Moonshine

by Alaya Johnson

  A door slammed. Kathryn must have left.

  “Bruno!” Nicholas called, his voice closer, “fetch me a pint. Rinaldo has some taste in women, eh?”

  Rinaldo’s taste! Fuck. He was about to come back. What to do? Frantically, I grabbed a handful of the pages—enough to glean some clues, but not so much that he would be able to notice with a casual glance—and raced back to the table. I’d just shoved them in my bag and seated myself when Nicholas burst into the room. He was furious, I could tell. But the anger had an edge to it. I knew better than to ask. So, Rinaldo had a mistress. That was something. And if she had anything to do with the horror that Rinaldo had perpetrated on Nicholas when he was thirteen, I could understand his hostility.

  “Come on,” he snapped, as though I was the one who had delayed the lesson. “I’m gonna learn this. He’ll see.”

  He kept me there past dusk, and called it off only when I began to yawn in exhaustion. I didn’t know what had happened to drive him like this. And given my other glimpses into Nicholas’s tortured soul, I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

  Monday was my busiest teaching night. I had three in a row, including Modern Etiquette, my least favorite and most popular. If I didn’t want to faint while demonstrating how to sip tea and write condolence letters, I needed food. There was a cheap coffee shop on Baxter I thought I could manage. My cab money from Lily was long gone, but Amir’s payment could certainly cover some of that deliciously reviving Italian sludge and a pastry.

  There were fewer people on the street than normal, and they all walked as though they could hardly bear to put one foot in front of the other. We were in the epicenter of the Faust epidemic, and after three days it seemed the fear had morphed into despair. A sharp wind blew a spray of icy snow from the awning of a bakery into my face. I winced and stumbled forward. I was still blinking the snow from my eyes when something pushed me hard from behind up against the bakery’s display window. I grunted in pain as every bruise from this morning flared to aching life.

  “What the hell?” I said, too tired and disoriented to even think of getting my knife. Glancing behind me, I saw a tall figure, made anonymous by a long coat and deep hood. He laughed and pushed me again. His breath stank of blood and a gentle hint of rot and tar. A vampire, then. Was that smell Faust, or just the result of a particularly unsavory feeding? I didn’t much like either possibility.

  “Please let me by,” I said, biting off my words deliberately. To let him know he didn’t scare me.

  His laugh was high-pitched. “Rinaldo knows you, puttana,” he said, his voice muffled and curiously gruff. “You the mouse, he the cat.”

  He leaned forward and laid his head on the back of my neck. Despite myself, I shivered. It was too late to bend down for my knife. Maybe I’d have to start putting slits in my skirts for easier access. Lord, but I hoped it didn’t come to that. Nearby, a can rattled, as though kicked down the street. My strange assailant suddenly backed away and then ran with that unnatural speed of which only a sober vampire is capable.

  I took a deep breath and looked up. I wasn’t alone. A lone figure leaned against the brown bricks of the building opposite me, hands deep in his pockets. His eyes seemed to burn mine, and I had no doubt who had kicked the can that startled my mysterious assailant.

  How much had he seen? I walked toward him, now far more disconcerted than I had been when the vampire first attacked.

  “Are you okay?” we asked at the same time. He smiled slightly and offered me his arm. I took it, grateful for the warmth.

  “So you were wrong, Zephyr,” Amir said, after a moment.

  This statement could have applied to many of my decisions in the last few days. “How, exactly?” I said.

  “Rinaldo knows what you’re doing. Or didn’t you hear that fellow back there?”

  I sighed. What marvelous luck.

  All the tables in the café were taken except for a small one right by the kitchens. After we sat down, I ordered some much-needed coffee and then went back and forth with the waitress until she finally grasped that I honestly desired a sandwich consisting entirely of tomatoes and cheese.

  Amir seemed amused. “That must get frustrating,” he said. “Why do you persist, anyway? Surely a little slice of prosciutto never hurt anyone.”

  I shrugged. “I’ve visited a few slaughter houses. And Mama would sometimes make me or Harry kill the chickens for supper. I just . . . lost my taste for it.”

  “You’re really not worried?”

  “About prosciutto?”

  “Rinaldo.”

  I shrugged. Amir looked like he wanted to shake me, but settled for banging his hands on the table. “How did that vampire find you? What else could Rinaldo know?”

  And wasn’t that a good question? “But . . . but it really doesn’t seem like Nicholas suspects a thing. I don’t think he knows I’m spying on him.”

  “Maybe he’s a good actor.”

  I shook my head. “But it doesn’t make any sense. Why pretend around me, and then send all these threatening messages? If he wants to string me along, he should make me feel safe, not terrified.”

  Amir leaned back in his chair, thoughtful. The waitress delivered my sandwich with a contemptuous toss and my coffee with a little more reverence.

  “You said Nicholas hates Rinaldo, right? Well, maybe Rinaldo knows something he’s not saying. He’s threatening you to stay away, but Nicholas is still in the dark.”

  I took a sip of the coffee, winced, and spooned three heaps of sugar inside. “Well, if the Turn Boys don’t know, then I shouldn’t worry.”

  “Unless Rinaldo decides to tell them,” Amir said, with infuriating practicality, “or he tires of your interminably hard head and takes care of you himself.”

  I sighed. “Maybe this whole argument is moot. Look what I found today.”

  I reached into my bag, pulled out the stack of yellowing papers and pushed them across the table. “Go ahead,” I said. “Look through them.”

  He was silent for a while, but I could tell that he was encouraged just by the way his foot began to tap against the table. “They’re old, but . . .”

  “He must have marked those when he started expanding the business. Which was around the time he became a vampire, according to Lily. Around the time he disappeared.”

  Amir looked up at me and grinned. “And maybe these will mark a mysterious location? Very clever.” Suddenly, his face fell. “But what if they notice it’s missing?”

  “Not a chance. I found them buried in a dusty box under a player piano.”

  “Can I take them?” he asked. “Maybe you won’t have to bother with the Turn Boys again, after all.”

  “Of course.” I took a bite of my sandwich. “You might want to look for markings near the subway line. Maybe even Battery Park. Nicholas had some kind of spell—like Judah. He said something about a train having a flat.”

  “ A flat? But train wheels don’t have tires.”

  “Oh.” I looked at him, nonplussed. “Well, I don’t know what he meant then. I’m afraid to ask too many questions. Maybe he meant a car?”

  “Maybe.” He looked at the papers, but abstractly, as though he wasn’t really considering them, and then back up at me. “That outfit . . . it looks nice on you,” he said. “In between defeating a vampire pack barehanded and causing scenes with the mayor, I wouldn’t have thought you’d have time to dash into Saks.”

  I blushed. “So you heard about that?”

  His smile was surprisingly gentle. “Dear, who hasn’t?” He reached across the table, traced my jawline with a warm finger and followed the curve of my neck. He hit a bruise, hidden by the edge of my wide jacket collar, and I winced. Did his eyes always glow like that? Just an edge of something warm beneath the caramel brown, a hint of the embers I knew lurked there.

  “Zephyr,” he breathed, “I’m so sorry. I’ve been so thoughtless . . .”

  I was gripped with an inexplicable panic, a conviction that I did not want
his apology, despite the fact that I had no idea what on earth he was apologizing for. “It’s actually on loan from Lily,” I babbled. “I ran out of clothes. Rough week. She thinks of herself as Pygmalion to my Galatea. I suppose there are worse things than being the pet project of a socialite. Better than Professor Higgins, anyway—”

  “Zephyr.”

  I closed my mouth.

  “This ends now. Rinaldo, Faust, all of it. I can still count on your help with Judah?” I nodded, mechanically. “Good. Then I have some errands I need to run.” He stood and tossed a crumpled wad of bills onto the table. “I have to go,” he said, his face such a mask of determination I hardly recognized him. He put his hand on my shoulder, the same one that had crashed onto the cobblestones this morning. It hurt, but I barely registered the pain. “If you need help, if you can’t find me . . . cast a summoning spell and call Kardal.”

  I was shivering. “Amir, I can’t even warm a cup of coffee. A summoning spell? Wouldn’t that bind him to me?”

  He flashed a tight, ironic smile. “Get a corner-charmer to do it for you, then. And don’t worry about Kardal. A subway rat would have as much chance of binding him. It’s just the easiest way for him to notice you need help.”

  What was going on? I stood up, the better to implore him, but to my surprise he lifted my hat and kissed me. The kiss itself was more than a little inappropriate, but he took his time about it, parting my lips and touching my tongue as though he could eat me from the inside. I pulled myself closer to him, until each button from his vest imprinted itself on my chest. As though from far away, someone hooted. Amir abruptly disengaged. I gripped the back of my chair to keep from falling.

  “Be safe, Zephyr,” he said, his voice rough.

  And then he was gone. The conventional way, though the door. The blast of cold air awakened me to the throbbing of my bruises.

  “You want anything else, miss?” asked the waitress, halfway between titillated and appalled.

  I shook my head and wiped my suddenly wet eyes. “No,” I said. Nothing you can give me.

  Three hours later I left Chrystie Elementary, aching and wondering how I was going to get through a high society party with Lily. I had a sudden flash of Eliza at the Duchess’s ball: “How kind of you to let me come.” Well, apparently the first order of business would be to keep my Montanan mouth well shut. Or filled with food.

  “Miss Hollis?” I recognized the voice, but my exhausted brain took a moment to connect it with a name and a face. When it did, I was surprised. Giuseppe had been forceful, almost menacing, the last few times I’d run into him. Now he looked parchment-pale and contrite, under the flickering light from an electric street lamp.

  “What is it?” I said, warily. He really did look terrible, but I was mindful of his strange appearance in my class yesterday. Perhaps he’d just been concerned for my safety, but I wondered.

  “I wanted to apologize for my behavior the other day. It was . . . inexcusable. Mea culpa. You have been so generous to me and I . . .” He shook his head, and looked away, as though he were close to tears.

  His lips were so pale as to be nearly indistinguishable from his pallid skin. If Nicholas, this afternoon, was a vampire in the pink (or red) of health, then Giuseppe was the picture of one at death’s door. Aware of Giuseppe’s sad history with Nicholas and Rinaldo, I could only grit my teeth at the unfairness of it. A vampire who starves to death doesn’t exsanguinate. He merely falls, like a deflated balloon, and sinks to the earth.

  “Giuseppe, I understand the strain you’re under, but . . . please, if you need help, go to the Blood Bank on St. Marks, tell Ysabel I sent you.”

  He shook his head again, but I could tell that my offer had offended him. “Thank you, Miss Hollis, but I am fine. I have my own sources. It’s just . . .” He trailed off, looked down, as though he was struggling to find words. “My son. My youngest. He fell ill, terribly ill last week. The doctors aren’t sure . . .”

  “What happened?”

  Giuseppe swallowed. “Polio. He needs a hospital, but . . .”

  Before he had finished the sentence, I was reaching into my bag and pulling out what remained of my funds from Amir. I handed it to him. “Please. Take it. That should at least see your son to a hospital. If there’s anything else I can do . . .”

  “Miss Hollis, I couldn’t possibly.”

  He looked at the bills, torn.

  I put my hand on his elbow. “Please. You can pay me back when this trouble blows over.”

  “You are an angel, Miss Hollis,” he said. He pressed my hand and then headed off in the opposite direction. I stared after him when he left, frowning. That man seemed to be walking under his own personal storm cloud.

  My pockets were empty as I walked home. A situation all too familiar.

  The party was as swanky as Lily promised, and if my appearance was not quite so stunning as that of the city’s most promising Other reporter, I didn’t embarrass myself either. She had outfitted me this time in organza a shade of burgundy that complemented my hair. It had long sleeves and a high collar—in order to cover my bruises—but made its concession to fashion in the dropped waist and intricate silver beading along the raised hem. Lily had gone through the trouble of buying me a pair of slippers to match the dress, as she had nothing in her closet that could fit my “monstrous feet.” My bandeau was made of black jet beads, accented by a large stencil of blue sequins in the shape of a lily. I wondered if this meant everyone in the room knew who had given me my clothes, but then realized it didn’t matter. I was as obviously out of place here as Lily would be at a suffragette meeting. We were here to look for Rinaldo, and my clothes would have to do.

  Lily was nearly engulfed by a ring of elegantly dressed men as soon as we stepped into the pent house suite of the Lombardy Hotel. The imported band played discreetly in the corner, but it didn’t look as if anyone was yet drunk enough to dance. A server passed me standing alone and lost outside of Lily’s ring of admiring males, and placed a champagne flute discreetly in my hand. I took a sip. Funny, I’d always imagined that champagne must be sweeter, given how much everyone rhapsodizes over it. But it certainly tasted leagues better than Horace’s bathtub swill, and I knocked the contents back for courage.

  “So,” I muttered, suddenly feeling much improved, “where’s the food?”

  I drifted away from Lily, admiring the exclusive and freakishly expensive gowns of the attending ladies. It angered me, in an abstract way, that these people could waste the equivalent of Giuseppe’s yearly salary on one evening gown, but the intense desire the clothes provoked in me were either evidence of my most primitive sensibilities, or my most elevated ones. A few men gave me admiring glances and looked rather dapper in their evening suits. I caught myself forgetting the food table entirely and looking for Amir.

  But of course Amir would never be welcome at a party like this, or in a hotel like the Lombardy. Lily had been my formal invitation inside, but my skin color was just as important. A guilty thought—wasn’t I now a party to it? I continued wandering and finally caught sight of my personal Valhalla. The food table had been stocked with decadent mounds of caviar and foie gras, in addition to dozens of different cheeses and tiny tea sandwiches. I could hear the band quite clearly now—food and music, apparently, the two necessary items that could be reliably packed into the corner of a party. They were playing a number I recognized, though I was so busy downing gourmet cheese it took me a moment to recall the name. “Basin Street Blues.” Curious, I popped a few olives in my mouth and examined the band. A fairly standard six-piece, with drums, bass, piano, two clarinets and a saxophone. They were quite good, filling the performance with deft jazz trills and unexpected syncopation.

  “You enjoy the new Negro music, I take it?”

  I turned to see that one of the dapper gentlemen I had been admiring earlier had joined me at my refreshment table refuge.

  “You know, I’d always called it Jazz,” I said.

  His b
lond hair had been carefully parted down the middle, giving him a German look, which was only exacerbated by a chin with a cleft so firm it could have served as a handhold to a mountain climber. I think he fancied he looked quite handsome.

  “Yes, of course,” he said. His accent was New En gland, but of the variety jealous it had been forced to cross the Atlantic. “But it has the meanest roots. I told Arnold he should hire a string quartet instead, but he wouldn’t hear of it. ‘People want to dance,’ he said.” He looked at me and I found myself staring at the cleft in his chin. Did he ever lose things in there? Change, perhaps? “Do you like to dance, Miss . . .”

  “H-Hollis,” I said, suddenly flustered.

  He smiled, and I was now overwhelmed at the depth of his dimples. “Bernard Simpson,” he said, extending his hand. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  Bernard Simpson? I remembered reading that name before. And come to think of it, that penny-romance face of his seemed familiar, too. “The Prisoner of Arabia?” I said, recalling the name of the latest in a sad line of sheik copycats.

  He bowed. “At your service,” he said. “I’m surprised you recognized me. They do wonders with makeup these days.”

  I had to gulp champagne to keep from laughing. The only reason I remembered the billboard was how much he’d resembled a wealthy New En gland prep schooler dressed up for a costume party. One could practically see the shoe-black running out of his hair.

  Luckily, Lily came to my rescue as I was fumbling for a method of complimenting his travesty of a film. “Pardon, Bernie, but I have to take Zephyr away from you for a moment.”

  He nodded and then Lily was off, dragging me through the crowd until we could manage a bit of privacy near the glass windows that overlooked the city.

  “What a world-class bore,” she said, rolling her eyes in Bernard’s direction. “And that ghastly movie of his! His daddy’s a financier in Hollywood. Bernie thinks he’s handsome enough, but seems to have overlooked the fact that he can’t act.”