Chapter 17 #3
was a Negro band who I’d feel more comfortable in proximity to.
“Did you hear about the haul Davis’s squad got last week?” someone in front of me said. A loud conversation was happening between two cops in uniform. “Found a whole stash of giggle water on West 14th . . . but the boss? Nowhere to be found!”
Another conversation from a taller man moving very slowly in front of me, blocking my way. He told the person next to him,
“Glad we could get the kid promoted. It should work out well for us overall.”
“Excuse me, sir,” I said to the tall man, trying to move past him to get to the Negro band.
He turned around, and I realized at once I was facing the cold eyes of Tom Buchanan.
“Hi there,” he said, smiling tensely. “I take it you’re one of my staffers. You got any of that bathtub gin?”
“Selling liquor is illegal, sir,” I told him, my voice cracking slightly.
“I was testing you.” Buchanan laughed and winked. “I’d recognize you if you were staff. You do look familiar, however.”
So, he hadn’t even remembered our meeting, which happened weeks ago—typical.
Buchanan’s wife, Myrtle, stood with her arm linked through his, but she was busy watching Daisy and Jay pass. With the movement
of the party crowd, they didn’t even notice I’d stopped.
Charlie was standing beside Buchanan too, digging food out of a side tooth.
He looked bored, glancing around the room and eventually landing on me. “I didn’t realize you’d be attending. Happy to see
you’re staying social.”
“Charlie,” Tom said. “You haven’t introduced me to your friend.”
“Oh, of course, Father—it’s Nick Carrington. The boy I wanted to write for the Chronicle. That is, before I read his writing.” Charlie laughed at himself and then said, “Sorry.”
“Oh, yes!” Buchanan crooned. “I was very impressed with your draft for the West Egg Chronicle. It’s a shame it wasn’t published. You had wonderful things to say.”
“Oh.” I was a bit surprised he would say that. “Thank you.”
“I’m thinking of opening a new press for the youth in Harlem,” Buchanan said, looking off into the distance as if imagining
it. “It’d be wonderful if you would come and sit with us for lunch to discuss a potential opportunity. Channel all that rebellious
energy into something positive.”
Lunch at the Buchanan house? Well, one reason to want that was to get into Buchanan’s home again when fewer people were around
and scout things out. “Yeah,” I said quietly. “Sure—I guess I could.”
“Good evening, Mr. Buchanan,” Jay cut in, arriving at my side.
Buchanan did not respond and instead made it a point to ignore Jay in favor of focusing on me. “Expect me to be in touch then.
Jay will let me know how to reach you.” He gave Jay a quick look, which felt like a warning, and then waltzed off, his son
and wife behind him.
Jay turned to me, his eyes suspicious. “What was that?”
“He just started talking to me and then invited me to lunch,” I said with a shrug.
“There you go! Now you can break bread with them. You’ll either learn that the Buchanans are the worst monsters alive or decide your plan is actually ridiculous.”
So, the plan had not left his mind. That meant he’d been kicking it around, giving it power. And I’d secured another invitation
to Buchanan’s house? How easy was that? It was my turn to play nice.
“Look at all these cops in here,” Jay whispered, surveying the crowd as they shared gossip and discussed their successes.
No one was truly focused on themselves—they wanted to know what everyone else was doing. “Wouldn’t it be great to see you
hit a black bottom? Bring some fun into their serious lives.”
“Not a chance I would do that here,” I said. “And this is the wrong song for that dance, anyway.”
“You should get on the dance floor, anyway. Shake it! Show ’em what you got!”
“Jay—do you, by chance, want me to get killed? The lower I lie in here, the better.”
A clinking noise cut through his response. Someone was tapping a glass with a fork. I turned to find a man in uniform weaving
through the crowd and getting everyone’s attention. “Good evening, everyone—we’re ready to get started out back.”
He took us to rows of white chairs in the backyard and stood in front of the crowd as he handed out awards for entrepreneurs
and officers-in-training. Cannon was offered a spot as an officer at an Upper East Side precinct prior to completion of his
training at West Egg, just because he showed promise in the program. He accepted the offer with a show of fake tears as the
sergeant draped a ribbon over his shoulder.
Oh, brother. I was ready to go already—everything else be damned.
As the awards dragged on, I almost fell asleep. But then applause broke out, the crowd rose from their chairs, and the party
filed back into the mansion.
I spotted Mr. Gatsby making his way through the crowd on our way back inside. I could’ve sworn Gatsby took special care not
to look at me. He still wasn’t over our disagreement, but thankfully, he had made sure our night in jail was kept out of public
attention. I’d never be able to walk around here if he hadn’t.
Back inside, a piano player tinkered through the notes to make everyone lively. Myrtle Buchanan did a little dance with her
fists. This was the first time I’d seen the ginger-haired woman break a smile all night. Even the servers got their feet stomping.
Jay drifted to the dance floor and started doing his own dance in the middle of two couples. Flutes flustered the wind like
locomotive air whistles, like a train was about to come through this place. Everybody let loose, and the only ones who had
the time to judge were the ones who should’ve never come in the first place.
Jay’s gaze beckoned me to the floor. I shook my head and mouthed the words, “I can’t.”
He mouthed the words, “You can.”
Dancing in front of old white strangers? The stakes were higher here.
Still, the bass plucked some tension free from my shoulders. The cello thrummed a rickety jig through my pelvis, moving it
against my will.
The singer’s eyes shone on Jay. “Do me a favor when the beat falls, young man.” He tapped his fingers away on the mic stand, voice carrying through the room. “Show the pretty people of this lovely gala how Colored folks get down.”
Jay danced like this house ought to be The Green Light. The music set free all his worries and doubts he had of being judged,
and in turn, mine.
I laughed as Jay dropped the suspenders, so they formed an upside-down M around his waist. A saxophone squawked like a toucan, and like a toucan, Jay did a jump and flew what seemed like nine feet
off the ground. When he came down, he realized the energy in the room had shifted. People slowed their dances and muttered
to themselves about him. It was awkward. Jay watched them, lips opened in concern as he pulled back. He’d gone too far and
shown too much.
He ran off the dance floor, weaving through the people, and when he reached me, he only said, “I need some air,” and went
past me.
I followed him, but getting around people became difficult, and he was moving so fast. When I got outside, Jay was storming
down the steps and off into the driveway as though he meant to disappear entirely.
I was not the only one following him out of the mansion.
Bursting through the doors came Artie Botts, the gossip queen, who had somehow found his way to the gala.
“Out of the way!” he screamed.
His entourage had grown since I last saw him. A new person carried his camera, and a zealous fan carried his notepad.
Artie noticed me and paused, his mouth dropping open dramatically. He reached for his camera and snapped a photo of me, burning
a flash into my eyeballs.
I blinked the light away. “You just . . . scorched my eyeballs. Why?”
“For my records,” Artie said, pursing his lips.
When my vision cleared, I sauntered toward him. “What records?”
He looked up at me with contempt, standing his ground as I approached.
“Wouldn’t you like to know, Nick Carrington the Third .
. . resident rabble-rouser, and—” He looked back at the mansion, his mouth dropping open in a theatrical show of surprise.
“A guest for a Buchanan event? Who would’ve thought?
The papers are dying to know,” he said, turning back to me. “Is it true that
Mr. Gatsby is a rum runner who smuggles liquor from Canada to New York?”
I advanced on them further, causing the whole trio to take tiny steps back. “Don’t you have something better to do than follow
me?”
His entourage cooed and gasped, but Artie just rolled his neck. “Excuse me. You should be happy a boneless country wing like yourself is getting coverage anywhere. Gatsby is the real cover star, honey. Don’t flatter yourself.”
I snatched his camera off his neck, causing him to trip and fall over. The violence just came over me—I couldn’t stop it if
I wanted to!
“Wait!” he screamed, face full of horror, grabbing at the strap.
It was too late. I smashed it, lens first on the driveway like a plate at a Greek party. It went boom like a firecracker—glass
everywhere!
“There!” I screamed. “That’s what it’s like being Jay Gatsby’s mistress! You should try it someday! Destroy all your possessions!
Anything else?”
Artie was horrified. He must have spent a lot of money on that beautiful piece of junk, to snap it in people’s faces until
they went nuts.
Let the gossip grow grander now. I was no longer worried about being liked.
Cannon walked out the doors of the house, stepped over the camera, and said, “Uh-oh! Looks like we need some tidying up!”
And then, with a giggle, he ducked into a limousine that had just pulled up to the circular lot.
Suspicious . . . why was he skipping out without his parents?
The safes would have to wait.
I darted into the lot and couldn’t find a sign of Jay anywhere. I’d lost him, but there was still time to follow Cannon. I
knocked on the windows of one of the idle cabs, shocking the driver into a spastic dance. I slid into the car, slammed the
door, and thrust a random amount of bills and coins at the dashboard. “Please, follow that limo, sir.”
Where are you going, you sicko?
“Almost gave me a heart attack, boy.” The driver adjusted his wide-billed hat and started the car, taking the limo down the dark streets and toward the south of the city.
I wasn’t going to be nice about this. Cannon could easily be a pawn for the Buchanans’ evil deeds. He’d been chummy with Charlie
from day one.
The limo moved through the city like a smooth bullet. I leaned between the two seats to watch the car from the windshield
until the limo let Cannon out by two buildings, close to the place I found Daisy a few months ago. The Green Light was in
an alley not too far down this road.
“Stop here,” I told the driver.
I watched from the windows, slinking down in my seat to hide my face from the streetlight. Cannon tucked his hands into his
long coat and took a meditative walk. He didn’t seem to be doing anything suspicious.
“Okay, but you gotta get out,” said the driver.
“Oh, sorry.” I stepped out of the car.
I was left waiting on the pavement, looking for clues in the sway of Cannon’s walk. We were the only ones here.
He stopped suddenly and turned around, grimacing at my presence. I had no choice but to approach him then in the middle of
the boardwalk. What was one to do when walking a long distance toward someone you hate?
“Nick Carrington. If you’re looking for a date, I’m not interested.”
“Actually, not at all. Since the police seem to be doing nothing, I’m looking for who started the fire at West Egg.”
Cannon raised an eyebrow. “And you’re asking me? How would I know?”
“You’re investigating it for the police.”
He rolled his eyes. “You got me, Clumsy Nick. We have no leads so far, okay?”
“No offense, but I worry that if you’re in charge, things won’t be solved.”
Cannon took offense to that, and he tilted his head at me, eyes squinting. “I’m flattered you thought to come following me
just to share that opinion.”
I looked around us, taking in the ground slick with grime and rainwater. The air was salty with shipping yard seawater and
the sour stench of coal smoke reaching us from the distance.
“What are you doing out here, anyway?” I asked.
“Can’t a guy enjoy a walk?” Cannon said, holding up his hands. “I didn’t think I’d have a shadow.”
“Sorry,” I offered. “Perhaps this was strange of me.”
“Strange, indeed. You should be somewhere off with Jay frolicking with glee instead. Go home, Nick,” Cannon said. “Let the detectives handle the case. If New York City has taught me anything, it’s
that poking your nose where it doesn’t belong will always guarantee you an unhappy ending. Have a wonderful night.”
With that, he turned, long coat swaying as he disappeared into the misty haze of the streetlamps. I watched him go, a retort stuck in my throat as the silence swallowed me, save for the noise of his footsteps and the distant hum of the city.
I stood there until his silhouette disappeared, inhaling the harbor air, as his words echoed in my head. Unhappy ending. Maybe. But I wasn’t done quite yet.