by Sacchi Green
Jack draws her notepad closer. “Tell me about her.”
It’s a story she’s heard a hundred times. Once, it was her own: a girl looking for excitement who sees New York as an adventure and don’t want to stay in the backside of nowhere forever.
Mr. Marshall’s girl ain’t come so far. She likes to mix with all sorts. That ain’t proper enough for her pappy.
Jack closes her book. “I’ll see what I can find out,” she says.
“You’ll bring her home?”
Jack rises from her seat. “Can’t promise that, but if she can be found, I’ll find her.”
He gave her places his baby girl—Gracie —used to go to. He looked there, he said, but Jack knows it’s easy to hide out some place you know, especially if your old man sticks out like a crooked nail.
Those are the first places she goes when the evening sets in. She pulls on her coat and hat, and takes the trolley uptown to Harlem.
Mr. Marshall said a lot, but Jack can read between the lines. He don’t like black folk and he don’t want his girl around the likes of them. The way Jack figures, Gracie Marshall can spend her time with whomever she damned well pleases.
She lights up a cigarette and walks the streets. Marshall didn’t know what to look for, but Jack knows the signs, places where speakeasies are tucked away, hiding behind storefronts and apartment blocks.
Three bars are a bust. One of them, she shows around Gracie’s picture. They know her, sure, but she don’t come there no more. She moved on to bigger things. One of the fellas, grinning, says she’s taken to watching Miss Gladys.
Jack don’t go to Harlem all that often, but even she’s heard of Miss Gladys: the big lady with the big voice and the white tux, working out of the Clam House on 133rd. Some people don’t know if she’s Sheik or Sheba. Jack has got a hell of a lot of respect for a dame like that.
It puts a new spin on Gracie Marshall, if she’s living it up with Miss Gladys.
Jack heads that way. It’s tucked right away, but if you know where to look, it ain’t hard to see it. The Clam House has a name, and sure enough, can’t miss the lavender crowd.
It don’t take much to get in. The dame at the door looks Jack over and nods, like she’s one of them. Maybe she is, in her way. Sure, she don’t dress up to strut onstage, but she sure as hell is acting up a storm. She ain’t a fella, never wanted to be one, but damned if it ain’t a hell of a lot easier living in pants.
The speakeasy is already filling up. Jack takes it all in: fellas arm-in-arm with fellas, dames cosying up to other dames. Her cigarette’s burning low and she realizes she’s staring. Ain’t like she hasn’t considered her likings. Always kept ’em buttoned right down. Don’t need no distraction.
She sees a dark head turn, sees the face from the photograph. Little Gracie Marshall ain’t half so innocent as her old man said. She’s sitting on a table, a glass of shine in one hand, cigarette in the other. Her hair is darker, shorter, and she’s painted up her face, and damn, if she don’t look like a Nickelodeon queen.
Jack’s still staring when Gracie notices her. She ain’t the little mouse of a girl anymore. She’s all lit up, smiling. Jack knows she’s in a world of trouble as Gracie slips down off of the table and struts toward her, skirts and hips swinging.
“Haven’t seen you around before, mister,” she says, eyes shining. “Like what you see?”
Jack stares at her, like a fox on the railroad track. She don’t need the distraction, and she’s good as done her job. “I’m Jack Parker.” All the words fall out her mouth like oats out of a split sack. “Your pop sent me looking for you.”
Just like that, the smile winks out.
“I think you better get going . . . mister. Peepers aren’t welcome here.”
Jack touches the brim of her hat. “Miss.” She turns to go, then pauses. “I ain’t gonna tell him where you are, Miss Gracie. He wants to know you’re safe.”
“Sure,” Gracie Marshall snorts. “Get the hell out of here.”
Jack leaves, but not without looking back. Gracie is standing, face like thunder. She’s found her place and she don’t want to leave. Jack can’t fault her for that. Sometimes, people never find their place. If you find it, you got to keep it.
She gives it a couple of days. Makes it look like she had to go a ways to find the girl. Don’t want to make it easy if he goes looking again.
Mr. Marshall ain’t pleased with Jack when she tells him Gracie is staying put. He wants to fetch her home and knock some sense into her. Jack ain’t surprised. He looks the kind to speak with his fists. Jack tells him to go screw himself. She ends up with a busted lip and a shiner before she knocks Marshall on his ass.
He don’t pay her and cusses her out. Calls her all manner of unsavory things. He’d be worse, she knows, if he realized he was talking to a dame, especially a dame with some smoke in her.
“This isn’t over!” he snarls. “I’m going to find my girl, with or without your help.”
She figures Gracie should know.
Okay, sure, she wants to see those pretty eyes again, but Gracie should know. She takes the trolley up to Harlem again. Gracie must have friends, because she can feel people staring at her. She ignores it and heads right on in.
Gracie finds her this time. “What do you want?” she demands, grabbing Jack by the shoulder. Jack turns and Gracie’s eyes go wide. “Geez. You get into a fight?”
Jack wonders how bad it looks. She didn’t stop to check. “Your old man stopped by,” she says. “He’s still looking for you.”
Gracie’s fingers are against Jack’s cheek and she swears like a sailor. “He did this to you?” Jack hesitates and then nods, and Gracie looks mad enough to spit tacks. She takes Jack’s hand, and pulls her toward a table. “You should have put ice on it.”
Jack snorts. “You think I got ice in my office?”
Gracie’s red lips pull tight. “Stay here.” She’s back in a second with a glass of ice. She tips some into a napkin and then presses it to Jack’s eye.
Jack lifts her hand up to hold it. “Thanks.” She watches Gracie. The girl ain’t meeting her eyes. She’s looking at the bruises, frowning. She knows to put ice on it and that gives Jack a mess of ideas about why she don’t want to go home. “You should stay here.”
“What?” Gracie looks confused.
“Don’t go back,” Jack says. “You got friends here. It’s safer.”
Gracie picks up another piece of ice and gently presses it to Jack’s busted lip. “I’m not going back. Not ever.”
“Good.”
One of the fellas brings them drinks. Gracie doesn’t even look at him. She’s looking right at Jack, like it’s the first time she’s ever seen her. “He was paying you to find me. How come you didn’t tell him I was here?”
Jack’s got a thousand reasons. She shrugs. “Girls like us gotta stick together.”
Gracie’s dark eyes are shining. She sits back on the edge of the table, and picks up the glasses. “Girls like us, huh?” She holds out a glass. It’s cold against Jack’s fingers. “So what’s your story, Jack?”
Jack knocks back the drink. It burns like billy-o. “Like yours,” she says. “Just with more pants.”
Gracie laughs, throwing her head back. Her dark hair bounces on her shoulders, and her neck is pale as sugar. Jack’s hand shakes around the glass. She didn’t come looking for no complications, but she never spoke to a dame like Gracie before.
“You staying for the show?” Gracie asks.
Jack says no. Cases, she says, and she cuts and runs. She’s three blocks away before she starts regretting it. Still, can’t go back. Not tonight. Bad enough to skedaddle. Worse to come crawling back.
She gives it a day or two, until her face ain’t so swelled up. She even gets herself a fine new tie. Don’t hurt to smarten up once in a while. She’s late for opening and when she slips in, Gracie’s warming the crowd up.
She ain’t got the greatest pipes, but she’s got spu
nk. She’s laughing and shaking her skirt with every kick. It’s real short and her gams are as white as her neck. Jack’s mouth is dry and she’s staring.
Gracie spots her over the whooping crowd. She smiles and blows a kiss. Jack blushes like a schoolgirl. She heads to the bar and hides her face in a glass of shine. There’s an empty table nearby and she’s still sitting there when Gracie skips off the stage.
Jack don’t have a chance to get up when all of a sudden Gracie is by the table. She steals Jack’s glass and takes a mouthful, then sits right on down in Jack’s lap, like it’s regular. In this place, maybe it is. Jack still swears in surprise.
Gracie grins at her. Hers lips are red as Jack’s tie. “I knew you’d be back.”
Jack’s heart beats like a drum. Gracie’s face is close to hers, and Jack’s breathing way too hard. She’s straighter than this. She don’t turn into a sap over a pretty pair of eyes. Not before, anyhow.
Still, she melts like butter in the sun when Gracie leans that little bit closer and kisses her right on the mouth. She ain’t never been kissed by anyone, save Thomas Kelvin when she was ten. She decked him then, but she ain’t got any plans to deck Gracie, not even when Gracie opens her mouth and licks at Jack’s lips.
Jack gasps aloud, and her mouth is open, and Gracie’s already slipping her tongue deeper. Jack’s dizzy with it. She’s pulling Gracie closer, and she can feel Gracie’s fingers in her hair. She don’t know where her hat is at.
She pulls back. Her lips feel all puffed out, and she’s breathing like she ran a block. “Gracie . . . ” It sounds like a prayer.
Gracie is smiling. Her fingertips touch Jack’s lip. “Wanted to do that the other day, but you were all beat up.”
“Sure,” Jack snorts, looking away.
“Sure,” Gracie retorts, lifting Jack’s chin, making her look back at her. “You watched out for me. I like that in a fella, even when he isn’t really a fella. Especially then.”
“Ain’t no Jasper,” Jack mutters. True enough, she ain’t a looker, but Gracie don’t seem to care. Jack looks down again. Gracie’s still in the skirt, and her legs are right there. Sweet Jesus, she wants to touch them, but that ain’t a road she can let herself go down.
Gracie leans down and kisses the corner of her mouth. Jack closes her eyes, shivers. “I’m patient, Jack,” she whispers. “You want me, you know where I am.” She swings off Jack’s lap and stoops to grab her hat. Jack swallows down a groan at the view. Gracie giggles, then sets Jack’s hat back on her head. “Call it an offer.”
Jack skips out again and this time, she can’t deny she’s running. Ain’t till she gets back to her apartment that she sees the lipstick smudged on her lips. She stares at her reflection, heart drumming. She can remember Gracie’s gams so clear. It don’t take much imagination, and maybe it makes her a sap, but she lies on her bed fingering herself and thinks of Gracie like she ain’t never thought of anyone before.
She wants to go back.
Next day, when the sun is high, and the fan is clattering, she thinks of ice on her lip and fingers in her hair. She’ll go back and she knows it. She blows smoke at the ceiling and grins. Yeah. She’ll go back and see if Gracie’s in earnest. Hell, maybe just mack on her again.
The door rattles and she sits up sharp.
“Mr. Parker.” It’s Mr. Marshall, and he ain’t alone. He got two bulls in uniform right behind him. “We need to have words.”
Jack sits up straighter. Ain’t right that he’s brought the law into it. Of all the people in the room, he’s the one who should be wearing the bracelets, ’specially now she knows what he did to his baby girl. “What’s this about, Mr. Marshall?”
“You know damned well,” Marshall snaps. “You know where my daughter is.”
Jack rises, and she sees the way the cops look at her. She got her height and her big hands from her daddy, and none of them would ever guess she was anything but a fella. It makes her feel tougher. She leans on the desk. “Like I told you, Mr. Marshall, your daughter don’t want to see you.”
“Mr. Parker, the man has the right to see his daughter.”
“And his daughter don’t got the right to stay away from a man that beats on her?” Jack asks, raising her eyebrows. Marshall goes from red to white. “Mr. Marshall ain’t no good gentleman. He beat on me, only three days back. I got no reason to tell him where his daughter is.”
“I never . . . ”
Jack knows she ain’t gonna keep her temper, if he stays round much longer. “Mr. Marshall. I done a job for you, and you ain’t paid me. You beat on me. Now, I want you to get the hell out of my office with these fine gentlemen, else I’m going to come down to the station myself and have charges laid on you.”
He goes pale as milk. She knows he ain’t got cause to charge her, but she sure as hell could see him closed up in the big house, even just for a day or two. He’s too much of a chicken-liver to try his luck.
He storms out and the cops go too. Jack’s hands are shaking. She reaches down into her drawer. She’s got a bottle of bourbon there, half-empty. It’s how she celebrates the end of a case, and that sure as hell was an end.
Half a glass drunk and she’s still shaking. She ain’t been caught yet, but with the law there, all it would take was an arrest and being checked in at the jail, and Jack Parker would be as good as dead. No matter how long she does it, all it’ll take is one slipup.
Someone taps at the door.
“Yeah?”
The door opens a crack, and Jack’s heart does a jump. Gracie.
She’s on her feet in a second. “You shouldn’t be here. Your old man . . . ”
“I know,” Gracie says. She closes the door behind her. There’s a deadbolt, and she pushes it closed. “He was in my part of town, asking questions again. Said he was going to see the no-good dick got what was coming to him.”
Jack stares at her. “You come to warn me.”
Gracie nods. “You don’t need to get in trouble because of me.”
Jack starts laughing. Maybe it’s the relief. Maybe it’s the giggle-juice. “Too late,” she says, when Gracie looks lost. She grins. “He brought in the cops. Thought it’d scare me. I turned them on to him instead. He ran.”
Gracie’s eyes look bigger in the light of day. “He’s gone?”
“Pretty sure for good, this time,” Jack says. “Least-ways, he ain’t coming after me, and if you want, we can shake him off of your tail too.”
Gracie comes toward her. “You’d help me?”
Jack nods. “Sure.” She’s leaning down just as Gracie’s rising on her toes, and they meet somewhere in the middle. Gracie’s arms go around her neck and Jack pulls her closer. This time, she’s the one licking at Gracie’s mouth, until Gracie tastes like her bourbon too.
She don’t know what gives her the thought, but she hitches Gracie up under her ass and sets her on the desk. Gracie giggles, leaning back.
“You got a lot of front, Mister Parker,” she says, spreading her knees. Jack ain’t one to ignore a welcome like that and steps right between them. Her hands bunch in Gracie’s skirts, pushing them up, until stockings give way to warm, soft skin. Gracie’s mouth is against hers again and she sucks soft on Jack’s bottom lip. “You want to touch me?”
Jack squeezes her thighs. She’s light-headed again, and Gracie’s teeth catch her lip. Jesus god, she’s making Jack forget how to breathe.
“I ain’t never . . . ” Jack says, feeling like an ass. “This . . . I ain’t . . . ”
Gracie kisses the tip of her nose. “Want a suggestion?” Jack nods, and Gracie’s mouth is suddenly warm against her ear, the breath sending shivers through her. “Sit down, and bring your chair in close.”
Jack all but falls into her seat. She can see where this is going. When Gracie kicks off her shoes and her feet slide along the arms of the chair on either side of Jack, Jack swears to god her heart is gonna beat right out of her chest.
“Jesus god . . . ” she whispers,
as Gracie hikes her skirts up high. She ain’t got any smalls on. As dark as her hair is on top, down there, it’s all pale curls. Jack ain’t seen anything like it before. Gracie is watching her, and biting her bottom lip. Jack looks up, breathless. “You’ll let me . . . ?”
Gracie’s eyes shine. “Please.”
Jack’s hands are still on Gracie’s thighs. They’re warm and soft, and Jack knows exactly what she wants to do. She drags the chair closer, wedging her foot under the wheel to keep it from skidding back, and presses her mouth to the top of Gracie’s stocking. Gracie giggles and tilts her hips, and Jack has to catch her thighs with both hands to hold her still.
She can smell Gracie. Not the perfumed up-top Gracie, but the smell of her sex. Lord in heaven, Gracie wants, and she wants bad. Jack shivers and presses openmouthed kisses all along the bare skin, closer until curls brush her cheeks.
She don’t know if it’s right, but she sucks on the skin, right there, high up on Gracie’s plump thigh. Gracie makes a sharp sound, and one hand is in Jack’s hair. Not pulling her back, though. Pushing her closer.
Jack sucks again, hard enough to leave a mark, something to remind Gracie whose mouth was there. She lifts her head back, and it’s like a red rose on that pale skin. She drags her tongue across it, and Gracie moans. Ain’t much of a sound, but it goes right through Jack.
“Jack.” Gracie’s voice is breathless.
Jack smiles. Gracie knows what’s what when it comes to stuff like this, but she ain’t the one making anyone moan and pant like Gracie is right now. Jack turns her head, and Gracie’s intimate parts are right there. Lord knows Jack knows how to manage those. Last night, she had practice enough. Ain’t never done it from this side before, though.
She slides one hand up Gracie’s thigh, then down, dragging her thumb slowly up, brushing damp curls aside. Gracie shivers, and Jack wonders just how much she’ll allow. She leans closer, then kisses Gracie right there, like she would kiss her on the mouth. Light first, but when Gracie leans back on the desk and spreads her legs wider, Jack knows light kisses ain’t for down there.
