Third song in, halfway through my drink, a guy stumbles in from outside, gaping like a fish out of water, which he is, and I wonder what he said to get past the gorilla. He must have something, a charm or an aura, first to find the place and another to make himself look like he belongs. Now he stands at the entrance, gazing around, eyes wide like he didn’t expect it to work, and now that it has, he doesn’t quite know what to do. He wears a nondescript brown suit, belatedly takes off his fedora. He’s clean-cut and square-jawed, and he has a gun in a shoulder holster under the jacket. He must have had a spell to hide that, too, because the gorilla should have spotted it.
Everything in Blue Moon pauses for a half a breath because some kind of balance has shifted and everyone feels it. The piano muffs a chord, and a string on the bass twangs. The guy looks back at all the eyes on him before straightening an extra inch and scowling.
Then it all goes back to what it had been a second ago as if nothing happened.
I watch the band, keep the new guy in view out of the corner of my eye, and lean into M like I’m telling a joke. “I think we’ve got ourselves a Fed.”
She’s too polite to turn and stare but does raise an eyebrow. “How’d he get in?”
“I don’t know. He’s armed.”
“Maybe he’s just here to have a good time, like everyone else.”
The Fed looks like a hunter who’s found himself a prize. Casual-like, he leans on the bar. Doesn’t flag the bartender, doesn’t ask for anything, just watches, staring hungrily at all that bootlegged liquor sitting on the shelf, wondering how big a raid this would really be if he could pull off a raid. The bartender ignores him, wiping down the counter cool as ice and pretending he doesn’t have a Fed breathing down his neck. A minute later, the Fed flags the waiter, who shows him to a table in back, and my neck itches because I can’t see him anymore but I feel him staring straight at me.
Guy knew enough to get in here, he’ll figure out soon enough who the people with the power are, and the problem of getting M out of here in one piece when trouble starts gets a lot more complicated.
M puts a hand on my arm, pats it once. A signal to calm down. I listen to the music, watch the dancers on the floor, and try to remember that we’re supposed to look like we’re having fun.
The cigarette girl walks past our table for the fourth time, eyeing me and M but not saying a word. Cute kid in satin shorts and a bustier, dark hair done up under a little hat. She’s one of those girls with legs up to here and too much makeup painted on, but that’s the style and she knows how to wear it. She slinks deftly between the tables, maneuvering her box in front of her, counting out change and never missing a beat, like she’s been doing this a while. Still manages to smile.
The fifth time she walks past, not offering cigarettes but still catching my eye, I raise my hand for her to stop. She seems grateful when she does, a bit of a sigh expanding the spangles of her neckline.
“Pack of cigarettes,” I say. “There’s something else you want to ask, isn’t there?”
She looks back and forth between us, which tells me she knows us by reputation but doesn’t know which of us is Madame M, and which of us is just that sidekick Pauline. I nod at M, indicating that she’s the one the girl ought to talk to.
“What’s the problem, dear?” M asks. “Quickly.”
I pretend to dig in my clutch for an elusive bill, making her wait, giving her as much time as she needs.
She screws up her expression and says, “I’m stuck. I mean, we’re both stuck. I mean—” She lowers her voice to the barest whisper. I can barely hear, but M doesn’t even have to lean forward. “—I mean, I gotta get out of here, and I gotta take my guy with me.”
“Your guy?”
“One of Anthony’s boys.” Her eyes dart to the card game in the corner, and I spot her guy right off, one of the heavies standing guard, medium-size and baby-faced, in a cheap suit. He’s got his hands deep in his trouser pockets and he’s sweating harder than any of them. He keeps glancing over here, lips trembling like he wants to say something.
“We’ve saved up the money to get to California, to go straight. But we don’t need Anthony or … or her coming after us.” She doesn’t have to gesture to the woman behind the beaded curtain. “I … we … we can pay you.” She looks worried, like she knows exactly what she’s really saying, what the price of M’s help might really be.
M regards her, a sly smile on her face. I’ve got my hand on a bill; I can only keep digging around in my clutch for so long.
“Your bosses don’t approve, I take it? Of you kids ditching your gainful employment—your families—to run off? Regular Romeo and Juliet story?”
The cigarette girl bites her lip. It shouldn’t be too tough a problem, not the kind of problem a person would usually bring to M. But she knows Anthony, and even more than that she knows Gigi, and the problem isn’t so simple as all that. I watch M; even I don’t know what she’s going to say.
She stubs out her last cigarette and takes another from the pack I just bought. “I think we can manage something. But pay attention—you won’t get a second chance.”
The girl nods quickly. “And how much—”
“I’ll ask for something, when I think of the right thing. But for now … Pauline?”
My hand already in the bag, I scrounge around a second and find the empty matchbox I know she’s asking for.
M says, “I need a hair from you and a hair from him. It’ll help me keep track of you. Can you do that?”
She already has, it turns out, reaching into the back of her white glove and drawing out the two thin strands, twined together. M seems impressed that she’s come prepared—she knows exactly what she’s asking for.
I offer the girl the dollar bill I’ve dug out of my clutch, which hides her slipping the hairs to me. I put the hair in the box and hand the box to M. Transaction complete, the girl dons her professional cherry-lipped smile again and bounces off.
“You going to ask for their firstborn?” I say to M, raising a brow.
She grimaces. “What would I do with a kid?”
So now I have to look out for the girl and her beau, and wonder what it is exactly M has planned for them. Should be fun to watch. M will decide when she makes a move, and all I can do is wait for her to give the sign.
The combo takes a break, comes back, and a singer, a beautiful round black woman in a rose-sequined gown, her hair twisted up and pinned with a silk magnolia, steps on stage and adjusts the microphone stand.
M pushes her tumbler away and stands from the table.
“I’m going to be brazen. I’m going to get a message to Gigi,” she says, nodding at the bartender.
I glance at the bartender, who hasn’t looked up, who’s been pouring drinks and sodas all night, shaking cocktails and dropping cherries into tumblers like clockwork. When no one’s around he just wipes down the surface, over and over.
“Think it’ll work?”
“Maybe if I look desperate, Gigi’ll talk to me.”
I don’t say that M already looks a little bit desperate. “I’ll hold down the fort.”
She tosses me a grin. I watch her slink to the bar, hips sashaying under her dress, causing the beads and sequins to flash. Her brown hair in a perfect bob, not a strand of hair out of place, her skin that perfect flawless ivory. People assume she keeps up her looks with magic, but she doesn’t. It’s all her, just her. She isn’t so vain that she’d waste her magic on something as trite as looking good.