Sirens (14 page)

There are people who would rather take revenge than claim any amount of fortune. John Rushton, when he lost his brother, he kind of lost his soul. He didn’t believe any more than I did that it was the Reds that pulled that bombing, but I could tell he wanted to find out who it was. John Rushton was out for revenge.

Oh, revenge. It drives the world, you know? From the first time some kid pushes you down on the playground, or some flirt steals your boyfriend, you think about revenge. About getting even. It’s the Hatfields and the McCoys, all over. It’s always the same: step up by stepping on top of the guy who once knocked you down.

Little did I know back then how mixed up we all were—Danny, Charlie, Jo, Teddy, Rushton, me—with revenge. Or how that would all turn out.

But I sure watched Jo like a hawk, especially right after we met, ’cause I could see what might happen to her. Heck, it happened to me. All that sweetness. Danny liked sweetness, even if he didn’t like me appearing to be dumb. He could easily like that sweet Jo Winter, which made me want to shake her, but hard.

Yeah, buster, I was sweet once. So I knew. Life has a way of burning the sweetness right out of you and setting you up to take revenge.

And don’t think for one second, Detective, that that was a confession. I’m just telling you a story.

CHAPTER 18

MAY 22, 1925

About the spectacular dry raids of last week. There is nothing special to be said except that a number of naughty cabaret owners just won’t be allowed to sell liquor any more.

—From the column “Lipstick,”
The New Yorker
, January 1, 1927

Jo

I’d ridden in a limo only once, when Ma and Pops and I crowded into a big black thing that took us to Teddy’s memorial service. Now I lounged with Melody and Louie in the Daimler sent for us from Daniel Connor, being driven by a quiet dark-skinned fellow named Sam who was wearing a gray uniform and hat. I was buoyed by the other girls’ high spirits.

That is, until Louie leaned across the empty space between our seats and said to me, “You know, you could be the next Lois Long.”

“Pardon me?”

“Lois Long. She’s that smart young gal over at
Vanity Fair
. She parties all night and writes theater reviews during the day. You even kind of look like her.” Louie regarded me, her head tilted in appraisal.

I had no intention of partying all night, but writing theater reviews sounded interesting. “She gets paid for writing?”

“Oh, boy, does she. And she’s one heck of a writer. She’s the new woman, all over.” The new woman. Now Louie’s observation made me uneasy.

I thought about Danny Connor’s offer. My dream future in exchange for Teddy.

I sat back against the leather. Louie looked out the window of the limo as it cruised downtown, lights of the city flashing by. Melody reapplied her lipstick with the aid of a small compact. The night was cool; a front had come in behind the rain. Melody and Louie were done up in fur jackets, and Melody had lent me a fur caplet. I dug my chin into the soft mink, the first I’d ever worn.

Ma had a beat-up old fur coat—raccoon—and Pops swore he would one day buy her a “real” fur. And, he said, he’d drape her in real pearls. Before Teddy disappeared Pops would say to him, “When you’re a big shot, we’ll have everything we ever wanted.” When Teddy didn’t become a big shot, Pops changed his tune to “Prohibition’s gonna make us rich.”

The only thing the Prohibition had done was to get Pops mixed up with Danny Connor, and a convoluted web of secrets, a web in which I felt more and more entangled.

One week ago I was Josephine Anne Winter, high school student, whose ma had a ratty old raccoon coat and whose pops dealt bootleg liquor under the cover of his small grocery shop. I was an old-fashioned girl in a middy blouse and a too-long skirt, with dark hair that reached her waist. Now I was Jo Winter, riding through the streets of New York at night in a chauffeured limousine with a
couple of honest-to-goodness flappers and sporting a mink and a bob and a short silk dress.

I twisted; the scar on my back itched. I wanted to help my family. But I didn’t want to marry some rich guy I couldn’t stand. Wouldn’t it be better if I got a real job, like that Lois person? Went back, finished school, went to college? I twisted a curl of hair around my finger, pursed my lips.

The lights of lower Manhattan flashed by; we were in a sweet cocoon, riding in this limo. I was closing in on my dreams. I was having fun. I liked my new look. I could be a “new woman” and make my own way, make scads of money, enough for me and my ma and pops.

What would Teddy say if he could see me now: bravo, or boo?

For the first time, I didn’t want to know Teddy’s answer. Because, looking over to the front seat, to where Sam’s dark eyes were fixed on the road ahead, never once glancing back—that would be too forward—I knew what Teddy would say. I knew.

“Here we are,” Louie announced.

We double-parked in front of a brick town house, and Sam hastened around the car to let us out. The street was empty. You wouldn’t have known there was any kind of club around here, it was such a dingy place. A few streetlamps glowed like orange balls, reflecting in the puddles. The street smelled like wet cement.

I stood on the sidewalk waiting for the other girls, watching Sam as he moved back around to the driver’s seat, then pulled the car down the street to find a spot to park. My eyes followed the car, and then I saw something—saw someone, not Sam, but someone else—standing on the sidewalk opposite.

The light, casting shadows, hid his face; but it had to be. Just
like earlier that day, on the street after I’d met Charlie, the blond hair. Those eyes. I was sure it was Teddy. My muscles all went tight. I stared into the chilly dark, straining my eyes, but he was so deep in the shadows, could it be? And then as the thrill filled me I thought, Yes, it is, just like earlier, only this time he was wearing his familiar jacket and hat, and it was the way he stood with his legs splayed; it was him, standing just outside the circle of light. It was Teddy. My hand flew to my mouth as I tried to suppress a cry. I wanted to run to him.

“Doll? What’s up?” Louie touched my shoulder, and I whirled to face her. “Whoa. You look like you’ve see a ghost.”

I turned back and pointed, but the street was empty.

Melody arranged her wrap, fussing with the catches. “Can we go in? This street is giving me the creeps.”

I stared back at the shadows, searching, but they were empty.

“Come on, Jo.”

I trailed them, glancing back. Nothing. No one.

Louie led us down a flight of stairs to a door behind an iron fence that looked for all the world like a basement entrance to the tailored brownstone above it. We went inside and walked down a narrow, dim hallway to a single wall lamp that cast an anemic glow next to the only other door.

Louie knocked, and the door opened a crack and then swung open all the way, the beefy man behind it sporting a broad grin.

“Evening! Nice to see you again, Miss Lou. And ladies.” He eyed us as we shuffled, awkward, behind Lou. He looked us up and down, seemed to think that we passed some kind of test. He stepped aside. “Welcome to Walter’s place!”

“Who’s Walter?” I whispered to Melody.

She shrugged. “Don’t know his last name. Does it matter?”

We were ushered into a joint so swank, it was hard to imagine it belonged to the hallway through which we’d entered.

“Only been set up a couple of weeks. Would you believe it?” Louie waved her hand around the dim room. “Some swell guy with a wad of dough and a whole lotta friends.”

Plush velvet banquettes lined the walls; scattered round tables with soft chairs filled all but the dance floor; recessed in the far wall sat a stage on which a small band played, accompanying a blond woman who was wearing a dress the color of a ripe tomato and singing “All Alone.” Cigarette girls in skimpy outfits and jaunty caps paced the floor between tables, and couples leaned toward each other over their iced drinks. Smoke rose in spirals; the ceiling was adrift in clouds of smoke. The smells of tobacco and whiskey mixed with perfume and aftershave and hair tonic. Six or seven couples fox-trotted on the dance floor, their bodies so close together I had to take a breath.

A speakeasy.

“All alone, I’m so all alone

There is no one else but you….”

“Come on, girls.” Louie led the way to a far corner booth, already occupied. Three men in tuxedo jackets slouched in the booth, all of them smiling, teeth gleaming in the semidark.

Louie slid into the seat next to one man, who drew his arm over her shoulder and gave her a kiss, right on the lips.

Daniel Connor. He looked up at me, those gray eyes sharp as steel daggers. “Miss Winter. Such a pleasure to see you again.” His black hair was slicked off his forehead with brilliantine. Louie stiffened as he spoke, watching me.

What would Pops say now, if he knew I was here, with this man—the very man he’d sent me to New York to avoid, and who had already found me, twice now? I could be stepping into a trap, or I could be helping Pops. Should I tell Danny Connor that it was all a lie—that Teddy wasn’t dead, that Teddy and I, we’d faked his death a year ago? I twisted my fingers into the fur around my neck.

Uncertain of the right move, I felt uneasy and alone.

Connor’s steel eyes fixed on mine, and again I felt that lurch inside me, as if he reeled me in on a tight wire, as a slow smile crept across his face, a smile Lou couldn’t see because she was watching me.

Melody slid right into the booth next to the other men and promptly crooked her finger at one of the serving girls, who brought her ice in a glass and a bottle filled with brown liquid.

I fidgeted with my wrap, standing by the table, the eyes of the men on me, their too-broad smiles, feeling the weight of the room and the people all around me and their moody desires snaking through the chair legs and table legs and roping around me in invisible coils, drifting up my torso like the smoke.

Louie said to me, “Honey, you can’t stand there all night. Besides,” she leaned around me to glance at the stage, “you’re blocking the view.” She waved her hand.

I turned to see. And there he was, Charlie O’Keefe, playing a horn with those dark eyes of his closed, his broad shoulders straining with his effort to make the music, and make it he did. He pitched that horn high and low; he turned to face the other musicians and then back again to the crowd; he matched the crooner and her full-bodied voice. I stood mesmerized until the song ended and the crowd burst with applause.

Then I ducked my head and plunked down on the nearest chair,
because I didn’t want Charlie O’Keefe to see me in the midst of this fast crowd. I wanted him to think of me as the nice girl he’d met in the park who didn’t go to speakeasies.

“Good girl, cuz,” said Melody. “Now all you need is a little ammunition.” She slid a glass across the table at me. I stared at it.

“Danny, you weren’t just flapping your gums,” said one of the men, who sat to my left. He had a nose like a badger, long and sharp. “She’s a sweetheart. A real looker.”

“Quit it, Neil,” Connor said, his voice a low growl.

That was when I realized that badger-nosed Neil was referring to me. His grin had broadened, appearing carnivorous. I looked him square in the eye. “I’m right here. You can speak directly to me.”

“And she’s got spark!”

I sensed, rather than saw, Connor’s surprise. It didn’t matter; I could stand up for myself. I went on. “If you want to speak to me, speak. Because I can spark that silly grin right off your face.” My own face flushed with the heat of my emotion, and I moved my eyes away and stared down at the white tablecloth.

Louie leaned toward me over the table and said, her lips against my ear, “Sister, you have just become my personal hero. I’ve never liked that guy.”

But the two men laughed as if I was the funniest thing they’d seen and heard in a long time. “Sweetheart,” said the one called Neil, “you could be the next It Girl. The future Clara Bow. You’ve got the looks, and you’ve got the spunk. You could be a star.”

It was the second time in an hour that I’d been told I could be the next someone else. Except that what I wanted was to be the next me, Jo Winter. If only I could figure out who I was.

And then Charlie O’Keefe was there, standing at the table, standing right by my side.

“Hey, Charlie!” Louie tapped Charlie’s arm, and then my earlier suspicions were confirmed. O’Keefe: they were sister and brother.

“Hiya, sis. Hello, Mr. Connor.” Charlie nodded, deferential.

I wasn’t supposed to know Charlie, and I hoped he played the game, too. Because now I was convinced I was right on another score: Danny Connor had hired him to follow me.

Introductions were made all around, and I discovered that the other man’s name was Ryan. When Charlie and I shook hands, I said, pretending, “You play the saxophone quite well.”

“Why, thank you, miss,” he said. His eyes had the glint of mischief. “But it ain’t a sax. It’s a cornet. Kind of like a trumpet.” He winked. So I could keep a secret, but he struggled with the concept. It shouldn’t have surprised me. “How are you enjoying the place here?”

I pulled my wrap tight around my shoulders; I hadn’t been willing to give it up. It was as if I hadn’t committed to staying. “It’s fine. Nice.”

“Well, we’ll try to give you something real nice to remember it by,” he said with a grin.

I liked Charlie, even if he did work for Connor. He was sweet and innocent. I bet he had no clue why Connor wanted me followed. I wished, in that instant, I could jump into Charlie’s arms, safe and secure from this menacing man sitting opposite me, one arm trailing over Lou’s shoulder, but whose eyes were fixed on me. I wished I could run right out the door with Charlie, run away and never look back. Except I would look back. Those
gray eyes of Connor’s were like big steel traps, and he was not about to let me go.