Gigi looks behind her, to a handful of people who troop out of the back room as she holds the curtain aside. Men in suits, but none of them are goons, they’re all fine businessmen in tailored jackets, expensive handkerchiefs peeping out of front pockets, rosebuds nestled on lapels. On their arms walk beautiful women with perfectly painted faces, flappers in short dresses and ropes of pearls, walking on high heels, looking bored and superior. Kept, I think, not hired, because they cling a little too desperately to their beaus’ arms, as if they might fall off if they’re not careful. And this, I think, is why M is self-employed.
We’re not kept. We work for our place, and we do not have to cling.
Then the woman in red, Gigi, nods, and M nods back, and at the same time they turn away, the one retreating back behind the curtain, M looking around for her chair. Right around us, the chairs and tables are knocked over, and we stand there like a couple of rowboats gone adrift. I wave to a waiter, who runs over and sets a table and a couple of chairs upright, wipes them down, and even finds a little vase of silk flowers to put in the middle of it.
We sink down into the chairs at our table and lean close to talk.
“What’s it mean?” I say.
“I don’t know.”
“She going to talk to you or not?”
“I don’t know.” She says it calmly, like it doesn’t matter, and maybe it doesn’t. This was a long shot to start with.
“She’s playing with you, making you wait. She thinks she’s better than you, and this is how she proves it.”
“If she has to prove it, she knows she ain’t.”
“How long are we waiting?” I’m impatient. We’ve been here too long already, and I have this vision of Anthony and his boys, or his remaining boys rather, waiting outside for us, to give us one of those little talks. M’s got her tricks and we’ll walk away, but Anthony’s got his tricks too, and I worry that one of these days M’s won’t be enough. I have to see that day before it comes, and I worry that I won’t.
“A little while longer,” she says. “I thought you liked her.” She nods at the singer, who’s back, and M is right, the woman is beautiful and her voice is ringing, and couples are back to dancing on the floor like nothing’s wrong because fights break out all the time in a place like this, it’s part of the reason people come here. I also notice: The Fed is gone, probably thrown out with the rest of the mob. I hope he’s too trashed to remember Blue Moon or any of the rest of us.
We’ve been here too long.
“It’s just one beautiful girl on one night,” I say. “I’m worried about you.”
“I’m fine.” She frowns, and I raise my brow at her. “I thought I was looking after you,” she says.
“That’s right, you are.”
A waiter comes over. Either the first or one of his brothers, I can’t guess. I don’t know if it’s a trick, if there’s a reason for it, some con Gigi runs where she needs a set of identical triplets waiting tables, but it wouldn’t surprise me. I spend a few minutes thinking about it and what I would do with identical triplets working for me. M would have some ideas if I ask her about it.
But the waiter is talking to M, and I cock my ear to listen.
“She’ll see you now, in the back, if you’ll come with me.”
M turns to give me a look like “I told you so” and moves to push back from the table. I pick up my clutch and do likewise, when the waiter says, wincing apologetically, “I am sorry, it’s only Madame who may come with me.”
How do you like that? I try to plan out the next few moments because there’s no way I’m letting M walk into that room without me.
“Pauline is my best friend in the world,” M says, clearly shocked and offended. “We don’t go anywhere apart. We’re like sisters!”
Not much like, I think, but that’s too long a story to tell. But M doesn’t have to tell the story because she’s batting her eyes at the guy, who’s clearly ready to fold. “Please, it won’t hurt a thing, I just know it.”
The poor kid sighs. He knows he’s being duped but what can he do? “All right, all right. Both of you, come with me.”
We pass through the beaded curtain, bits of glass chiming around us, bending the soft light into colors. The music outside is suddenly distant, like we’re in a whole other building or a whole other world.
Gigi lies back on a red velvet sofa, her smooth legs tucked up next to her. She frowns. “I only wish to speak to Madame.” Her tone is light, observational, but the waiter wilts.
M launches in, “Oh, let Pauline stay. I promise you she won’t hurt a fly.” And butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, I swear to God.
Arching a skeptical brow, Gigi taps ash off the cigarette in the end of the holder. “Peas in a pod, you are. Fine. Let them both in.”
She has no bodyguards, no goons to watch for hidden guns or break up fights before they start. Rather, she doesn’t have the usual kind, apart from the gorilla at the door. Here in her sanctum, she doesn’t need the men in suits with shoulder holsters tucked under their jackets. She’s got other eyes looking out for her. I don’t know what exactly would happen to someone who tried something back here, but I’m not going to be the one who tests it.
Gigi turns the cigarette holder to a straight-backed padded chair across from a little round table in front of her, an arrangement designed for serious meetings, for two people staring at each other, reading each other while they make deals. M folds into this chair like a pro, crossing her ankles, leaning forward like she’s about to tell a secret. I put myself in a sofa tucked off to the side and pretend to study my nails.
The room is set up like a parlor, with the chairs and sofas collected around the table, cabinets against the walls holding cut-crystal decanters sparkling with amber liquids. Tiffany lamps give off soft yellow light, so that the dark brocade wallpaper seems painted with shadows. Looking into this room from outside, the place is shrouded, the beaded curtain and cigarette smoke fogging the view. Looking out, though, the bar, tables, dance floor, and band are all clear. I can see straight back to the entryway and the main door and the gorilla standing guard. Doesn’t seem like I should be able to, it doesn’t seem quite right, but there it is and I try not to question it too much. The mist in the air might be as exotic as opium, but I’m pretty sure it’s only tobacco. She might try to dope her associates, but never herself.
The woman in red starts, which is only right because it’s her place. “Well, my dear, how are we going to do this little dance?”
“You know what’s coming,” M says, to the point, not playing the game or doing the dance, and I can’t tell if Gigi is surprised by this. She doesn’t twitch a muscle, not even to blink, and the cigarette holder never trembles. Smoke flows straight up from its end to the ceiling.
A moment passes; we wait for Gigi to agree or disagree. She doesn’t. “And?”
“I’m aiming to circle the wagons. Safety in numbers. We’re stronger together than we are apart. We always have been.”
“What’s in it for me?” she asks. The cliché is beneath her. I can’t help but think she’s gone soft. Not soft, not in the way she treats people or runs her business. But soft in that she’s comfortable. She knows what she’s got and she’s keeping hold of it. She’s not thinking ahead because she thinks that she’s got it as good as it can get. M isn’t going to get the answer she wants at the end of the meeting.
“Safety,” M says without hesitation. “Longevity. Peace.”