Chapter Five
FIVE
“God almighty,” he swore, though he kept his voice down, as he tucked the gun back under his jacket. “Don’t sneak up on a fella like that.”
“I wasn’t sneaking,” she protested as he grabbed her hand and hauled her into the room, closing the door behind them before anyone could see her in the hall. “I mean, I snuck past your landlady, sure. I’m not an idiot. But that was just bad timing.”
“And you couldn’t give me a call to warn me you were coming by?”
“I should have,” Vivian said, her voice shaking. She’d forgotten how fast he could move when he thought he was in for a fight.
“You should have,” he agreed, running his hands from her shoulders down her arms in a quick, soothing gesture. “Hey there, Vivian Kelly.”
Vivian laughed, and the sound was only a little forced. “Hey there, Leo Green.”
Leo took a step back, looking her over from head to toe.
Vivian felt her cheeks getting warm. She and Leo had been on a few dates, and gotten a little frisky a time or two, but his line of work—and the fact that he had lied to her about who he really was for the first weeks they had known each other—made him a hard man to trust completely.
She had forgiven him for the lies, but forgiveness and trust were two different things.
Aside from a dance here and there, she had kept her distance since she learned the truth. Leo, to his credit, hadn’t pushed.
Now, he hooked a knuckle under her chin, lifting it gently as he looked her over. “It’s been a few weeks.”
“You haven’t been around,” she pointed out.
He shoved his hands in his pockets, shrugging. “I’ve been busy working.”
“For your uncle?” Vivian couldn’t help the way her voice dropped as she said it. His uncle was the police commissioner, a cold, ruthless man whose job was as much—or more—about protecting the interests of the wealthy New Yorkers who kept him employed as it was about policing the city.
The commissioner was cold and ruthless to his family, too: when his sister had married a Jewish man, he and the rest of his family had turned their backs on her.
And he hadn’t shown any interest in her child, Leo, until that child was grown up and useful to him.
Leo had been a supplier in Chicago when his uncle finally reached out, offering work rather than affection.
He still didn’t acknowledge his nephew as family. But he paid Leo well when the police needed someone who could work outside the law, or who knew firsthand the intricate web of loyalties and rivalries that connected the city’s mobsters and bootleggers.
Vivian suppressed a shiver. That work had brought Leo back to New York a few months before, and she had come face-to-face with his uncle on the worst night of her life. He wasn’t a man she had any desire to see again.
But she was willing to use the particular set of connections that he provided—if Leo was willing to help out.
Leo shrugged. “Sometimes for my uncle,” he said. “I’ve gotta find other work when he’s not knocking.” He grinned. “Sometimes it’s even honest.”
Vivian snorted. “Color me skeptical.”
“But I hope you’re not here to talk about my uncle, sweetheart.”
“Not directly.” That made Leo’s eyebrows rise, and Vivian took a deep breath. “Do you know anyone in the coroner’s office?”
“The coroner’s office?” Leo’s eyebrows were nearly at the brim of his hat now. “And here’s me hoping you’d come to ask me out for dinner and dancing. You sure know how to keep a fella on his toes, Viv.”
“Do you?” she pressed.
“I might,” he said after a long pause. “Why? Don’t tell me you’re mixed up in something—”
“No, it’s not like—”
“Because after what happened last time—”
“It’s just a favor for a friend,” Vivian said firmly, shaking her head.
Leo scowled. “This isn’t for Honor, is it? Because doing favors for her got you in a whole mess of trouble before.”
Vivian rolled her eyes. He wasn’t wrong, but there was still a hint of jealousy in his voice.
Another time, she might have liked hearing it.
But right now, she was only thinking about her friend.
“It’s for Bea. Her uncle offed himself, except she doesn’t think that’s the whole story.
And she doesn’t think the medical examiner will look closely at the body of a broke joe who killed himself unless someone tells him to. ”
“She’s not wrong,” Leo said cynically, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the door.
“Never said she was. But I figured if you knew someone, we could ask him to be a little more thorough. Then when he comes back and says yes, it was a suicide, she’ll maybe be able to move on.
” Vivian smiled hopefully at Leo, but the angle he was leaning at had pushed his hat down over one eye, and the shadows it cast across his face made it hard to read his expression.
“Nothing to it. So what do you say? Be a pal and help me out?”
He didn’t reply for several moments, and her heart began to sink. She didn’t want to go back to Bea and admit that she couldn’t help after all.
“What’s in it for me?” he asked at last.
Vivian scowled, crossing her own arms in imitation of his posture. “Didn’t know things were so tit-for-tat between us.”
“If word gets back to my uncle that I’m calling in favors with the medical examiner, he might get testy. And the last thing I want is to be on the outs with the man who has every cop in the city at his beck and call.”
“So we won’t let word get back to him,” Vivian suggested, uncrossing her arms and sliding close enough that she could nudge him with her shoulder. “You just pointed a gun at me, Leo, the least you could do is help a girl out.”
Leo grimaced, looking embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I know.” Vivian was struck by a sudden thought. “Tell you what. Why don’t we get Bea to take us to her uncle’s place? She can tell you herself why she thinks there’s been some funny business. You can see if there’s a good enough reason for it to be worth sticking your neck out.”
“And if I’m not buying it, case closed, no favor?” Leo asked. “And no looking sour at me next time I ask you to dance?”
“You got it.” Vivian smiled up at him. “But I think you’re going to say yes, just to set her mind at ease.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because there might still be a hell of a lot I don’t know about you, Leo, but there’s one thing I do know.” Vivian poked him playfully in the chest. “You’re a big softie underneath that tough-guy attitude. You won’t be able to resist helping out once you see the state she’s in.”
Leo shook his head, but he was smiling at her again.
He caught her hand before she could poke him a second time and pulled her close enough that he could brush a quick kiss against her cheek.
The brief spark of contact left her skin tingling, and she had to stop herself from raising her fingers to the spot where his lips had been.
Things were good just now. Easy. Straightforward. She didn’t need to go making them complicated by wondering what sort of possibilities Leo Green represented.
“All right,” he agreed before she could protest the kiss. “But just because I’ve missed you. Now, let’s see how good you are at sneaking past my landlady.”
“Leo, huh?”
The unhappy note in Bea’s voice was impossible to miss.
“Say what you want about his work for his uncle, it does give him some helpful ins,” Vivian said, unpacking the bag of food from the automat. There was no one there to eat it at the moment, but she needed something to do with her hands.
She wasn’t the only neighbor who had brought food, either.
An entire chicken pie sat on the table, still steaming, next to a bag of apples.
Other neighbors had stopped by to see that the Henrys were fed for the day before promising to bring meals in the days to come; without an icebox, keeping too much food fresh would be too difficult.
Another time, Vivian might have pointed out that it was unfair for Bea to stay sour at Leo but give Honor a pass.
But that wasn’t quite true: Bea knew Honor, knew why the Nightingale’s owner had acted the way she had.
She had reasons to trust her boss, even if she knew Honor could be untrustworthy.
Bea and Leo didn’t have that kind of history.
And anyway, even if Vivian had wanted to have that argument, this certainly wasn’t the day for it.
“Can you think of another way to get a second look?”
Bea grimaced, glancing over her shoulder.
But no one else was in the apartment. Her mother was at work, and her brothers and sister were at school.
They’d be back soon, and it was Bea’s task to get them settled and fed before Mrs. Henry got home.
On normal days, Bea would kiss everyone good night and head to her job at the Nightingale not long after that, and Mrs. Henry would wait up after the kids had gone to bed, sewing or reading or just praying until all her children were safe under her roof once more.
But this wasn’t a normal week. Bea had nowhere to go, and she paced around the room like a cat in a cage.
“Mama wanted me to stop by Pearlie’s today to pick up some of his papers,” Bea said, looking a little lost as she glanced around the room.
“She wants to see if there’s anyone in Baltimore who needs to know he’s…
” She trailed off, biting her lip. “Anyway, I need to be back before the kids are home. They’ll need me to get their dinner. ”
“Well, we’ve got that covered,” Vivian pointed out gently, pulling an entire apple pie out of the bag and setting it in the center of the table. “And we’ve got an hour or so. As long as your mother’s not home before us, we should be in the clear. If you’re sure you’re up to it?”
Bea hesitated, then nodded. “Let’s get it over with. Leo’s waiting for us?”
“Have you told your mother you don’t think it’s a suicide?” Vivian asked as they made their way downstairs, stepping wide to miss the spot with the broken tread halfway down the flight. “What did she say?”