The Mighty Miss Malone (28 page)

I started walking to the corner so I could circle around the house but hadn’t gone five steps before my second brain started filling my head with its usual nonsense.

“Well, kiddo, what if that child is a prisoner in this speakeasy? What if the little girl was getting ready to signal you to call the police when one of the murderers or drinkers or thieves
or gamblers who were holding her prisoner came back into the room to make sure she hadn’t escaped? What then?”

“Concentrate, Deza!” I kept walking toward the corner.

My heart started pounding once I turned down the alley. Maybe Jimmie wasn’t here after all, maybe he was traveling, and maybe I should give up and go back to Flint.

I kept walking past the speakeasy, cutting my eyes at it so if someone was watching they’d think I was just a girl walking through a alley, not someone looking to find their brother or rescue a little girl who’d been kidnapped by gamblers.

Then something made the doubts go away. A door on the side of the house that didn’t have any kind of knob on it opened and a man came out.

He only took a few steps, then dropped to his hands and knees. Two times his back bucked up like one of those rodeo horses in the movies. He started throwing up more junk than you’d think a human being could ever have swallowed! And the best thing was, when he finally got up and started running on his tiptoes toward the front of the house, I saw that the door hadn’t closed all the way behind him!

Doors without knobs? People coming out to throw up? Guards hiding in the shadows? Little girls held prisoner upstairs? When you added everything up, this was a for-sure speakeasy!

I watched the man on tiptoes until he turned the corner. Once he disappeared I held my breath and slowly walked to the door.

I put my ear near the crack. No screaming or loud noises.

I put my fingers in the door and pulled it open so I could peek in. My head started spinning and I don’t know if it was from relief or disappointment. There was nothing but a narrow hallway. A bright lightbulb hung from a wire and there was another closed door at the other end. This one had a knob on it.

I stepped into the New Turned Leaf and shut the door behind me.

I walked to the second door, and without thinking what might be on the other side, I grabbed the knob, turned and pushed at the door.

It didn’t budge.

I leaned my shoulder into it and pushed really hard. It came open a crack. I put all my weight into the next push and the heavy door moved far enough for me to stick my head through.

For the second time that night my head started spinning.

But this time it had good reason!

It was like I’d rubbed the magic lamp of the Forty Thieves! A strong smoky smell slipped through the crack of the door. Hard adult laughs laced themselves up in the smoke and rolled out with it. I had to blink and wipe at my eyes as the cigarette smoke stung them. I saw three round tables in a large dark room. Each table had six chairs set around it. There was a candle in a glass jar in the middle of the tables.

A woman turned to look in my direction.

The light from the hall was drawing attention so I stepped inside, closed the door, pressed my back against the wall and slid to the left. The woman stopped looking and I kept sliding
until I came to a stack of chairs. I squeezed behind them so that I was hidden.

My heart was slapping at my ribs and I was having a hard time catching my breath. If my head felt any lighter I was going to end up swooning behind this pile of chairs.

I remembered what Jimmie had said once about being scared, that if you pretended you were watching what was going on through a telescope you got a lot calmer.

“And take three of the deepest breaths that you can, three’s a magic number and if you breathe deep three times you ain’t got no choice but relaxing.”

By the third breath I had to smile. Even though I’d pulled three giant puffs of stinking, smoky air into me it worked and I was a lot calmer.

Now that my eyes were used to the dark I peeked from behind the chairs to get a look around the inside of the New Turned Leaf. It was more like a cave instead of a room! There must have been ten other round tables full of people spread out across one half of the place.

The other half of the room was empty for a bit, then there was a piano, a set of drums, a giant fiddle, a beautiful, shining gold saxophone and a microphone. Seeing the microphone gave me hope, maybe, just maybe, Jimmie
was
singing here.

I began noticing other things in the room. On one side was a swinging door with a round window and each time the door swung open kitchen sounds joined with the voices in the speakeasy. Women were going in and out. Mother would say their clothes were scandalous, their skirts didn’t seem to be
much more than a couple of handkerchiefs sewn together. The skirts flapped and sparkled in the light.

There was just as little to their blouses. Their shoulders and arms were bare like movie stars in Hollywood magazines.

I nearly jumped out of my shoes when a loud boom came from the stage.

Lights came on and four men were sitting on the stage with instruments in their hands.

My heart sank. No Jimmie.

People started clapping and a little cheer went up.

The musicians started playing and I was shocked!

I’d heard music on the radio and in moving picture theaters before, but this was different. It was beautiful and warm and went right into my body!

The man at the piano said into a microphone, “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us this evening in beautiful Dee-troit, Michigan!”

I guess all Michigan people are like Father, they seem to be very proud of where they’re from, the loudest cheer came when the man said “Detroit.”

People bounced their heads up and down and snapped their fingers and smiled like a whole herd of Cheshire cats.

When the first song was done the crowd whistled and clapped.

The man said, “Thank you so much. And now, what you’ve all been waiting for, our featured vocalist …”

The people stood up and cheered and screamed and banged their hands on the table and stomped their feet and made the house shake.

He said, “Originally from Lancaster, Pennsylvania …”

Lancaster! I screamed like the people did when they heard “Detroit”!

A curtain split in the middle and a man in a beautiful blue suit with a pair of two-tone blue shoes and a matching blue hat stood with his head bowed. His face was completely covered by the brim of the blue hat. He was holding on to a microphone.

I froze. Maybe this man was going to introduce Jimmie.

The drum banged. The people cheered louder. The drum banged one more time and the music stopped.

The man kept his head down and raised the microphone to his mouth. He waited and waited.

I stopped breathing.

Then a clear, strong voice sang, “
More or less resigned to crying over Angela …
” The band jumped in, the crowd screamed louder and I found out for a fact that I am not a swooner, because if there was anything in the world that could make you swoon, it was the air of the New Turned Leaf, the music of this band and the voice of the Genuine, Gentle Jumpin’ Giant, Jimmie Malone!

He looked up from under the blue hat and sang,

It
was
Jimmie! In a suit!

Jimmie sang two songs and the crowd never calmed down. I raised my hand, hoping he’d see me but knowing it was impossible. I came out from behind the chairs. People were too busy
staring at Jimmie to notice me, maybe if I got to the front of the room …

I was this close to Jimmie when the man who had been standing outside by the door stepped in front of me like a wall. “How’d you get in here? Let’s go.”

He left his gut wide open.

I know it was wrong, but I twisted my hips and swung as hard as I could. My fist crumpled against him and pain shot through my arm like a epiphany.

He looked at me like I was a mosquito. He reached at me and I screamed as loud as I could.

People around us jumped back like we were on fire. The band and Jimmie stopped and moved off the stage through the curtain.

Three other big, square men were just-like-that standing around me.

The only sound was people’s shoes as they shuffled to the door I’d snuck in through.

I yelled, “Jimmie!”

The first man lifted me like I was as light as a pillow.

“
Jimmie
!”

Through the microphone I heard, “Sis?”

The curtain opened and Jimmie stood there without his hat.

“Fellas, hold on, that’s my sister.”

He said, “Folks, please, please have a seat, we’ll start the show in a minute. Please don’t go.”

The man I’d slugged put me down as Jimmie jumped off the stage and grabbed me.

We cried and cried. “Aw, sis, it’s so good to see you!”

I said, “Jimmie, I missed you so much.”

He walked me onto the stage and through the curtain to a stool. “Let me take care of my business, Deza, sit here till I’m done.”

The band started up and it looked like they weren’t ever going to stop. Four times, after they finished playing and stood up, people yelled and stomped until Jimmie did another song. When someone finally came and moved the drums and instruments off the stage, a white man smoking a cigar took Jimmie’s hat and walked around the crowd.

People started tossing in coins and even some folding money!

Jimmie grabbed me. “Come on, sis, I live just around the way, we’ve got a lot to catch up on. I see you’re still the Mighty Miss Malone, I can’t believe you slugged Tito like that!”

Jimmie and me and the band went out the back door and got into a car just as marvelous as Marvin’s. It wasn’t a Buke, but it
was
great!

It was so strange, but as me and Jimmie stood in his little room I didn’t really know what to say.

I didn’t want to start in scolding him, but I couldn’t help it. “Why are you calling yourself Jones, what’s wrong with being a Malone?”

“It don’t mean nothing, sis. Mr. Maxwell thought Jimmie Malone sounded like a white Irish guy’s name, he thought it might confuse people, thought more folks would come if they knew what I really am.”

“You gave up our name?”

“It don’t mean nothing. Us musicians change our names all the time.”

“And James Edward Malone, you knew we were in Flint, you were only sixty miles away! You couldn’t write to us or
come see us to let us know you were OK? Do you have any idea how we’ve worried about you for all this time? Why wouldn’t you at least send a letter?”

“Aw, sis, you see where I’m living and working, what would Ma say about me making money in speakeasies? It was better that she didn’t hear nothing from me until I got things right.”

“You were going to throw us away that easy?”

“Aww, Deza, you know that’s not true, I was gonna write before much longer.”

He cleared his throat and said, “Deza, I gotta tell you something I’ve been carrying around with me and after I done lots of thinking it’s only fair you know.”

Oh, no.

He said, “I promised Pa I’d never tell anyone about this, Deza, especially you and Ma. But I think it’s the right thing to break my word.” He looked so sad and serious I could tell this was something I didn’t want to hear. But I had to. I sat down.

“Go ahead, Jimmie.”

“It’s about Pa, and it’s going to be a surprise.”

I smiled. “OK, you tell me what you know about him first, then it’s my turn. We’ll see who’s most surprised.”

“Sis, this is serious.”

Jimmie looked so sad that I wondered if he really did know something terrible about Father. I grabbed the arms of the one chair in the room and sat in it. “Well, kiddo, here it is.” I bit the second brain quiet.

“You remember Pa’s story about being trapped out on Lake Michigan?”