So here he was.
“He’s by the hearth,” Marissa said. She had returned from the powder room and was pointing with her nose. “Talking to that BoTox’d blonde in black trying to look twenty-five but only managing thirty-something.”
Thorn looked at Marissa. She wore a red dress, a deep, dark red sheath held up with thin spaghetti straps that set off her bare arms and shoulders. She had on a ruby necklace — borrowed and fake, she’d told him, but a good fake — four-inch pumps that matched the dress, and a small clutch handbag, and it all looked terrific on her. And she knew it, too.
She was one of three black women in the room, and one of them was a server.
“By the way,” he said. “I don’t think I ever thanked you for accompanying me tonight. It may be socially acceptable to go to one alone, but it looks odd, to say the least.”
“All in the line of work,” she said, but she smiled as she said it.
He saw that smile and found himself thinking that maybe someday soon they’d have to do this again, when they weren’t working.
She turned and nodded toward Cox. “You going to go over and say hello?”
“Nope,” he said. “The hostess is circulating. I made a polite request to her when I answered the invitation. She’ll collect us eventually and introduce us to him.”
Marissa raised an eyebrow. “That’s how the rich folk do it? They wait for an audience?”
He smiled. “Yep. I’m a lightweight compared to a lot of these people, and nouveau riche, too, but I’m also a man who doesn’t have to work, but who is dutifully serving his government. That’s just enough to make me socially acceptable for a meeting with Cox at this kind of soiree. And having you as a date makes it easier — at this level, appearances count for a lot.”
“You mean Cox might be a stone racist who calls his hired help names in private, but he has to be courteous to us in public?”
Thorn smiled. “Can’t get anything past you, can I?”
She didn’t smile back. “How long before the hostess comes looking for you?”
Thorn glanced at his watch. “I’m fairly low on the food chain. Maybe half an hour or so.”
“Want to dance?”
“Sure.”
They set their drinks on the table and moved to the dance floor.
It was not a young crowd at the charity dinner and ball — only a handful of people his age or younger — but old money learned the social graces early, and dancing was among them. Nobody was bumping into anybody else.
Strauss was not his favorite composer, but the music was being done well by the chamber orchestra, and he let it take him as he led Marissa into the number.
It was no surprise to him that she was a good dancer. He looked forward to moving a little closer to her when the orchestra played a slower number.
“I’m guessing they’re probably not going to play any down and dirty blues, huh?” she said.
“They will if you want,” he said. “Gigs like this, the band makes as much on tips as they do from the fee. The champagne is flowing — pay attention, you’ll see waiters stopping by to whisper into the conductor’s ear. There are people here who will drop a five hundred dollar tip to hear ‘Stardust,’ or ‘Mood Indigo,’ or even some old Beatles numbers. My guess is that somebody in that chamber orchestra knows just about anything you might want to hear, and the rest of them can fake it. I once heard the Seattle Chamber Orchestra at a charity ball play Otis Spann’s ‘My Home is in the Delta’ and the first violinist made his fiddle howl like a train whistle.”
“You are making that up.”
He raised his hand. “I swear. If you have a favorite, I bet I can get them to play it for you.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Five hundred gets you a vocal to go with the music.”
“No way.”
“You want to see?”
“Why don’t you just give me the money instead and I’ll buy the CD? And a new deck to play it on.”
He laughed.
The waltz ended, there was polite applause, and the dancers either headed back for their tables or waited for another tune to begin.
“I need to visit the men’s room,” he said.
He left her at the table, and found a waiter, out of her sight. He shook the man’s hand, transferred the folded bills from his palm to the waiter’s, and made his request.
He got back to the table. Marissa was sitting down, sipping at her iced tea.
The orchestra wound down another waltz.
“You’re right,” she said. “I saw a waiter go up and talk to the band leader a minute ago. You figure we’re about to hear something from the big band swing era?”
He shrugged.
The conductor raised his baton. One of the cello players set his instrument down and stood. He was maybe thirty, with red hair and pale skin.
The violins cranked up. It took the crowd a few seconds to realize they weren’t getting another waltz.
The cellist started singing “Big Car Blues,” a pretty fair imitation of Lightnin’ Hopkins’s version of it, too. Never would have guessed he had it in him, to look at him.
When he started going on about that big black Cadillac with white-sidewall tires, some of the attendees laughed.
Marissa just grinned real big and shook her head. “Oh, Tommy. What am I going to do with you?” But she was tapping her foot to the music — as were at least a few others.
As the song wound down, Thorn looked up and saw Beatrice Theiron working her way through the crowd in their direction. She was seventy, but with enough knife-work and makeup that she looked to be in her late fifties. She caught his gaze and smiled.
Marissa looked to see what Thorn was staring at.
“Show time,” he said.
He looks good for a man his age, Thorn thought. Fit, skin still mostly clear, lots of smile wrinkles. Very expensive caps on his teeth. His hair was gray and going white, the haircut probably a hundred bucks, and the tuxedo was immaculate, perfectly fitted. Italian leather shoes, too.
Beatrice Theiron spoke to Cox as an equal — her family’s wealth, counted in the billions, came from munitions, and ran back to before the Revolutionary War. American money didn’t get much older. The Theirons had been so rich for so long they didn’t even think about it as anything but a force of nature, like the sun or the rain.
“Samuel, this is Tom Thorn, the young man about whom I spoke earlier. Tom, Samuel Cox.”
“Ah, Tom, so nice to finally meet you.”
He turned his full attention upon Thorn like a spotlight as they shook hands. A firm grip, enough to show he was a man, not enough to be a challenge.
Her duty done, Beatrice said, “Pardon me, if you would, I just saw Madame LeDoux, and I must run and ask her about her dress!”
She flitted away, spry for a woman well past retirement age.
Thorn watched her for a moment, then said, “Mr. Cox. This is Marissa Lowe.”
“Please, call me Sam.” Cox took Marissa’s hand, flashed his high-wattage smile at her. “My deep pleasure, Ms. Lowe.”
Marissa gave him a half smile and nod.
Cox released her hand and looked around. A waiter appeared as if by magic, bearing a tray with champagne flutes, still cold enough that the glasses were frosted. Cox took two stems, gave one each to Thorn and Marissa, took a third for himself. The waiter vanished.
“Nice trick,” Marissa said, nodding at the glass.
He smiled at her. “One of the small perks.”
He raised his glass slightly, and offered a toast: “To success,” he said.
They clinked glasses. “Success,” Thorn and Marissa echoed.
They sipped the wine. Thorn didn’t think this was the same vintage everybody else was drinking — it was crisper, cleaner, with a hint of apple. Private stock? Probably.