Southern Spirits (10 page)

Then there were the voices: laughter, curses, music and conversation, as if a party was ongoing behind her. No, closer.

Cat sat there, startled at first as she saw people milling about in the darkness: train staff, perhaps, or passengers who'd wandered into the séance. They'd better be. If Wheeler and Faye Scott expected her to believe they were ghosts, then they weren't as professional as she might have expected. These didn't go ‘boo' or rattle chains. They didn't even seem to notice the people at the table, as they drifted about, nursed drinks, played cards.

Cat swayed on her heels, gripping the piano behind her for support as the train took a sharp bend. She felt immersed in how clear, vivid, everything was becoming: the lights above brightening, the frost framing the windows, the tinkle of Pullman on the piano keys, the autumn-leaf smell of the Cuban cigars threatening to dry out her voice before she completed her set.

Still, Cat was enjoying herself, despite the circumstances . . .

* * *

. . . Still, Valentina was enjoying herself, despite the circumstances. She always loved singing, always had a good reception at her father's club, and not just because it was her father's club. Beside her, Pullman, the young coloured player they'd hired for her, knew all her songs. And they'd even given her some money to buy herself a new dress before they'd left New Orleans, a gorgeous silk chiffon Christian Dior evening dress with a side sash, waist-defining criss-cross of shirred material and a low neckline that her father wouldn't have approved of, the wine-red colour of the material matching her mane of hair. It'd be the best thing she'd take away from this experience.

She fitted on another smile as Pullman started into another number, one she'd recognised right away, and she returned to doing what she did best:

Yeah, she was good tonight. Too bad no one was paying any attention to her.

Most of the men were huddled around the large green card table, black silk jackets hanging on hooks on either wall, sleeves rolled up, hands casually tossing twenties and fifties into the pot, or flicking cigar ash onto the floor. Women hung around the periphery, smoking, drinking and talking with each other, looking bored. A few looked over at Val as she sang, their disdain blatant. Val suspected they gave such looks to everyone outside their tight little circle, let alone anyone non-Italian.

To hell with them.

She finished the song, thanked Pullman, lifted up her glass from the piano top and sipped at her gin and tonic, determined to moderate her drinking and not leave herself vulnerable. She turned away, having learnt by now not to expect any response from them.

Until one of them broke the pattern. ‘You know anything besides those fucking
moolie
numbers?'

Val's face reddened, and she glanced in embarrassment at Pullman, who had the good grace to pretend not to recognise the insult. She bit back her initial reply to turn around again, addressing the crowd, not knowing which of them spoke. ‘If you don't like Billie Holiday, I know more modern numbers: Rosie Clooney, Doris Day. I'm here to please.'

From the table, the speaker, a ringer for Orson Welles, made himself known, though he never looked up from the cards he kept tightly in his podgy fingers as his voice rose. ‘You hear that, Mickey? She's here to please.'

No one at the table, or immediately surrounding it, responded. Val looked past them. An ornate wall-to-ceiling screen, decorated in a narrow grid pattern, opaque glass decorated with Gothic swirls, divided the carriage. It offered at least visual privacy to those on the other side. The man she knew sat behind there never responded, having disappeared back there almost from the time that the train had pulled out of town. She was both relieved at this, and disappointed . . .

She started as Baldy's hand roughly squeezed her rear. ‘You're wasting your time standing there singing. You can earn more on your back.'

Her reaction was instinctive, danger or not, as she slapped his hand away. ‘You don't have enough money for that, you bastard!'

That elicited oohs and ahhs from the others, albeit laced with the arrogance of bullies who knew they'd always have
the advantage. It was a swagger they had displayed from the day they'd come south, looking to acquire legitimate businesses as criminal fronts. Businesses like her father's club. Daddy was a good man, but a bad gambler, and the takeover had been as swift as it had been merciless. And though technically he still owned the club, he ran it in their name – on the condition that Val accompanied them back north for the weekend, singing for them.

She wasn't naive enough to think that was all that they might want from her.

In fact, with regard to the capo, the man in charge of this crew, she was counting on it.

Then a new voice spoke up from behind the screen, a man's voice, low but dampening the noise around the card table like a bucket of iced water. ‘Send our guest in here.'

Baldy grunted, puffed his cigar back to consciousness. ‘Well? You heard.' His words were poisoned with that petty, now-you're-gonna-get-it tone most people left behind in the schoolyard.

So she left him with a final, ‘Good luck with that pair of deuces,' then slid the door aside and entered the private area, as Baldy lost his hand. The door, now shut, muted the sounds from the other side. It was a darker, more intimate area in here, with leather-backed chairs grouped in pairs around tiny round tables, and thick verdant potted plants providing token cover. It was a place for private conversations, for making deals.

This suited Val just fine.

‘At the end.'

She walked along, seeing his polished black shoes and the legs of his immaculate black silk trousers. Her heart was fluttering and her legs were turning to jelly. She was afraid. She was excited. She adjusted her breasts inside her dress, her hands shaking.

Mickey was there, on his own, reclining in a chair, a brandy snifter at his side, studying a small chessboard. His hand reached out, almost touched a knight, but then withdrew again. The image had thrown her; she'd expected to see him counting his ill-gotten gains or polishing guns.

He didn't look up, and Val took the opportunity to compose herself, study him again. He was a young man, shockingly young for someone in his position, a man of distracting good looks, dark and smooth, with swept-back jet-black hair, an aquiline nose and chiselled chin which seemed to dare the world to take a swing at it. His jacket was off, and the cuffs of his white silk shirt were undone, the gold cufflinks sitting on the edge of the table.

This man had overturned her life, hung a sword of Damocles over it.

Sweet God, she wanted him.

‘I hate cigar smoke,' he said suddenly, softly, as if she'd asked him something. He never raised his voice, ever, hence his crew's nickname for him: Mickey Whisper. He indicated the board. ‘And I can't study this in front of them without getting ribbed.'

She nodded, in lieu of any other response, loving the surprisingly cultured, educated smoothness of his voice. She'd had a plan – sort of – but on standing here, it seemed to have deserted her. She kept staring at him, and it was melting her insides more than she'd wanted.

He reached out suddenly, almost impulsively, moved a white knight forward, and then turned the board around so that now he could see it from the black side. Except that now he leant back, regarding her directly as he reached for his snifter. ‘What's that around your neck?'

Val's hand reached up to her charm. ‘It's a family talisman for our Guédé loa.'

‘“Gay-day lawa?” You mean voodoo? You believe in that stuff?'

She'd asked herself that, more than once. Her mother's family had, for generations, and her mother herself had been a mambo, a priestess. When Mama died, Papa had tried to raise Val as strictly Christian, but she had learnt on her own. And though she still didn't quite know if she believed, she was prepared to respect the beliefs of the maternal side of her heritage. ‘I don't know if I believe, but I . . . I won't take any chances.'

He smiled and, for a moment, she expected him to say something insulting. He wouldn't have been the first person outside of New Orleans to do that. Instead, he surprised her with, ‘I said something similar once. My mother wanted me to be a priest, but the thought of saying prayers to saints and stuff with no guarantee of delivery seemed like such a scam. Why do you think you were invited to accompany us?'

When his eyes fixed on hers, Val swallowed, felt dizzy. She hated her body. Hated how it reacted to a man her mind saw as an enemy, even as she realised how it could make her intentions less unpalatable. Slipping on a mask of nonchalance, of flirtatiousness, she smiled. ‘I think we both know.'

‘Humour me; I prefer the direct approach.' He loosened the knot on his burgundy silk tie, smiling as he watched Val's eyes follow.

‘So do I. I think we're much alike, Mister –'

He held up a hand, cutting her off gently. ‘Call me Mickey. I think we need to be on a first-name basis.'

Val drew closer, one hand idly rising to play with some rebellious strands of hair near her right ear. ‘Mickey. As I was saying, I think we're much alike.'

‘In some ways.' Now he rose to his feet, standing a head taller than her, close but not too close – yet. ‘Though I bet if
I stripped you to the skin I could find some interesting differences.'

‘I'd . . . I'd certainly hope so.' Val felt a shiver of excitement run through her at his words, his proximity, the heady scent of his cologne. She worked up the courage to reach out, as if genuinely interested in adjusting his tie. ‘You should be careful. I might hold you to that.'

Mickey smiled again, with that mixture of amusement and desire that seemed to come so easily to him. ‘Being careful isn't one of my stronger suits. And what makes you think I might be interested in . . . being held?'

Val pursed her lips as if in thought rather than in anticipation of a kiss. ‘The looks you've been giving me since you first came to the club. The looks you're giving me now.'

Mickey's expression never wavered as he drew in closer. ‘Tell me more about these looks.'

Val swallowed, finding this equally more difficult and easy than she'd expected, her anxiety and arousal keeping her off guard. The room felt almost uncomfortably warm despite the cold weather outside, but she pressed on. She had him. She had him now. ‘The looks of a man that wants to fuck me.' She swallowed; just hearing herself say That Word was arousing.

Mickey chuckled. ‘You should be careful, such brashness could get that sweet little ass of yours smacked.'

Val smiled back, the heat in her groin flaring up as if in response to her embarrassment at using such language. ‘I thought you said you preferred the direct approach?'

‘I do.' He reached up, touched her face with his fingertips, making her shiver. His touch drew across her lips, before descending to the soft downy skin of her throat, threatening to continue down into her cleavage. ‘And so, to be direct: turn around.'

Val started, the frisson of desire that had already ignited
within her now sparking and spreading to the rest of her body, forcing her to turn in place until she faced away from him, staring at some old sepia photograph of a steam train on the wall. ‘L– Like this?'

‘Bend forwards.'

She paused, leant forwards over a table until her breasts touched the smooth, polished wooden surface, followed by her charm, and she was resting almost totally on her elbows, her hair draping either side of her face. She heard Mickey move closely behind her, his voice touched her like his hands. ‘Are you a virgin?'

‘Does that matter –' Then she yelped at the hand that suddenly slapped her left buttock, more teasing than rough, sending a pulse straight to her pussy.

His hand remained there, stroking her through her dress. ‘Well?'

Val swallowed, her head spinning. ‘N– No. I'm not.' She didn't want to go into detail, didn't want to think about Enrique, away in Europe, and open up the floodgates of guilt. He knew nothing about what this mob had done, and certainly didn't know about her intentions now. He definitely wouldn't understand, but she promised herself she'd make it up to him when his tour of duty was over and he returned home.

‘Not that I mind,' Mickey was saying, still stroking her.

She squeezed her thighs together. There was something undeniably dynamic and exciting about the man behind her: that air of authority, that voice, that gaze – and that touch, oh God . . .

Another slap recaptured her awareness, as did the question, ‘Why did you come here?'

Val's mouth had dried, even as other parts of her grew wet, and sweat beaded down the curves of her suspended breasts in her dress. ‘I . . . You asked me.'

‘Yes. But you had your own agenda, too.' Now Mickey pressed his groin up against Val's proffered backside, his erection obvious, his hands moving up and down the her hips and thighs. ‘You came to have me do this?'

Val felt her nostrils flare with her quickening breath as she eased her upper half further down onto the table, until her aching breasts rested fully on the surface, threatening to spill out, and her fingertips pressed hard onto the polished wood. ‘Y– Yes.'

Mickey's crotch ground against Val's ass, and his voice retained that air of composure, of command, laced with a wantonness that fed Val's own hungers. ‘And this?' He pulled back enough to let one hand move down over her other cheek, then gave her another slap. ‘Open.'

Val obeyed, lowering her head onto her crossed arms on the table, experiencing both sheer arousal and embarrassment at how quickly, easily she responded to this man's voice, touch, very presence, forgetting her reasons for being here, feeling utterly and shamelessly selfish and self-indulgent.