Chapter Ten
Ten
“You look lovely,” Alma said, opening the door to Billie.
“Thank you,” Billie replied. “I’m in a bit of a hurry, I’m afraid. I’m just returning these before I head out.” She entered her mother’s flat, holding the sparkling blue sapphires in her hands.
The sun was low in the sky, the bay trees outside Cliffside Flats turning gold and amber in the evening light.
Ella was sprawled on the settee in her usual pose, sherry in one hand.
She turned and gave her only child a quick toe-to-coiffure assessment.
“That dress is too dark if you plan to catch anyone’s eye,” she decided.
Billie smiled, ignoring the criticism. She’d made the dress from a McCall’s pattern.
It had a Grecian-inspired neckline that flowed over the bust and nipped in snugly at the waist before draping with strategic pleats from one hip, ideal for covering the bulge of her gun in its garter.
The layered hem fell into a taper just past the knee but opened up enough for a fair stride, should running be in order.
The fabric she’d chosen was darker than she’d originally thought, but dark was fine tonight.
While her day had proved reasonably uneventful, she hoped to get some movement on her case tonight.
It was early still, the puzzle pieces not yet falling into place, and in truth she did not yet possess enough of them, but time was short in a missing persons case.
The clock was ticking. With that in mind, she wasn’t going to leave The Dancers this time without getting somewhere, and that might mean a very long night.
The ruby dress had been a touch too distracting.
Tonight she’d opted for a less eye-catching dress, and frankly she didn’t feel like arguing about it.
“I’ve come to return these,” she said simply. “Thank you.” She held out the sapphires to her mother.
“Wear them some more, darling. I’m not using them, and the sapphires suit you. They bring out your eyes.” Tonight they looked blue, like the sapphires themselves. “Goddess knows you need them if you wear that dress,” Ella added. “Is that black?”
“Midnight, actually,” Billie countered.
“It’s pretty black out at midnight,” Ella said, deadpan. She did have very good taste, Billie had to admit, even if she was a little more insistent on imparting her opinion than was always comfortable. “Black is bad luck, some say.”
Billie resisted an eye roll. “Well, thanks for letting me wear your jewels.”
Ella waved her hand dismissively. She hadn’t got up from her seat, and Billie bent over her to give her an affectionate hug. “Is that crepe? Matte crepe? Surely a little shine or sparkle would be better? Sequins?”
“Look, I do have to go,” Billie explained apologetically. “Sorry to drop in and run. My assistant is meeting me outside the club.”
“Oh, that handsome fellow.” A hand with a viselike grip took her wrist and Billie found herself suddenly on the settee.
“It’s not like that,” she managed, recovering herself.
She wondered if Ella had learned that move from her late husband.
It was something like the judo of Tokugoro Ito’s dojo in Los Angeles.
Barry had known someone who’d trained there and had taught Billie a few moves, thirdhand.
It was all about leverage and balance. He’d obviously also handed on some of the tips to his wife.
“Maybe it should be like that,” Ella persisted.
“Thank you, but I assure you that when I do decide to find a man, I won’t be paying him to spend time with me,” Billie retorted and rose, smoothing down the crepe folds of her dress.
“Why not? It worked for me,” her mother shot back. A little wicked grin was apparent in the crease of her mouth.
“Just don’t keep holding on to the past,” Ella added, and on that uncomfortable note Billie extracted herself from the flat and made her way downstairs to prepare for a second evening at The Dancers, trying her best to push aside thoughts of Jack Rake and the larger mystery that haunted her but that she had not yet come even close to solving.
Billie held her champagne cocktail in gloved fingers and listened to the music as she surveyed the crowd at The Dancers with sparkling eyes the color of her mother’s sapphires, which were once again hanging around her neck and dangling from her ears.
A five-piece band was playing “As Long as I Live,” a Benny Goodman hit she hadn’t heard since Europe, and the patrons were doing their expensive swaying.
Little appeared to have changed at the club from the night before.
A different and yet identical set of wealthy guests had gathered around the central tables in a different set of frocks that were also somehow the same.
The same gossip and agendas and romances and social climbing and business deals were unfolding.
The old-young-faced barman was the same, the doormen the same.
They were peddling the same champagne-soaked fantasy world, just on a different night.
The second time around, one was less dazzled, less distracted from the grime under the stools, the drink spills on the carpet.
In daylight, The Dancers would not be so pretty, Billie guessed.
Still, they put on a good show; she had to give them that.
“What can I get the lovely lady?” the barman asked smoothly, noting she was nearing the end of her glass and no longer making the mistake of looking to her male companion to decide her drink for her.
“I’m fine for now, thank you,” she replied.
“Anything for you, miss.”
“I’m fine, too,” Sam interjected, and the barman gave a subtle nod, barely looking his way. Billie continued to survey the room. “Are we looking for anyone in particular tonight?” Sam asked her, sensing her focus.
“Yes, in fact, we are,” she responded. His work at the library had turned up one key detail.
Sam had retrieved some solid information on the auction house and its owner, including, in the back pages of a catalog that he, unlike Billie, had not had time to examine, one small photograph of Georges Boucher himself.
“It seems he was here in front of us,” she explained.
The rotund man at the table the night before was almost certainly Boucher, which would explain the little box he’d been brandishing.
That country couple had doubtless been clients.
“Boucher,” Sam whispered. “The penny has dropped, as the Americans say. So, he was the reason the kid wanted to get in, do you think? Or do you still think he was mooning over a girl?”
“I don’t much believe in coincidence,” Billie replied. In her experience there was no such thing. “I’m going to try the doorman again; you watch the room. Look out for Boucher, okay?”
Taking her time, she sauntered toward the powder room in her inky dress, then slipped past it and continued all the way out of the main room, down the stairs to the street entrance.
She was pleased to find the doorman she wanted to speak with still out front, as he had been on their way in.
He wasn’t busy now. Billie smiled when she saw his bony countenance, but as soon as his eyes clocked her, his long face fell yet farther and he turned away.
“Excuse me, sir,” she called, moving fast on her low heels and taking him by one shoulder. She gave her best winning smile. “I can’t help but feel you aren’t happy to see me.”
The smile had no discernible effect, unless the effect was fear. His dark brown eyes were large and almost scared. “No offense, but I have nothing to say to you, lady,” he told her flatly, eyes focusing on his feet.
One of Billie’s arched eyebrows rose. “I’m sure that isn’t so,” she said, whispering now.
“The boy I’m looking for, Adin Brown, wanted something from Georges Boucher, didn’t he?
Boucher uses this place as a kind of office for his better clients?
He’s here every weekend wining and dining them and trying to interest them in auction items or private sales.
The kid wanted to speak with him, is that right?
Trying to pawn something, perhaps? He was getting nowhere at the auction house so he tried to catch Boucher here?
Stop me when I tell you something you don’t already know. ”
The man looked positively stricken. “I don’t know anything and I don’t want anything to do with it.” He looked this way and that, to see if anyone was watching, or perhaps to find an escape point. “I don’t know anything about anything,” he reiterated, palms up.
Billie was not convinced. “Oh, but you do. And I can make it worth your while,” she explained. “And Boucher isn’t here yet to see you talk with me this time.”
The man hesitated, closed his fingers around the coins she dropped in his hand, and shut his eyes. “You’re going to get me into trouble, lady,” he said, defeated.
A couple emerged from the main doors and he turned his back and pretended to busy himself while another doorman assisted them. When they were gone, she continued in low, soothing tones. “Just tell me what the conversation was that you had; then I’ll be out of here and this will all be over—”
“Not here,” he replied, cutting her off and darting his eyes from side to side again.
“I can’t be seen talking to you. I’m at the People’s Palace,” he said.
The lodging house was named rather ironically, but Billie knew it.
“I’ll be there at one thirty, after I get off.
Room 305.” He paused. “Maybe I’ll meet you in the lobby.
I might have to let you in. I know that’s late, but—”
“It’s fine,” she agreed. The death house could wait another night. “People’s Palace, 305. Your name?”
“Con Zervos,” he muttered.