Chapter Twenty-One
TWENTY-ONE
The mood at the Nightingale was wild that night. With Bea on stage and the band in fine form, the club’s guests were in a dizzy, delighted mood, hollering and cheering as they danced and applauding wildly each time Bea finished a number.
It made Vivian’s heart ache. She kept trying to catch her friend’s eye, but Bea was avoiding her. And Vivian couldn’t really blame her for that, even though she knew they desperately needed to talk.
“Hey there, beautiful girl.” A grinning, tipsy young man who probably still shaved peach fuzz every morning caught her wrist as she finished setting drinks on his table.
“I saw you dancing last time I was here and knew I had to take you for a spin. Kick up your heels with me?” His friends chortled as he teetered in his chair, and he shook his head, laughing at himself.
Vivian kept her smile in place as she gave her wrist a gentle tug, and to her relief he let her go.
If he hadn’t, she would have had to tell Honor that there was a boy who needed someone to teach him some manners.
“You’re sweet to ask, baby, but I can’t dance unless I’m on a break,” she said, letting him down easy, her eyes darting toward the bandstand.
Bea had just finished a number and was heading back to the dressing room for her break.
“Maybe another time? I’m gonna be running my feet off all night with this crazy crowd.
” She pretended to give them all a stern look, one hand on her hip, while they grinned and chuckled. “Can I get you boys anything else?”
“You got a phone number?” one of them asked.
“Can’t have a number without a phone,” Vivian said honestly. She blew them a kiss. “See you boys later.”
She dropped her tray off at the bar. “Back in a jiff,” she called to Danny when he would have pushed another round of drinks toward her, and she scurried off toward the dressing room before he could tell her to stop.
Bea was just handing a cold, wet cloth to Alba, who was lying back with her feet propped up. Vivian’s heart stuttered. “Everything okay?” she asked.
“Swell,” Alba muttered, blowing out her cheeks as she laid the cloth over her forehead. “Just got dizzy, is all. This whole having a baby thing is a mess, let me tell you. I don’t think I can work much longer, and God knows what’ll happen to us then. Babies ain’t cheap.”
“We’ll help you out,” Bea said, going to her dressing table and kicking off her own shoes so she could stretch out her ankles.
“And I’m sure Honor’ll give you your job back once you can work again.
She’s not the sort to make a stink about a girl having a baby just because she doesn’t have a fella to go with it. ”
“Thank God for that, because everyone else in the world sure is.” Alba closed her eyes with a sigh. “Either of you gonna tell me why you’re circling each other like alley cats tonight? It’s not anything to do with Pearlie, is it?”
“You tell me, Bea,” Vivian said, crossing her arms. “Did you talk to him?”
“Talk to who?” Alba asked, opening one eye. She glanced nervously between them.
Bea’s jaw clenched, and her expression was hard as she met Vivian’s eyes in the mirror. “Abraham,” she said at last. “Vivian’s got some wild idea that he had something to do with those letters.”
“What? Your Abraham?” Alba sat up fast, then just as quickly lay back down, one hand over her mouth.
“What?” she asked more quietly after swallowing rapidly several times.
“That’s crazy, Viv. Pearlie and Abraham got along great.
And if he’d been involved with those letters, he’d have been involved with …
with what happened to Pearlie. That’s not possible. ” She glanced at Bea. “Tell her.”
“I didn’t realize you knew Abraham so well,” Bea said, twisting around to look at Alba as she fiddled with her lipstick.
Alba shrugged, an awkward motion since she was still lying down. “Like I said, he and Pearlie got along swell. So I saw him around.”
Vivian felt like someone was tying knots in her stomach. “So you didn’t ask him about the necklace?”
“What necklace?” Alba interjected, trying to sit up again.
Bea sent an irritated look in her direction. “This one,” she said through clenched teeth, touching the gold locket at her throat. “Viv’s got some idea that it’s like a necklace someone had to give up when they got one of those letters.”
Alba’s eyes were wide. “Did you ask him about it?”
For a moment, Vivian thought Bea wasn’t going to answer, and when she finally did it was hard to tell whether she was more irritated with Vivian or Alba just then. “I did. He said he got it at a pawnbroker.” For the first time, Bea hesitated. Then she nodded sharply. “He even told me which one.”
Vivian let out the breath she’d been holding. “Then that’s actually great news, isn’t it? We can go talk to the pawnbroker and see if he remembers who brought it in.”
“He might not be able to tell you,” Alba pointed out, rising onto her elbows. “Legally, I don’t think they can say. Especially if you tell him it mighta been stolen.”
“Alba, isn’t your break just about done?” Bea snapped, clearly out of patience. She shoved her feet back into her scarlet shoes, tying the ribbons with sharp tugs.
“Probably, but things aren’t gonna be pretty if I stand up just now. If anyone asks for me, will you tell them I’ll be out as soon as I’m steady?”
“Sure,” Bea said, standing so abruptly her chair almost toppled over. She caught it just in time. “I need to be back on the bandstand in a minute anyway. You coming, Viv?”
Vivian was surprised that Bea would ask for her company when she was still angry. But Bea clearly had something she didn’t want to say in front of Alba.
“I should, I’m not even supposed to be on a break right now. Need anything?” she asked, turning toward Alba, who was still stretched out on the room’s tiny sofa.
“For five more months to be done,” Alba muttered. “No, I’m fine.”
When the dressing room door was closed behind them, and they were engulfed once more in the noise of the dance hall, Bea put a hand on Vivian’s arm to keep her where she was. They stood there, in the corner just to the side of the bar, their eyes fixed on the crowd.
“Abraham was all cut up about what happened, Viv, you’ve got no idea,” Bea said at last. “He even … he even thinks he knows how the letter writer found out about the money. He didn’t want to tell me, but I could tell something was fishy, the way he was acting. And finally he let it out.”
Vivian waited while Bea took a shuddering breath. She didn’t want to push, not about something like this.
“Abraham said he picked Pearlie up from here after work once, him and some friend of his.” Bea’s hands, resting by her sides, were clenched into fists.
“They were both roaring drunk, and Pearlie’s talking a mile a minute at the top of his voice as they’re staggering out, like he’d do when he was all worked up or excited.
Bragging about how he’s got his hands on some cash and there’s more where that came from. ”
“And anyone could have heard him.”
“Yeah,” Bea agreed quietly. “I’m sorry I got so sour with you. Looks like you were right about the necklace.”
“But not about Abraham,” Vivian pointed out. “So I’m sorry I said anything about him.”
“He’s been so good through all this mess, Viv, you have no idea. He kept an eye on the kids when I was out yesterday so they wouldn’t be alone. And he’s been picking Mama up from work so she can get home quicker in the evening.”
“Not to mention that he treats you real well.” Vivian thought about saying more but kept her mouth shut in the end.
She wasn’t convinced yet that Abraham didn’t have anything to do with the letters.
She didn’t want him to be in that kind of business.
But until they talked to the pawnbroker, there was no way to know whether he had told the truth or not.
But her comment made Bea smile, though the expression was still haunted. “He does treat me real nice, doesn’t he?”
“And now we’ve got something to go on,” Vivian pointed out. “Tomorrow we can go to that pawnshop—”
Bea broke in, shaking her head. “Viv, you know better than that. What do you think would happen if I walk into a pawnshop and started asking questions about things that might’ve been stolen?
Even if the owner is willing to talk…” She scowled.
“All that would happen is I’d end up in trouble with the police. ”
The quickstep was racing toward its finish. It would be time for Bea to be back on the bandstand soon; Mr. Smith was already glancing her way with raised eyebrows, wondering why she was still hovering near the bar.
“Then I’ll do it,” Vivian said firmly. She thought about Florence, about that gun pointed at her on the dark street, Mrs. Henry’s tired, sad eyes as she lost yet another member of her small family, Mr. Guzman saying he didn’t want any more trouble.
“This is the first chance we’ve really had to figure out who’s behind those letters, Bea. I’m not sleeping on that.”
Bea gave her a skeptical look, then sighed as she gave the bandleader a little wave to show she was on her way. “If you say so, Viv. But I’m starting to think this is something that can’t be solved. We just have to survive it as best we can.”
It was too similar to what Honor had said to her in that small, dark apartment.
Vivian watched Bea cross the floor, weaving through clusters of patrons and hurrying waitresses, giving her hair a fluff and her shoulders a shimmy before she took her spot in front of the microphone, a wide smile on her face as the quickstep wrapped up.
The bandleader gave a fast count—no mercy for the dancers tonight—and launched directly into the opening bars of “After You’ve Gone,” played hotter than Vivian had heard it before.
Bea’s voice filled the dance hall, bold and beautiful and rich as honey.
But in spite of the atmosphere of sweaty, stolen fun, Vivian shivered.