“Do you still love him?”
Do you? You think of him as you saw him in that restaurant: polished, urbane, with that stupid little mustache; fawning over the narrow-faced bitch who wore his ring like a trophy. He looked at you blankly when you said his name and was merely polite. Coldly, uninterestedly polite.
Then when you’d gone out in the alley for a cigarette, he’d come out and offered you money not to say anything to his wife. Even offered “favors” if you’d agree. He was drunk, stinking, his breath reeking of gin, and he’d tried to kiss you. The smell of the gin made you sick.
You’d left him in the alley with a bloody nose, his money fluttering in the evening breeze, and gone back in and quit.
“No,” you say now. “I did once, but now—no.” Not that Bertie. The sad, lonely little Bertie of the trenches who adored you and needed you and loved you. That one. That one you’d loved.
“Like Orpheus and Eurydice,” Rick says. “My analogy was closer than I thought.” He gets up and moves around the table, reaching down to take your hand and draw you to your feet. You stand there a moment, and then he takes you into his arms, kissing you.
You’re tired of pushing him away when you want him like fire, and so you go with him, lying with him on the tablecloth he’s thrown down there on the grass, in the sunlight. There’s the usual awkward scramble to get out of your clothes, but he’s never awkward and seems to imbue you with some of his grace. You lose yourself in his hands and mouth and warm strong body. He coaxes you up and over, and in the glory of it you see him again as he was in your dream, golden and incandescent and godly.
Something about that, about this, makes you laugh, and he stops what he’s doing and stares at you again. “What?” you ask.
“Do that again.”
“Do what?”
“Smile like that.”
So you do, and he literally lights up with his own laughter and amazingly, impossibly, you go over again, and this time he follows.
When you open your eyes and sit up, the tablecloth is ash except for the outline of your body. The grass is scorched. Rick is lying on his side, watching you with careful eyes.
“Well,” you say, “that’s interesting.”
“It’s a side effect of lying with someone like me,” Rick says.
“It wasn’t a dream this morning, was it?”
After a moment he shakes his head. “No.”
You sit up, wrapping your arms around your bare knees. “So, what are you? Besides hard on sheets.”
“Long story. And not so much with the sheets; it’s the sunlight that does it,” he says with a faint smile. “You’re very calm.”
“Would you prefer me to run screaming?”
“No. Not you. You might clobber me, but not the screaming.” He sits up too. “We should probably go on back. Your first rehearsal with the band is at one.”
“Is that it, then? We’re done?”
“For now? Yes.” He gives me a quick grin. “I hope there will be an encore later, maestro.”
You throw a handful of ash at him. He laughs.
DRIVING BACK
into the city, he’s quiet again, as he was this morning, concentrating on weaving through the increased traffic, of both the foot and automotive kind. You’re stopped, waiting for a streetcar to pass, when he reaches over to touch the back of your wrist. “I hope I haven’t frightened you,” he says in a low voice.
You shake your head. You don’t know why you’re not frightened. You should be. But every time you think that, you see him as he was when you walked into that club, lazy at the piano, in that silly undershirt-and-tie combination, and somehow all the fire and heat and sun in the world can’t make you fear him.
But when you get back to the club, there’s a man standing outside with a pair of goons flanking him, and
him
you fear. He’s not very large, but there’s a presence about him that’s intimidating, more than can be accounted for by the goons. Dark unruly hair and eyes bright green and a little crazy stare at you as you get out of the car.
“So this is the new canary,” the man says.
“Dion,” Rick says warily. “What can I do for you?”
“Introduce us.” The guy has the accent of the streets, and his hands are gnarled like grapevines. He’s talking to Rick, but his bright crazy eyes never leave you.
“Nathan Petroff, meet Dion Winyard. He owns The Vinery over on Port Street.”
“Get it?” Dion chortles. “Vines? Winyard? Port?”
“Got it,” you say. “God of the grape, no doubt.”
The silence is loud. Then the man says in a different voice, “Smart boy. Did you figure this all out yourself or did Golden Boy here let you in on the secret?”
You shrug.
“It’s not that simple,” Rick says, and his voice is irritated.
“It’s always that simple,” Dion says. “Let’s go inside and talk about it.”
“I can’t stop you,” Rick says. “But the goons stay out.”
“The goons stay out,” Dion agrees.
Corinna is waiting when you get inside. Her suit today is black, pinstriped, and chilly, reflecting her expression, and there is no sign of the staff. “Hello, you drunken bastard,” she says, her voice uninflected.
“Hello, you frigid bitch,” Dion responds in the same tone. “Beat it. This don’t involve you.” He turns back to Rick and jerks his head at you. “What’s so special about this loser?”
“None of your business,” Corinna says.
“I said beat it, bitch.”
“The day I take orders from a drunken Johnny-come-lately like you, Dion,” Corinna says serenely, “is the day Zeus rises and kicks your filthy ass.”
Dion ignores her, his attention on Rick. “Another one of your hard-luck cases? Zeus fuck, Ricky, this place is full of them. What d’ya need one more for? I’ll take him off your hands. The Vinery could use a new warbler.”
Your blood runs cold, but Corinna says dismissively, “He’s too good a performer for a whorehouse, Dee.”
“He’s staying here,” Rick says. His voice is quiet, uninflected, but Dion grins.
“Is he? We’ll see.”
The place is still after he leaves, all of you standing frozen until after you hear the sound of the door closing. Then Rick whips off his hat and hurls it to the floor. “Son of a bitch!” he swears. “That’s all we need is that bastard trying to lure Nate away. Or worse.”
“It was bound to happen eventually,” Corinna says calmly. “He would have heard of him sooner or later, and you know he always wants what you have.”
Rick puts his hand on your neck, threading his fingers through your hair. “I’m sorry, Nate. Dee’s a pain in the ass, but don’t let him shake you.”
You just nod and close your eyes at the luxury of his hands on your skin. “It’s okay, Rick.”
Corinna says, “You two have about ninety minutes until the band gets here for rehearsals. Nathan, I’d like you to do at least one set tonight, if you feel up to it, so focus on working with the band on some standards you’re comfortable with. As time goes on, you can build up your repertoire. Rick, get him relaxed; he’s stiff as a board, and I want him ready to work when the band gets here. You too.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Rick says, and takes you upstairs again, where he proves conclusively that he’s no harder on sheets than any other man.
You open the set that night with “Embraceable You,” and you sing it to Rick.
HARRY SHOWS
up the second night and congratulates you on your performance. He tells you you’re not the first singer he’s steered Rick and Corinna’s way, and he names two people you’ve actually heard of, one a big-band singer and the other a rising Broadway star. He says when your current employers think you’re ready, he’ll take over as your manager and steer you straight up the charts. He’s easy to believe, especially because he’s clearly fond of the Bellevues. You’re becoming pretty fond of them yourself.
So you keep singing, and keep loving Rick, and neither activity ever begins to pall. You open a bank account, but somehow it’s so much easier to keep living at the club, close to Rick. (Corinna apparently has a flat somewhere in the city; you never see her before noon.) On the nights when Rick sleeps with you, he’s gone in the early predawn dark, but you don’t follow him again. Instead you just wait for him to come back and roust you out for breakfast. After a few weeks, though, you discover in yourself a heretofore unexpected ability to cook, so the two of you dare to raid the irascible Mario’s kitchen and make your own breakfasts. That requires, however, making sure you replace the food you eat before Mario gets there at noon and comes after you with his machete, so a couple of times a week you visit the local market and do grocery shopping together. It’s positively domestic, and the kind of thing you dreamed about with Bertie.
Rick doesn’t seem to get bored with you, either. He’ll sometimes play when you’re on stage, but doesn’t sing himself unless you’re alone with him. Then it’s odd, minor-key songs in that Greek dialect you don’t know, and they usually put you to sleep. Other than that, you go on long drives in his gold Lincoln, and work on new arrangements of songs, and sometimes read the latest novel from Fannie Hurst or Edna Ferber. He is an enormous fan of Mary Roberts Rinehart’s supercriminal
The Bat
, which you tease him about mercilessly. And of course you go to the movies, usually matinees. He prefers Garbo to Crawford, but you both agree on Gable. And Harlow. Corinna rolls her eyes at your taste in melodrama, but the two of you just laugh at her. All three of you love the Marx Brothers.
Only one incident disturbs the halcyon days.
It is late on a Saturday evening, and you are nearly to the end of your set, when Dion Winyard walks into the club as if he owns it. With him are three goons, thick-necked and burly in expensive pinstriped suits, their broad faces blank. Rick intercepts them, and they have a low-voiced conversation before he escorts them to an empty table at the side of the dance floor.
Fortunately you are singing an old Gilbert and Sullivan standard, one you can sing in your sleep, and you can keep an eye on them as you perform. Slowly, the couples on the dance floor drift off, back to their tables. Billie goes over to take their order and gets goosed by Winyard. She only smiles grimly instead of smacking him with her tray as she would have anyone else, and heads over to the bar to place the orders.
Oddly, he doesn’t even look at her; his attention is focused on you.
By the time you finish your set, she has delivered the drinks, been pulled into Winyard’s lap and released, and has disappeared. Corinna comes up behind Winyard; she is wearing black tonight and appears like a ghost, her pale face and hair bodiless in the dim light. The goons visibly jump, but Winyard only turns and makes a face at her.
You finish singing, thank the band and the audience, and step off the stage to the usual applause. Some sense of gallantry—and rage—sends you over to the table to stand beside Corinna. “Anything I can help with?” you ask under your breath.
She glances at you approvingly, but says, “No, thank you, Nathan. Everything is under control.”
“Billie,” you start, and she holds up a slim beringed hand.
“Billie is fine. I’m going to have a chat with Dion about his treatment of my employees. You go ahead and get a drink.”
A touch on your elbow, and you look to see Rick standing there. “Get a drink, Nate,” he says softly, but his eyes are cold. You expect coldness from Corinna; from Rick, it is disturbing.
Then they warm, just a hint, as they meet yours, and you smile, and nod, and walk away.
This was your last set of the night, although most nights you go back on and keep going until your voice is tired. The normal schedule isn’t anything close to demanding. But tonight—no. Tonight, with Winyard in the audience, it doesn’t feel right.
You’re not alone in the feeling. People are finishing their drinks and stubbing out cigars and cigarettes, getting up from their seats and drifting toward the doors. Not all at once, not rushing as if there were a raid (you’d been through two of those and would be happy to never renew the experience), but gradually, in pairs and foursomes, calling good-nights to friends and nodding to you as they pass.
Rick and Corinna are still talking with Winyard when the band comes back from their break. They start to play again, but the music they choose is odd, in a minor key, plaintive and worrying. The hand Rick has at Corinna’s back is stiff with tension, as if resisting forming a fist. The air is palpably hostile, and the smirk on Winyard’s face does nothing to dispel it.
Mario comes out of the kitchen. Mario
never
comes out of the kitchen. He stumps across the floor, his clubfoot making an odd rhythm that somehow fits with the sad tones of the instruments. Rick pulls over a chair for him and looks at Corinna. She shakes her head and keeps standing, looming over the gangster. She looks fragile and dainty against him, but somehow you don’t think he would be wise to cross her.
Rick’s face, what you can see of it, is hard and expressionless. He speaks in a low voice, his lips thinned and barely moving, as if he’s talking through clenched teeth.
Almost everyone has left the club by now, and you see the staff heading for the kitchen. Even the bartenders leave their posts and follow. It’s only you and the odd group by the dance floor.
“Nate.” Your name is hissed, and you turn to see Billie gesturing for you to come away. You shake your head, and she waves more furiously. “Come on. This is not for you. It’s trouble.”
You glance up and meet Rick’s eyes. He nods, almost infinitesimally, and you start to turn away, but Winyard’s voice rises.
“Hey, you. Canary. Why’ncha join us? You too, sweetheart.”
“Leave them alone, Dion,” Rick snaps. “They’re not part of this.”
“But they are. On accounta I want them to be.” He eyes you, still smirking. “He’s your fairy prince, Ricky, ain’t he?”
“Shut up, Dion. Leave him alone. Nate, go with Billie.”
“I’m not a coward,” you say stiffly.
He softens and says, “I know, Nate. But this… this is family business.”
Family?
Mario’s obviously a part of it. And where did Winyard fit in?
Your puzzlement must show, because Billie hisses, “Family in the sense of mob, Nate. Come
on
.”