The woman at the microphone sings, her voice as rich and sweet as I knew it would be, the kind of jazz too hot for the clubs you can just walk into off the street. I sit back in my chair, sip my soda water, and pay attention. Watch the people who are watching M, wondering what angle she’s working.
Behind the beaded curtain, the smoke and shadows haven’t changed. Gigi must know we’re here, but she must not care.
Back to the card game. The poor young goon keeps glancing toward the worried cigarette girl, who circulates and does good business, smiling enough that most people don’t notice the crease in her brow. She’s smarter than her beau because she doesn’t dare look back at him. The boy doesn’t give himself away because anyone can forgive him for staring at a long-legged girl all night. I try to think of how M will make good on her promise to help them out. She might just send them a couple of train tickets and a bit of a spell to make them invisible, or at least make it so no one sees them. That’d be the simple thing.
On the other hand, I bet there’s a way to do the whole thing without magic. If there is, that’s what M will do, just to show that it can be done, to show that she doesn’t rely too much on the tricks she’s known for. To keep people guessing. A distraction and a threat. That’s all she’d need to get those kids out of town. And I hope once they get where they’re going, they settle down for good and have kids and all the rest, and realize forever how lucky they are.
The back of my neck is still itching where the Fed’s been watching me this whole time. Me, not M, or he would have wandered over to the bar where she’s leaning in to talk to the bartender. I can’t see the Fed, but I’m not surprised when he arrives at our table, pulls out M’s chair, and sits. I don’t even flinch.
“Mind if I join you?”
I smirk at him. The pack of cigarettes we bought from the girl is still there, so I pick it up and hold it out. “Cigarette?”
The Fed takes one and keeps his gaze on me. I strike a match and offer a light because it’s only polite. Then I wait for him to say something. He seems content to watch, and my job is to let him. I can wait all night, as long as that beauty at the microphone keeps singing.
“I know who you are,” he says finally.
“Oh?”
“I think we can help each other.” He leans back, acting cool, and turns his gaze to the singer. “Say I wanted to move in, and I wanted a partner—”
“I give you the key to the place, you make sure I don’t get swept up in the raid, maybe slip me something under the table, especially if you keep me in your pocket?”
Right up till that moment, he thought he had me fooled. “Well. That’s putting it bluntly.”
“I thought I’d save time.”
“This place is going down one way or another, but having help will make it easier, and you look like a woman who knows what’s what.”
He’s talking to the wrong woman, he’s gotta know that. Maybe he thinks I want to move up, that I’m tired of being hired help. Which tells me something about how he sees the world.
“Flatterer,” I say, my eyes half-lidded.
“It’s a sweet little setup here, I have to admit,” the Fed says. He scans the room, the players and dancers, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t see the horns tucked under feathered headbands or the tails curled under trousers. He pauses a moment at the card game in the corner before landing back on the singer. He never seems to notice the beaded curtain. “To think it’s been slipping past us all this time.” He snubs out his cigarette.
“Can I ask you a question?” I say, studying him with honest curiosity. He waves a hand for me to continue. “How’d you get in here? Guy like you, with such a clean suit and clean hands, shouldn’t have been able to find the door, but here you are.”
“Give me a little credit. We’ve had our eye on this place for a long time.”
He’s bluffing. Half-lidded, he got himself a few tricks and trinkets, maybe strong-armed some low-level fortune-teller into helping him out. Or maybe, heaven help him, he found a book of spells and worked it out on his own. Like handing a guy a loaded gun without showing him how it works.
I can’t write him off because nothing in Blue Moon will keep the bullets in that gun from killing if he decides to shoot.
“What exactly are you looking for from me, Mr. Clean Suit?”
“How about you just keep quiet for now and not warn anyone I’m here?” he says. Like I’d have to warn anyone. “If you have anything else for me, we could work out a deal.”
“I’ll think it over, let you know.”
“Thanks for the cigarette,” he says, and leaves my table to return to his own, and I get the feeling he thinks I might really help him if he just sticks around long enough.
M leans on the bar for a respectable few minutes before returning, a sway in her hips, her smile wry. She’s brought a couple of fresh sodas.
“You made a friend,” she says.
“I believe we have ourselves a crusader with a stick of dynamite and no idea what to do with it,” I say. “We might think about being on our way. Take care of our Romeo and Juliet, then wander out while we can. Give the word, I can start a diversion—”
“No, I still have to talk to Gigi.”
I knew that’s what she’d say. “So what did the bartender say?”
“Not a damn thing. He’s a zombie.”
Gigi’s got herself a zombie bartender? I chuckle. “Cute. So a shot of whiskey’s a shot of whiskey, nothing skimmed off the top and nothing extra for the band.” I glance over, and sure enough, the bartender’s standing in the same place, wiping down the surface, back and forth, over and over. His skin is gray, his expression slack.
“She’ll talk to me, I just have to wait her out.”
“Not a thing you can do about it if she doesn’t want to talk to you.”
She’s got her chin in her hands and is looking hard at the beaded curtain. We wait, and I have to resist an urge to look over my shoulder at the Fed, who’s still sitting there, watching, waiting.
The singer’s finished her latest song, a slow sad piece about how he done her wrong, and she keeps coming back, like the girls always seem to do in these songs. People listen to the songs and think they’d never do that, they’d never go back to a guy who treated them bad. Then they do, because they’re different. Their love is different, like it is for everybody, and it’s hard to stay away when you’re in love, and you’re sure he’ll change, so you keep going back. Unless you have someone in your life who sits you down and says, “Don’t.” Like M did for me.
A rare thing, having someone like that in your life.
Gigi’s not going to talk to M, I’m sure of it, and we’re going to sit here all night, and I’m sure now the Fed’s going to do something stupid because if he’d been smart, he’d have cased the joint then left to make a plan to come back with more muscle. He’s painted a target on himself. I can get M out through a back door. You need a little magic to get into Blue Moon, and it helps to have a little magic to get out, but I’ll charge straight out if I have to. Lack of subtlety, that’s how you beat magic.
“He’s got you worked up,” M says.
My back is stiff, and I keep glancing over my shoulder out of the corner of my eye. Not doing a good job of pretending to have a good time.
She continues, “He’s harmless. He’s got no trap to spring, and he’s too proud to leave without a trophy.”
“I’m worried about what happens when he pulls out that gun.”
“Pauline, relax. I’m more worried about Gigi than I am about some guy in a government suit.”