Flirtinis with Flappers (15 page)

"Ugh. It's still dark out," I groaned, ignoring the voice in my ear and pulling the covers over my head. "You're worse than a clock radio set on an all-polka-all-the-time station."

"Yup. And I'm not equipped with a snooze button, either."

"Or an off switch."

"I'm always on, baby," The Rat crowed.

"Believe me when I say that little fact has certainly not escaped my notice." I peeked out from under the blankets. "What time is it, anyway?"

"You think they make rat-sized pocket watches?"

I gritted my teeth. "So you are
assuming
it's morning and not, say, the middle of the freaking night?"

"Look, you're the one with the mission to save the world, not me. I was just doing you a favor. Figured you might want to get an early start. Silly me."

"Fine. I'll get up." Reluctantly, I rolled out of bed and stretched my hands over my head. I'd be happy to get back to the twenty-first century just to get a good night's sleep. Two nights on a mattress that was definitely no Sealy Posturepedic was two too many. Luckily, it was Louise's back I was damaging, so thankfully, I wouldn't need to see a chiropractor when I got back.

I headed to the bathroom and grudgingly began my new morning routine. I was never one of those girls who took a million years to get ready to go out, but the fact that Louise only had a bathtub and not a shower slowed my preparation time a bit. Not to mention the extensive flapper-appropriate makeup routine. But even still, by the time I slipped on my Mary Jane shoes the sun was just peeking over the horizon.

"I can't believe you woke me up at five A.M.," I muttered. "No one's even going to be awake when I get outside. I mean, Machine Gun is a mobster. Surely he's more of a night owl than an early bird."

"Maybe you'll catch him before he goes to bed," The Rat suggested, oh-so-innocently.

I glared at him and grabbed my coat and hat and opened the front door.

"Bye, darling," I cooed in my most sarcastic tone. "Don't wait up."

"Where are you going, anyway?"

I paused at the door. "Not that it should make any difference to you, but I'm headed to the club."

"Going to see Machine Gun?" The Rat asked. "And not Nick?"

"Yes."

He snickered.

"What?" I cried, not liking the defensiveness in my voice. I knew exactly what he was going to say before he opened his little mouth.

"Wimp."

I pressed my lips together in displeasure. "Dude, I am
so
not a wimp. I'm on my way to see an infamous historical bad guy. Public Enemy Numero Uno. Absolutely nothing wimpy about that. In fact," I added, patting myself on the shoulder, "I think it's rather brave of me, if you want to know the truth."

"Oh, come on," groaned The Rat. "You're not fooling anyone. You'd rather go sweet-talk a guy who whacks people for a living and wants you to suck on his toes than face your ex-boyfriend again." He squeaked with laughter. "Man, that Nick must really be something to have you so freaked out. Seriously, I'd give my Beer of the Month subscription to know that guy's secret."

"It's not that," I protested. Even though, of course, it was exactly that. In fact, Ratty had hit the nail right on its proverbial head.

After stirring the whole thing around in my brain the night before, I'd come to the conclusion that it'd be a heck of a lot easier to convince Louise's mobster boyfriend not to listen to Nick than it would be to convince Nick not to change history. And as a not-unrecognized bonus, that way I wouldn't have to interact with Nick at all, and I'd still get the job done.

It was the perfect plan, I felt. Especially since I truly believed that setting eyes on Nick again would cause me to melt into a pile of Jell-O, and it was well known to be very difficult to convince anyone of anything when you were reduced to a glob of gelatinous goo.

"Fine, fine. Do it your way, princess," The Rat said, still sounding way too amused for my liking. "But when your plan doesn't work, don't come crying to me. I'll only say, 'I told you so.'"

"Right. Well, I'd be disappointed with anything less." I sighed. "What are you planning to do today, anyway?"

"Me?" Ratty snorted. "I'm going back to bed."

Of course.

The sky was just growing pink with dawn, and the streetlights still glowed dimly as I walked down the snow-lined street. The wind cruelly ripped into me, and I hugged my coat tight against my body. When I next went back in time, I'd request a summer assignment. Or at least one that took place in the tropics instead of the Windy City in February. Not that I was ever in a million years agreeing to this type of gig again, mind you.

Luckily, the club wasn't far, and I managed to make it there without turning into a complete Popsicle, though my teeth were extremely chatter-y, and I was quite positive my lips had turned blue. I walked up to the front door, ready to open it, when someone pushed through from the other side. I jumped back to avoid being hit and was surprised to see it was Daisy who burst forth from behind it.

Even more surprising, she was still wearing her party dress from the night before. Curiouser and curiouser.

"Hey, Daisy. What are you doing here?" I asked, giving her a once-over. She didn't look so hot: no makeup and dark circles under her eyes. Her whole look screamed "Walk of Shame," and I wondered if she'd hooked up last night, and if she had, with whom? I didn't know anyone actually lived in the club. Except maybe Machine Gun himself. But she wouldn't hook up with her best friend's fellow.

Would she?

"I might ask you the same question," Daisy retorted a bit too strongly, shuffling her feet and not meeting my eyes. Wow.
Holy guilty conscience, Batman.
Maybe
she was doing the dirty deed with Machine Gun. Poor Louise.
"It's awfully early, don't you think? I can't remember a time seeing you up before noon."

Grr. I knew it! I'd
told
Ratty it was too early for Louise to be traipsing about. Here he was all worrying about me messing up history, and then he goes and sends me out at the crack of dawn, making Louise's best friend all suspicious.

"Yeah, couldn't sleep," I lied. "How about you? Get lucky last night?" I couldn't help but ask the question with a sarcastic twinge in my voice. I mean, here Daisy had been playing sweet, supportive best friend. Was she really stabbing Louise in the back, sleeping with her guy this whole time?

Daisy cocked her head, looking confused. "Lucky
?"
she repeated. Then she adopted a rueful grin. "Is that what they're calling it these days?"

Whoops. Had to be careful of those twenty-first century-isms creeping into my vocab. Unfortunately, my mind blanked, and I couldn't think of another way to put it off the top of my head. At least not another way that wouldn't sound overly offensive. What I really wanted to say was, "Hey, did you screw Louise's boyfriend, you skanky ho?" but that hardly seemed appropriate under the circumstances. I wasn't here to fix Louise's love life, after all. Yet, at the same time, I couldn't help feeling a bit protective of my host body.

"You know what I mean," I said, attempting to keep the venom out of my voice. "All that talk last night about no-good men, and now I find you headed home after being out all night. Makes me wonder if you went and found some no-good man to share your bed with or something."

Daisy's face flushed deep crimson, and she stuck her hands in her coat pocket, kicking a rock with her shoe. "You know, Louise, sometimes you can be a real bitch."

I
could be a real bitch? She was the one screwing around with another girl's boyfriend! I bit my lip to stop myself from launching into a full-on scolding. It didn't matter, I told myself. The only thing that mattered was the mission. Still, for some reason, the betrayal stung a bit.

"Sorry. I was just teasing," I said, trying to sound sincere. I wasn't sure it was working though. "You know me."

"I've got to scram," Daisy muttered, evidently not ready to accept my apology. "Catch you later."

She pushed by me and headed down the street. I watched her go, not quite sure what to do. Then I shrugged. What did it matter? I wasn't here to straighten out Louise's soap opera life, that's for sure. And besides, technically wasn't Louise cheating on Machine Gun with Sam? Maybe they had a mutual arrangement or something. Maybe they were swingers. It was their lives, after all. Who was I to judge?

I opened the door and walked into the club. The lights were on, and a couple of cleaning men were mopping up the floor. The place reeked of cigarette smoke, and I wondered if they had a way to air it out or if it always smelled like this. The same bouncer as yesterday greeted me inside the entrance.

"Wow, never seen you up before noon," he remarked, raising his bushy eyebrows. "Unless you haven't been to bed yet?"

I squeezed my hands into fists. I was going to kill Ratty when I saw him.
Kill
him. Slowly—with much pain and suffering. You know, I could have easily slept in an additional seven hours, and no one would have batted an eye. So not fair.

"Ha, ha! Yes, you know me," I said. "Still up from the night before. Sleeping is so overrated, don't you think?"

He laughed appreciatively, buying my act. "You here to see Jack?"

"Yup. If he's up. I mean, I don't want to wake him."

"Should be." He laughed. "As you know, the guy never sleeps."

"Heh. Right. Good old Machine Gun. Always counting sheep and never falling asleep," I said with a big fake laugh to cover my dumb comment.

"You can just go up," the bouncer said. "I've got to stay by my post. Watch these flyboys." He pointed over to the usual suspects at the bar who evidently thought six A.M. was the perfect time to start boozing it up. Sad, really.

I thanked the bouncer and walked through the club to the back door. I remembered from yesterday that his apartment was off his main office. An overly observant reporter brain sometimes came in handy.

I got to the door that led into his apartment and knocked twice. I realized my hands were shaking a bit. Hopefully he'd forgiven and forgotten that whole puking incident.

"Who is it?"

"Louise," I answered. "I came to see you."

"What are you knocking for, baby? You know you can just come on in."

Well, that sounded positive. Maybe he was the type that didn't hold a grudge. I wrapped my hand around the doorknob and turned it. Locked. Great.

"Uh, it's locked, baby," I informed him.

"Use your key."

Grr. Why couldn't anything be easy? "I, uh, left it at home," I fibbed.

"Get the one out of the hiding spot then."

Oh jeez. Now I had to figure out where the spare key was hidden? Why couldn't the lazy jerk just come to the door? I glanced around the hallway. If I were a key to a mobster's bedroom, where would I hide? I scanned the hallway.

"What's taking you so long?" Machine Gun cried from behind the door. "Come on in, baby. I missed you."

Grr. Why did every little thing have to turn into a whole production?

"Just a second, baby."

My eyes fell on an ornate statue of the Virgin Mary on a pedestal in the far corner of the hallway. Aha. I approached the statue, picked it up, and examined it. Sure enough, there was a shiny key underneath.

Huh. Well, that wasn't a very good security system if I could figure it out. Then again, he probably had a handy stash of semiautomatic weapons on the other side of the door to keep him safe and sound. The key was just to keep honest people out.

I unlocked the door and entered the room. Jack's suite was just as ornate as his office. The wallpaper was red and gold, with lavish jewel-toned Italian paintings hanging from the wall. Botticelli, I believed, if memories of my art history classes weren't doing me wrong. The mobster sat under the covers in a huge king-size sleigh bed that took up the majority of the room. I shuddered to think of the acts that had probably been performed in that bed. Performed by my host body, to be exact. Ew.

"So, what are you doing here?" the gangster asked, sitting up in bed with a perplexed look on his growly, unshaven face. He wore no shirt, and I was afraid of what he wasn't wearing underneath the covers. "Not that I'm not happy to see you. But it's so early. You never come here this early."

"I couldn't wait to see you," I said, walking over to the bed and sitting down on the side. "I felt so bad about what happened yesterday. I wanted to apologize. I hadn't been feeling well, and…"

He smiled and reached over to tousle my curls. Curls I'd spent half an hour trying to tame, I might add.

"Don't worry your pretty little head about it, doll," he said. "In fact, fuhgeddaboudit," he added, channeling Tony Soprano. Or maybe Tony Soprano was channeling him, since Machine Gun had obviously been born first. "You're my best girl. It's all water under the bridge, far as I'm concerned."

Phew. As long as by "water under the bridge" he didn't mean "water under the bridge that I'm going to drown you in after fitting you with cement shoes," I was saved.

"Thanks. I'm glad. The last thing I wanted was for you to be mad at me."

I guess it made sense for him to forgive me. After all, according to the history books, Louise was his blonde alibi. His ticket to getting away with murder. And getting away with murder probably ranked higher than saving face on a foot-vomit mishap.

"At you? Never."

"Good," I gushed. "I was so worried you weren't gonna take me to the hotel tomorrow night. That we weren't going to celebrate Valentine's Day together."

He reached out to paw my shoulder, trying to grab on and pull me over to him. I inched further down to the foot of the bed. So not happening. I wouldn't suck on his toes, and I sure as heck wasn't going to curl up in bed with him. Or do anything else remotely romantic or sexual, for that matter.

"Nope. Besides one little adjustment to the plan, everything's on schedule," he said, giving up his pawing for the moment, much to my relief. But relief ended quickly when his words sunk in.

Adjustment?

Uh-oh.

"Adjustment? I thought you said the plan was in place. That nothing would change. You said, and I quote, 'What's set up by me and Al stays set up.'"