”

  Good, because Lowe wanted to collect as much money as possible upfront, just in case Monk came calling and needed to be pacified with an installment payment.

  “Dr. Bacall? Over here,” someone called.

  Lowe assured the old man he’d hunt down Hadley. “I’ll catch up with you later.”

  Leaving Bacall and his assistant behind, Lowe meandered through the hall, grabbing a coupe of champagne on the way—definitely Winter’s stock—and introduced himself to a widowed art critic he recognized from the newspaper. After his second glass of champagne, he bumped into a railroad tycoon who recognized him from the newspaper, but still no Hadley.

  Until he glanced toward the end of the great hall.

  Segregated from the main crowd on the far side of two immeasurably long tables set for formal dinner service, Hadley chatted with a man. Behind her, three bowed windows looked out over the night-blackened Bay. A single pendant light chased slow-moving shadows across her face as she talked.

  Her pale arms and neck were bared by a layered sleeveless gown: silver bullion beneath a net of black beadwork. The beaded web gradually wove tighter and tighter to make ripples of sparkling obsidian strands that eddied around her hips and thighs, like a black whirlpool.

  She wore curved silver heels on her feet, white gloves to her elbows, and diamonds on her wrists. And then, when she turned her head, something caught his attention. Something that softened every hard line on her face, every sharp note of her personality.

  Every toughened wall of his lying heart.

  Pinned behind her left ear, swaddled by a ruffle of raven hair, was a single star-shaped white Siberia lily.

  Such an ordinary thing. But it unlocked an undiscovered door in his head. And when it creaked open, the music and clinking glasses and the snobby conversation in the hall faded to a muffled hum.

  She wasn’t skinny; she was elegant.

  Her arms and legs weren’t long; they were endless.

  She wasn’t pretty; she was knee-weakeningly, dazzlingly beautiful.

  Lowe blinked several times and looked again. Not a dream. Still beautiful. She nodded her head in answer to her companion’s question while stealing a glance at the crowd, and her gaze found his.

  They stared at each other. Or rather, she looked at him while he stood rooted to the marble floor like a small child who’d been asked a question in class and was too embarrassed to admit he didn’t know the answer. He became lost looking at her. For how long, he wasn’t sure. But one moment he was drowning, and in the next, he felt the stem of his champagne coupe slipping through his fingers.

  In a panic, he fumbled and juggled the glass until he gripped it with both hands.

  Nice. Smooth. Oh so debonair. Probably looked drunker than Satan on vacation. Her squinting eyes only confirmed his fears. He set the empty coupe on a nearby table and did his best to regain his lost bravado as he headed her way.

  Her companion was about Lowe’s age, tall and lanky, dark hair. His formal tails were a little too long, his wing-tipped shirt a little too starched, and his face a lot too handsome. He was also alone with Hadley, so Lowe hated him on sight.

  “Hello, Hadley.”

  “Hello, Mr. Magnusson.”

  No more first-name-basis, eh? Should’ve expected as much. “Hope I’m not interrupting an intimate conversation.”

  “Mr. Oliver Ginn, this is Mr. Lowe Magnusson.” His own name fell off her tongue like a burden in that ridiculous posh accent.

  “The treasure hunter,” Mr. Ginn replied, sizing him up with a cool look.

  “I prefer treasure finder.”

  “Mr. Ginn is a patron of the arts,” Hadley said, as if she were defending his good character in front of a jury. “He has financed several excavations in Mexico through his contributions to university research grants.”

  “The Aztec program at Berkeley?” Lowe asked, trying to place the man’s name.

>   Ginn shook his head. “I only moved here recently. My family is from Oregon.”

  Lowe honestly didn’t give a damn.

  “Mr. Ginn’s the one who encouraged me to do more speaking engagements, so he’s indirectly responsible for me accepting that seminar in Salt Lake City.”

  Oh, was he, now? “How kind,” Lowe said. “I suppose I owe you thanks, Mr. Ginn, because if you hadn’t encouraged her, then Hadley and I wouldn’t have met and had our little adventure on the rails in that cozy little—”

  “May I have a word in private, Mr. Magnusson?” Hadley said in a rush.

  “Why, yes, you most certainly may.”

  Hadley excused herself from Moneypants and stormed off without a backward glance. Lowe guessed he was supposed to follow her like a dog, and he did—oh, he did. The spider web of black beads hugging her bountiful backside vibrated with every angry step she took. Mesmerizing. So much so, the great bronze door she opened nearly conked him in the head when it swung back.

  Cool night air chilled his face as he trailed her into an Italian courtyard dotted with palm trees. A few stray partygoers mingled here. Servants smoked cigarettes in the shadows. Hadley strode to a marble gazing pool in the center of the cortile and stopped at the edge. Lowe heard her counting from several feet away.

  • • •

  Hadley focused on her watery reflection in the moonlit pool. Her specters gathered in the distance, hungry, waiting to be loosed. But somewhere between the count of eighteen and nineteen, another reflection floated over the water behind hers. It was enough of a distraction to send the specters scurrying away.

  “I heard you doing that in your father’s office.” Lowe’s deep voice at the crown of her head sent chills down her neck. “Are you managing your anger?”

  “That’s none of your business.” She crossed her arms over her breasts to ward off the chilly air. “Are you drunk?”

  “I wondered that myself, actually. Because I can’t seem to stop staring at you, and that doesn’t make any sense.”

  The two statements dueled in her head. She’d seen him staring at her in the hall—how could she not? He stared so intensely, she’d felt it. And for a moment, she’d almost believed, stupidly, that he was seeing her for the first time. That they were explorers on Mount Sinai, trapped on opposite rocky cliffs, and he’d thrown her a rope, and she wasn’t going to faint from starvation and lie there until vultures plucked her eyes out.