Chapter Twenty-Three
TWENTY-THREE
There was a storm hovering over New York that night, hovering but not breaking, and the heavy, charged air seemed to put the entire city on edge.
Vivian was glad she had Danny by her side as they made their way to the Nightingale, dodging around staggering clusters of young men who were already drunk, high-spirited and belligerent in turn.
As Silence opened the door to let them in, Danny glanced at the sky, dark with clouds and silvered with glances of moonlight.
“Feels like we’re in for an interesting night. ”
Silence grunted in agreement, and Vivian shivered.
The mood inside the club was equally tense.
The tables were cleaned, the electric lights dimmed, the last case of liquor carried up to the bar.
But it was all done in unusual quiet, punctured by sudden bursts of laughter or nervous whispers.
The whole staff was on edge. Vivian wondered whether it was just the weather or something more.
“Everything ready?” Honor asked, stopping by the bar to check in with Danny. She glanced around the club. “Where’s Beatrice? She’s supposed to be on the bandstand tonight.”
“We’re missing Alba, too,” Danny said, surveying the staff.
“They’ll be coming together,” Vivian said, arriving with a tray of sparkling glasses and handing them to the second bartender. “Alba’s living with Bea’s family for the moment.”
Honor frowned. “Everything okay there?”
Vivian hesitated. She didn’t know if Alba had yet shared the news of her pregnancy with Honor.
And while there was no reason to think the Nightingale’s owner would be prudish about the revelation, it still wasn’t her news to share.
“Far as I know,” she said at last. “They might just be running a little late.”
Honor was still looking over the club, but she glanced at Vivian out of the corner of her eyes. “You’re doing okay? And your sister?”
“Just swell,” Vivian said, a little more forcefully than she meant to. She smiled. “Probably moving back home soon, now the ruckus seems to have died down some.”
“Like hell you are,” Danny said, smiling cheerfully even as his voice was sharp. “You girls aren’t heading back until we know for sure no one’s coming after you anymore. Not when there might be a cop mixed up in this racket.”
Vivian turned to glare at Honor. “You told him that?”
Honor raised her brows. “I tell Danny nearly everything, pet. You know that. And he does the same. It’s how we keep our doors open and our people safe.” Before Vivian could answer, she was moving off, gesturing to Benny and Saul at the top of the stairs so they would know it was time.
The band was just finishing warming up, discordant notes resolving at last as Mr. Smith counted off and they launched into a cheerful instrumental rendition of “Sister Kate.” The electric lights dimmed, the first guests started to trickle in, and Vivian didn’t have time to think about anything except work until she saw Bea arrive at last, tossing her things behind the bar and hurrying toward the bandstand.
Vivian managed to cross her path before she made it all the way there. “I need to talk to you,” she whispered.
Bea took one look at her face, and her own grew far more serious than it had been a moment before.
“It’s not good news, is it?” Vivian shook her head.
Bea plastered a smile back on her face, waving into the crowd as someone who had clearly started her drinking early yelled a welcome.
“I’ll see if I can just do a quick set, then tell them I need to powder my nose or something. Meet me in the dressing room.”
Danny had been right when he said it would be an interesting night.
The mood was high and wild, and Vivian was kept running around with almost no break.
But it still wasn’t enough of a distraction to keep her from replaying everything that had happened that day, starting with Beryl’s letter.
And when her mind jumped back to the memory of that revolver pointing at her …
Vivian shivered hard enough that the glasses on her tray clinked against each other.
Just as the first set was finishing, she noticed Alba at the bar, grimacing like someone who was trying not to be sick. She was speaking to Danny, looking apologetic; he gave her a nod and a comforting pat on the shoulder, jerking his head toward the dressing room.
Vivian watched her go, something tickling at the back of her mind. Something about the day they had gone to help Alba pack up.
She glanced at the bandstand. Bea was crooning her way through “What’ll I Do,” and couples were dancing with their cheeks pressed close together. The song was almost over. Vivian hurried toward the dressing room, wanting to beat her friend there.
She found Alba wiping her face with a damp napkin. A sharp, sour smell filled the air. “You all right?” Vivian asked.
“Never better,” Alba said sarcastically, then sighed. “Ignore me. I’m fine. This is just no fun.” She leaned over Bea’s dressing table to reapply her lipstick. Glancing past her reflection, she saw that Vivian was still watching her. “Need something?”
“Yeah, I do,” Vivian said. She bit her lip, not sure how to say what she needed to. Finally, she settled on, “I noticed that you like to draw, Alba. I saw your sketches when we helped you pack up.”
Alba’s hands stilled for a whisper of a moment, then she capped the lipstick with a decisive click and pressed her lips together to smooth out the color. “Yeah, I do. Is that a problem?”
“It might be,” Vivian said quietly. “Because you had kind of a distinctive style of sketching. And I’ve seen something like that pretty recently.”
Alba set down her lipstick and turned around slowly. “Oh?”
Vivian could hear the sound of applause through the door as the song finished. Alba didn’t move, and neither did she. “You ever drawn a hemlock plant before, Alba?”
The silence in the room crackled as they stared at each other.
“Well?” Vivian asked. But she had to catch her breath to say it. Alba’s silence had stretched out long enough to be its own answer. “We’ve only got a few seconds before someone comes through that door, so you’d better start talking.”
Alba looked away long enough to scoop up a lighter and a package of cigarettes from Bea’s dressing table. She lit one with shaking hands. “Have you told Beatrice?” she asked at last.
“Told me what?”
They both jumped. Bea was just closing the door to the dressing room behind her, her sharp brows pulled together in a frown. “Everything all right in here?”
“Of course it is,” Alba said quickly, at the exact time that Vivian answered, “No, it’s really not.” They both stared at each other. Alba’s eyes were blazing, and there was sweat across her forehead.
“If you don’t want to tell her, I’m happy to do it for you,” Vivian said coldly.
“Tell me what?” Bea insisted, glancing between them. “What the hell is going on?”
“Alba has something to tell you about those letters,” Vivian said, not turning to look at Bea. She didn’t want to take her eyes off Alba. “See, yesterday I finally saw one that had been written and sent weeks ago, and it looked nothing like the ones Pearlie and Florence got.”
“Who’s Florence?” Alba asked, but Vivian didn’t bother answering.
“It was typed, not written. And it had a curious sort of signature. Someone had drawn a hemlock plant at the bottom. And a little bird told me recently that there’re rumors of some new operation popping up around where we live.
Apparently, they’ve got a thing for poisons, and they’ve got a little bit of style to go with it.
So they like to use a little drawing just like that, a hemlock leaf, as a calling card. ”
“What does that have to do with Alba?” Bea asked, her voice shaking. Vivian looked at her friend at last. Bea’s brown eyes were wide and wild. She knew exactly where Vivian was heading with this. But she didn’t want to believe it.
“A little drawing just like the ones she does,” Vivian said gently. “She’s not denying it. Are you, Alba?” she added, turning back.
The three women stared at each other, none of them speaking for a painful moment.
They could hear the music, a sultry, eerie tango, slinking under the door along with the heat from the dance floor.
The cigarette between Alba’s fingers was still burning, ash tumbling toward the ground, the glowing tip closer and closer to her fingers.
“I thought you loved Pearlie,” Bea said, her voice cracking.
Alba gave her a pitying look. “Don’t be stupid. He was a fun time, and so am I. It didn’t need to be anything more than that.”
“Tell me what happened, then,” Bea said, her voice growing louder. Vivian put a hand on her arm to remind her where they were, but Bea shook her off. She took a step closer to Alba. “You were working with them, too? You the one who got Pearlie mixed up in all this?”
“No.”
“What happened to my uncle?” Bea was practically yelling.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Bea, it was Pearlie the whole damn time, okay?
” Alba’s voice cracked out like a whip, like poison, like a tray of crystal glasses smashing to the ground and leaving stunned silence in its wake.
“I was just along for the ride. Your precious uncle was the one sending people letters and robbing them blind.”