Third song in, halfway through my drink, a guy stumbles in from outside, gaping like a fish out of water, which he is, and I wonder what he said to get past the gorilla. He must have something, a charm or an aura, first to find the place and another to make himself look like he belongs. Now he stands at the entrance, gazing around, eyes wide like he didn’t expect it to work, and now that it has, he doesn’t quite know what to do. He wears a nondescript brown suit, belatedly takes off his fedora. He’s clean-cut and square-jawed, and he has a gun in a shoulder holster under the jacket. He must have had a spell to hide that, too, because the gorilla should have spotted it.
Everything in Blue Moon pauses for a half a breath because some kind of balance has shifted and everyone feels it. The piano muffs a chord, and a string on the bass twangs. The guy looks back at all the eyes on him before straightening an extra inch and scowling.
Then it all goes back to what it had been a second ago as if nothing happened.
I watch the band, keep the new guy in view out of the corner of my eye, and lean into M like I’m telling a joke. “I think we’ve got ourselves a Fed.”
She’s too polite to turn and stare but does raise an eyebrow. “How’d he get in?”
“I don’t know. He’s armed.”
“Maybe he’s just here to have a good time, like everyone else.”
The Fed looks like a hunter who’s found himself a prize. Casual-like, he leans on the bar. Doesn’t flag the bartender, doesn’t ask for anything, just watches, staring hungrily at all that bootlegged liquor sitting on the shelf, wondering how big a raid this would really be if he could pull off a raid. The bartender ignores him, wiping down the counter cool as ice and pretending he doesn’t have a Fed breathing down his neck. A minute later, the Fed flags the waiter, who shows him to a table in back, and my neck itches because I can’t see him anymore but I feel him staring straight at me.
Guy knew enough to get in here, he’ll figure out soon enough who the people with the power are, and the problem of getting M out of here in one piece when trouble starts gets a lot more complicated.
M puts a hand on my arm, pats it once. A signal to calm down. I listen to the music, watch the dancers on the floor, and try to remember that we’re supposed to look like we’re having fun.
The cigarette girl walks past our table for the fourth time, eyeing me and M but not saying a word. Cute kid in satin shorts and a bustier, dark hair done up under a little hat. She’s one of those girls with legs up to here and too much makeup painted on, but that’s the style and she knows how to wear it. She slinks deftly between the tables, maneuvering her box in front of her, counting out change and never missing a beat, like she’s been doing this a while. Still manages to smile.
The fifth time she walks past, not offering cigarettes but still catching my eye, I raise my hand for her to stop. She seems grateful when she does, a bit of a sigh expanding the spangles of her neckline.
“Pack of cigarettes,” I say. “There’s something else you want to ask, isn’t there?”
She looks back and forth between us, which tells me she knows us by reputation but doesn’t know which of us is Madame M, and which of us is just that sidekick Pauline. I nod at M, indicating that she’s the one the girl ought to talk to.
“What’s the problem, dear?” M asks. “Quickly.”
I pretend to dig in my clutch for an elusive bill, making her wait, giving her as much time as she needs.
She screws up her expression, and says, “I’m stuck. I mean, we’re both stuck. I mean—” She lowers her voice to the barest whisper. I can barely hear, but M doesn’t even have to lean forward. “—I mean, I gotta get out of here, and I gotta take my guy with me.”
“Your guy?”
“One of Anthony’s boys.” Her eyes dart to the card game in the corner, and I spot her guy right off, one of the heavies standing guard, medium-size and baby-faced, in a cheap suit. He’s got his hands deep in his trouser pockets and he’s sweating harder than any of them. He keeps glancing over here, lips trembling like he wants to say something.
“We’ve saved up the money to get to California, to go straight. But we don’t need Anthony or … or her coming after us.” She doesn’t have to gesture to the woman behind the beaded curtain. “I … we … we can pay you.” She looks worried, like she knows exactly what she’s really saying, what the price of M’s help might really be.
M regards her, a sly smile on her face. I’ve got my hand on a bill; I can only keep digging around in my clutch for so long.
“Your bosses don’t approve, I take it? Of you kids’ ditching your gainful employment—your families—to run off? Regular Romeo and Juliet story?”
The cigarette girl bites her lip. It shouldn’t be too tough a problem, not the kind of problem a person would usually bring to M. But she knows Anthony, and even more than that she knows Gigi, and the problem isn’t so simple as all that. I watch M; even I don’t know what she’s going to say.
She stubs out her last cigarette and takes another from the pack I just bought. “I think we can manage something. But pay attention—you won’t get a second chance.”
The girl nods quickly. “And how much—”
“I’ll ask for something, when I think of the right thing. But for now … Pauline?”
My hand already in the bag, I scrounge around a second and find the empty matchbox I know she’s asking for.
M says, “I need a hair from you and a hair from him. It’ll help me keep track of you. Can you do that?”
She already has, it turns out, reaching into the back of her white glove and drawing out the two thin strands, twined together. M seems impressed that she’s come prepared—she knows exactly what she’s asking for.
I offer the girl the dollar bill I’ve dug out of my clutch, which hides her slipping the hairs to me. I put the hair in the box and hand the box to M. Transaction complete, the girl dons her professional cherry-lipped smile again and bounces off.
“You going to ask for their firstborn?” I say to M, raising a brow.
She grimaces. “What would I do with a kid?”
So now I have to look out for the girl and her beau, and wonder what it is exactly M has planned for them. Should be fun to watch. M will decide when she makes a move, and all I can do is wait for her to give the sign.
The combo takes a break, comes back, and a singer, a beautiful round black woman in a rose-sequined gown, her hair twisted up and pinned with a silk magnolia, steps on stage and adjusts the microphone stand.
M pushes her tumbler away and stands from the table.
“I’m going to be brazen. I’m going to get a message to Gigi,” she says, nodding at the bartender.
I glance at the bartender, who hasn’t looked up, who’s been pouring drinks and sodas all night, shaking cocktails and dropping cherries into tumblers like clockwork. When no one’s around he just wipes down the surface, over and over.
“Think it’ll work?”
“Maybe if I look desperate, Gigi’ll talk to me.”
I don’t say that M already looks a little bit desperate. “I’ll hold down the fort.”
She tosses me a grin. I watch her slink to the bar, hips sashaying under her dress, causing the beads and sequins to flash. Her brown hair in a perfect bob, not a strand of hair out of place, her skin that perfect flawless ivory. People assume she keeps up her looks with magic, but she doesn’t. It’s all her, just her. She isn’t so vain that she’d waste her magic on something as trite as looking good.
The woman at the microphone sings, her voice as rich and sweet as I knew it would be, the kind of jazz too hot for the clubs you can just walk into off the street. I sit back in my chair, sip my soda water, and pay attention. Watch the people who are watching M, wondering what angle she’s working.
Behind the beaded curtain, the smoke and shadows haven’t changed. Gigi must know we’re here, but she must not care.
Back to the card game. The poor young goon keeps glancin
g toward the worried cigarette girl, who circulates and does good business, smiling enough that most people don’t notice the crease in her brow. She’s smarter than her beau because she doesn’t dare look back at him. The boy doesn’t give himself away because anyone can forgive him for staring at a long-legged girl all night. I try to think of how M will make good on her promise to help them out. She might just send them a couple of train tickets and a bit of a spell to make them invisible, or at least make it so no one sees them. That’d be the simple thing.
On the other hand, I bet there’s a way to do the whole thing without magic. If there is, that’s what M will do, just to show that it can be done, to show that she doesn’t rely too much on the tricks she’s known for. To keep people guessing. A distraction, and a threat. That’s all she’d need to get those kids out of town. And I hope once they get where they’re going, they settle down for good and have kids and all the rest, and realize forever how lucky they are.
The back of my neck is still itching where the Fed’s been watching me this whole time. Me, not M, or he would have wandered over to the bar where she’s leaning in to talk to the bartender. I can’t see the Fed, but I’m not surprised when he arrives at our table, pulls out M’s chair, and sits. I don’t even flinch.
“Mind if I join you?”
I smirk at him. The pack of cigarettes we bought from the girl is still there, so I pick it up and hold it out. “Cigarette?”
The Fed takes one and keeps his gaze on me. I strike a match and offer a light because it’s only polite. Then I wait for him to say something. He seems content to watch, and my job is to let him. I can wait all night, as long as that beauty at the microphone keeps singing.
“I know who you are,” he says finally.
“Oh?”
“I think we can help each other.” He leans back, acting cool, and turns his gaze to the singer. “Say I wanted to move in, and I wanted a partner—”
“I give you the key to the place, you make sure I don’t get swept up in the raid, maybe slip me something under the table, especially if you keep me in your pocket?”
Right up till that moment, he thought he had me fooled. “Well. That’s putting it bluntly.”
“I thought I’d save time.”
“This place is going down one way or another, but having help will make it easier, and you look like a woman who knows what’s what.”
He’s talking to the wrong woman, he’s gotta know that. Maybe he thinks I want to move up, that I’m tired of being hired help. Which tells me something about how he sees the world.
“Flatterer,” I say, my eyes half-lidded.
“It’s a sweet little setup here, I have to admit,” the Fed says. He scans the room, the players and dancers, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t see the horns tucked under feathered headbands or the tails curled under trousers. He pauses a moment at the card game in the corner before landing back on the singer. He never seems to notice the beaded curtain. “To think it’s been slipping past us all this time.” He snubs out his cigarette.
“Can I ask you a question?” I say, studying him with honest curiosity. He waves a hand for me to continue. “How’d you get in here? Guy like you, with such a clean suit and clean hands, shouldn’t have been able to find the door, but here you are.”
“Give me a little credit. We’ve had our eye on this place for a long time.”
He’s bluffing. half-lidded got himself a few tricks and trinkets, maybe strong-armed some low-level fortune-teller into helping him out. Or maybe, heaven help him, he found a book of spells and worked it out on his own. Like handing a guy a loaded gun without showing him how it works.
I can’t write him off because nothing in Blue Moon will keep the bullets in that gun from killing if he decides to shoot.
“What exactly are you looking for from me, Mr. Clean Suit?”
“How about you just keep quiet for now and not warn anyone I’m here?” he says. Like I’d have to warn anyone. “If you have anything else for me, we could work out a deal.”
“I’ll think it over, let you know.”
“Thanks for the cigarette,” he says, and leaves my table to return to his own, and I get the feeling he thinks I might really help him if he just sticks around long enough.
M leans on the bar for a respectable few minutes before returning, a sway in her hips, her smile wry. She’s brought a couple of fresh sodas.
“You made a friend,” she says.
“I believe we have ourselves a crusader with a stick of dynamite and no idea what to do with it,” I say. “We might think about being on our way. Take care of our Romeo and Juliet, then wander out while we can. Give the word, I can start a diversion—”
“No, I still have to talk to Gigi.”
I know that’s what she’d say. “So what did the bartender say?”
“Not a damn thing. He’s a zombie.”
Gigi’s got herself a zombie bartender? I chuckle. “Cute. So a shot of whiskey’s a shot of whiskey, nothing skimmed off the top and nothing extra for the band.” I glance over, and sure enough, the bartender’s standing in the same place, wiping down the surface, back and forth, over and over. His skin is gray, his expression slack.
“She’ll talk to me, I just have to wait her out.”
“Not a thing you can do about it if she doesn’t want to talk to you.”
She’s got her chin in her hands and is looking hard at the beaded curtain. We wait, and I have to resist an urge to look over my shoulder at the Fed, who’s still sitting there, watching, waiting.
The singer’s finished her latest song, a slow sad piece about how he done her wrong, and she keeps coming back, like the girls always seem to do in these songs. People listen to the songs and think they’d never do that, they’d never go back to a guy who treated them bad. Then they do, because they’re different. Their love is different, like it is for everybody, and it’s hard to stay away when you’re in love, and you’re sure he’ll change, so you keep going back. Unless you have someone in your life who sits you down and says, “Don’t.” Like M did for me.
A rare thing, having someone like that in your life.
Gigi’s not going to talk to M, I’m sure of it, and we’re going to sit here all night, and I’m sure now the Fed’s going to do something stupid because if he’d been smart, he’d have cased the joint then left to make a plan to come back with more muscle. He’s painted a target on himself. I can get M out through a back door. You need a little magic to get into Blue Moon, and it helps to have a little magic to get out, but I’ll charge straight out if I have to. Lack of subtlety, that’s how you beat magic.
“He’s got you worked up,” M says.
My back is stiff, and I keep glancing over my shoulder out of the corner of my eye. Not doing a good job of pretending to have a good time.
She continues, “He’s harmless. He’s got no trap to spring, and he’s too proud to leave without a trophy.”
“I’m worried about what happens when he pulls out that gun.”
“Pauline, relax. I’m more worried about Gigi than I am about some guy in a government suit.”
The scene behind the beaded curtain hasn’t changed. Gigi is back there, holding court, not paying any attention to M at all. I ought to trust Madame M. She’s so rarely wrong. But she’s not seeing the big picture right now.
I think I have a plan for getting rid of the Fed.
“You trust me?” I say to M, who furrows her brow at me.
“Sure. What are you thinking of?”
“It’ll just take a minute.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
But I’m already gone. Looking around casual-like, dodging past that fast-moving waiter, my gaze falls on the Fed. I look thoughtful, interested. He’s been watching me like I’d hoped, and I give him a sweet smile. There’s a chair at the table, tilted out, just waiting for me. Let him think he made the invitation and planned the whole thing himself.
“Mind if I sit?�
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He gestures to the chair and I fold myself into it, demurely crossing my ankles. I reach into my clutch for a pack of cigarettes, but not the pack we bought from the girl—another one that I save for emergencies.
“Another cigarette?” I offer, and he takes one, and I helpfully light a match for him.
He takes a long, slow drag, and what he blows out doesn’t smell quite like tobacco, but he doesn’t notice. “You look like you have something to say.”
“Just some advice,” I say. “The thing is, you’re talking to the wrong woman if you think you’ll get anything from me or my friend.”
His expression turns skeptical, his brow furrowed. He thought he had the place figured out. “I know who you two are. Madame M and Pauline, the two dames who aren’t what they seem. You think you’re under the radar, but you’ve left fingerprints on a lot of business in this town.”
“Fingerprints don’t mean we’re holding the bag. We leave that to the fancy people.” We don’t have a place like Blue Moon of our own, or a gang like Anthony’s, for a reason. We keep moving because it makes us a harder target to hit.
“Then what fancy people should I be talking to?”
“The deal still stands? I help you, you’ll let me know when I should get out, before anything happens?” I even bat my eyes at him.
He taps off the ash and takes another long drag. “Of course. I’ll keep you out of it for sure.”
Doesn’t even matter if I believe him. “You really want to know what’s going on here and who you need to deal with, you gotta talk to her.” I nod to the stage.
He frowns. “The singer?”
Rogues Page 24
