Sirens Page 9

  But I’d seen him. He was here, in New York. Alive and here and still laying low.

  I walked back to my aunt and uncle’s, trying to sift through the tangle of feelings.

  Everyone wanted something from me. Connor, Rushton, Pops, my uncle, Charlie, even my aunt…that was when I remembered. I stopped to ask Ed, “Has Miss Melody left the apartment yet?”

  “Yes, miss. Right after the rain stopped.”

  I groaned. I sure wasn’t acting like Miss Draper’s “A” student, nor like the detective I thought I was. Already I’d let my aunt down by not being home in time for Melody.

  Ed lifted one finger. “Oh, and miss. Your aunt and uncle and Mr. Chester are also out, but there’s someone waiting in the apartment. I let him up because I know he’s a particular friend of your uncle’s.”

  “Who?” But I already thought I knew the answer, and the very idea of it carved a hollow in my middle.

  “Mr. John Rushton.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Lou

  Not too long after we moved into the Long Island mansion, Killimor—Danny named it after some place he knew in the old country; can you beat that, Detective? He wants to leave his past behind, and the first thing he does is settle on a name…oh, never mind. Anyhow, not too long after we moved in I learned how Danny felt about me consorting with the help.

  He’d gone off to the city, like he did near every day, and I was hungry, that’s all. Cook made me a lamb sandwich and, I ask you, why should I eat all alone at a table for twenty in that drafty old dining room with its gloomy tapestries and empty armor, with the feeling there were eyes in there watching me, when I could eat in Cook’s cozy kitchen? And it was a cold and rainy day, too, so the kitchen fire was nice.

  I told Danny once that I thought modern was much nicer than all this old stuff—used furniture, I think I said—and he lectured me for near an hour on the value of antiques. On history and how rich people all have antiques. I still didn’t like them, all those creepy, dark, old things, even if he did make the help clean them till they glowed. But by then I’d learned to keep my trap shut.

  Anyway, I’m eating my sandwich, and Cook starts in with stories about Danny that I hadn’t heard before. About how he’d arrived as a kid on Ellis Island with nothing on but an oversize dress shirt and a ratty pair of knickerbockers. How he started out on the Lower East Side picking pockets before moving up in his early teens as a boxer. How he earned a boxing nickname right off: Dapper Dan O’Connor.

  “Wait,” I said, between bites. “O’Connor?”

  “Aye,” Cook said. “He dropped the ‘O’ when he got important. Some say he dropped it because he didn’t want to be taken for someone right off the boat.” She made a noise in her throat that sounded like “harrumph.”

  “Go on,” I said. “And by the by, this lamb is very tasty.”

  “Why, thank you, dearie. So, anyways, he was Dapper Dan because he valued his pretty face so. I heard tell he never let a fist near it. Never got a black eye nor a broken nose, not Dan.”

  I laughed. “He couldn’t have been in too many fights, then.”

  “He picked and chose his fights, and he was small and fast. He dodged the sluggers and knocked them out. Some say he only fought with drunks. Be that as it may, Dapper Dan fought enough to win some influential friends, who bet his way and won.” Cook pronounced it “in-flu-en-tee-al.”

  “How influential?”

  “Let’s just say Mr. Daniel Connor is no stranger to all sorts of shenanigans. He made himself important to Mr. Alphonse Capone, I’ll tell you that. He was one of Al’s boys. He’d learned to keep his face pretty and his hands clean, even when his hands were deep in the muck. From running the booze to getting people out of his way, your man there knows how to take care of business.”

  “Getting people out of his way?” I put my sandwich down, no longer hungry.

  Cook looked at me. “Here, now. How do you think an Irish lad—I don’t care if he hears me say it—how do you think a lad off the boat gets all this?” She waved her hands around the kitchen before fisting them on her hips. “What do you think he does all day out in that greenhouse of his, and why do you think them plants grows so big?” She pointed one large finger at my plate. “I thought you liked the lamb.”

  The kitchen door swung open with a thud so hard I jumped near out of my skin. “Danny!” I said.

  He stared at me, his eyes like diamond points. “What are you doing in the kitchen, Louise?”

  I sucked in air. I pointed to my sandwich.

  In two strides Danny was at my side and swept the sandwich off the table and onto the floor. He took my wrist. “You will never eat in the kitchen again.”

  I wanted to tell him he was hurting me, but I knew better by then. “Okay. I won’t. I promise.”

  He dragged me from the room, and just before the door swung shut he turned to Cook. “Clean that up. Then pack your bags.”

  His next cook wasn’t near so nice, nor could she make such a lamb.

  CHAPTER 16

  MAY 22, 1925

  Clara Bow, Paramount star, is the flapper turned “moll”‘ and the title of this drama of the underworld, which bristles with action and suspense, is Ladies of the Mob.

  —From “Clara Bow, ‘It,’ Stars at State,” Reading Eagle, July 24, 1928

  Jo

  On the way up in the elevator I considered my options. I could pretend I didn’t know he was there and slip into my room; or I could ask him to leave; or I could engage him in meaningless conversation. Whatever I did, I wasn’t about to tell him anything about Teddy.

  The elevator doors opened, and I stepped into the foyer. Light from the library told me that Rushton was in there. I decided to face him.

  He had his back to me when I entered, but he turned at once, and when he saw me he shut the book he was holding and nodded a terse greeting.

  “Mr. Rushton,” I said, uneasy.

  “Miss Winter.”

  “Is there something I can do for you?”

  “Yes, you can.” He returned the book to the shelf. “You know already that I’m here to see you.”

  We stood in silence. He scrutinized me. Again, I felt some awkward combination of disdain and desperation in him. He wanted something from me, but he didn’t want to ask.

  “So?” I asked, not even trying to hide my frustration now. “What is it you want?”

  “I knew your brother.”

  This was a shock. “You knew Teddy!” I took a step back.

  “Yes. We met during the war. We served together. We spent the better part of a year in the same unit. We became quite close. You could say we were friends.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say. Teddy had never mentioned him. Nothing of Teddy’s life over there came up in conversation after he’d returned home. But then, Teddy wasn’t very well after he came back. He didn’t talk about his war experience, whether pleasant or not. If a friendship with John Rushton during the war was, in fact, pleasant. How could Teddy make a friend of this obnoxious man? I thought of Teddy’s journal, whether Rushton would appear in its pages.

  “You don’t believe me,” he said.

  I shrugged and moved to sit on the arm of a chair. I worked hard to appear calm, unruffled. “I don’t disbelieve you. I don’t know you.”

  “I’d like to tell you something about your brother. There is some unfinished business between us. I hope you can tell me something that will finish it.”

  I was the keeper of my brother’s secrets; I wasn’t about to discuss Teddy with this man I didn’t like. I stiffened and stood again, clenching my fists. “Thanks, Mr. Rushton, but I have to go get ready for the evening.”

  He glanced at the clock on the wall. “Yes, I suppose it does take you girls some time to prepare.”

  “You girls?”

  “Girls like you. You and Melody.”

  “Now, just one minute.” That did it. “What kind of a girl do you take me for?”

  “I assume you�
�re like all the rest. Like your cousin. A flapper.” As he spoke he turned away. “I thought I could count on your help, but I see now that you’re as shallow as they are.”

  “Well, I’m not,” I snapped.

  “Then the appearance is deceiving.”

  His comment made me seethe. There was something about him that reminded me of Pops, that close-minded disapproval. I touched my hair. “I happen to like my short hair. I happen to think a girl shouldn’t have to fuss with long tresses anymore. I happen to think a girl should be as comfortable in her clothes as a man is in his. She shouldn’t have to wear long entangling skirts and confining corsets.” My voice rose with each sentence. “I also think a girl has the right to vote, and the right to work for a living.” I took a breath and tried to sound the cynic. “I assume you want all women to be slaves to their husbands.” Just like Pops.

  Rushton was now looking straight at me. “I didn’t mean—”

  “I suppose you believe that a girl like me can’t think. That I don’t know what it means to be a slave. That I don’t know about Mr. Darwin and that upcoming trial down in Tennessee that I bet’ll prove just what apes men are. That I don’t know how the Prohibition works, and all the sneaky little business dealings that my pops and maybe even you, yes, you, Mr. High and Mighty, are engaged in.”

  “Miss Winter, that’s not—”

  “I’m a thinker, Mr. Rushton. I want to be a thinker, not just a doer. And I certainly am not a flapper, or a floozie, or a…or a…or anything else cheap and insulting!”

  “I never—”

  “You think you know everything by just examining the surface. Scratch a little deeper, Mr. Rushton. I’m not leaning on my gangster boyfriend for every little thing like some dumb moll.”

  There was a movement at the door, and I turned my head. It was the same girl I’d met in front of the Algonquin. That Louie something, who’d slipped into the back of a limo like she was slipping onto a chaise longue.

  How long she’d been standing there, I had no idea. I’d been so caught up in my argument with Rushton that I could only assume she’d come into the apartment unheard.

  She raised her hands and gave a slow and deliberate clap, clap, clap. “You tell him, honey. No dumb moll, you.” Her eyes were sharp, narrowed at me, and she smiled with her lips only.

  I unclenched my fists and lowered my shoulders, slow and easy, trying to breathe.

  Melody came up behind her. I guessed now that the two had come into the apartment together. “So Lou, you’ve met my cousin Jo? Josephine Winter, fresh from White Plains.” Then Melody turned to Rushton. She frowned, but it was an attempt at charm. “John Rushton, speaking of fresh, are you giving my naive little cousin a hard time?”

  I looked at her, wide-eyed. Melody was flirting with Rushton.

  He pulled himself up, then acknowledged her with a slight nod of his head, his cheeks flushed. “Miss Cates. I think I should take my leave.”

  “So soon? Wouldn’t you like to stay for cocktails? Why, I can make a wicked highball. Or an even tastier Orange Blossom.” She moved toward Rushton, silky.

  He flushed dark. “Thank you, Miss Cates, but no.”

  What was going on here, between the two of them? Because there was no question: Melody wanted Rushton’s attention, and he was working hard to avoid giving her even a bit of it.

  Louie watched the scene with apparent amusement, leaning against the doorframe like she owned it. Then she moved into the room. “John Rushton,” she said, extending her hand. “We meet again.”

  Rushton hesitated before he took her hand and bowed his head. “Miss O’Keefe.”

  O’Keefe! That’s where I’d heard it. Charlie’s last name was O’Keefe. I shook my head. It was a coincidence. O’Keefe was a common Irish name.

  Yet those eyes…

  “Oh, how sweet,” she drawled. “You remembered.” Her eyes skimmed away from Rushton and to me. “That’s right. Louise O’Keefe. I’m Daniel Connor’s moll.” She emphasized the last word as if it was distasteful. Which must have been the way I’d pronounced it.

  The blood rushed to my cheeks. “I didn’t mean…” I mumbled.

  “What, hon?” She came around Rushton to me. Then she laughed. “Oh, sweetie, no hard feelings. I mean it. It wasn’t fair to spy on you like that. I am Daniel Connor’s girlfriend. Absolutely right, and I don’t deny it.” She leaned toward me in a feigned whisper. “I had a feeling when we met the other day that we’d meet again.” She gave me a smile, warmer now, but cautious.

  I gave her a tentative smile back. But…Daniel Connor’s girlfriend?

  Rushton made to move toward the door. “Please excuse me.”

  Melody leaned on his arm. “Oh, do stay.” She smiled up at him, her head cocked to one side. Her short blond hair fell in becoming waves.

  He pulled away, separating her arm from his, his face beet red. “No, thank you. Please give my respects to your parents.” He nodded toward her, not meeting her eyes.

  At the doorway he turned back to me, clearing his throat to recover his composure. “Your brother, Miss Winter. I didn’t finish telling you. He saved my life during the war. I owe him everything. I think you should know that.” He paused. “There’s more, but I’ll save it for another time.”

  I could say nothing; I’d said all the worst things already, and it was time for me to shut up.

  After the elevator door clanged closed behind Rushton, Louie said, “Honestly, Mel, what are you thinking? Listen to how he talks. He may be young, but he’s stiff as a board. Like he dropped in from some other century, at least. How could you fall for such a dull knife?”

  Melody drew up. “I haven’t,” she snapped. “He’s an old family friend. He’s done a great deal for us. I was just being polite.” Melody turned. I could see her face; Louie couldn’t.

  Mel was lying.

  “Hah!” Louie laughed.

  “Louise O’Keefe, you know nothing,” Mel said. “Nothing.” Her words were icy.

  Even Lou looked surprised at her tone. She exchanged a glance with me; I shrugged.

  “Sorry, doll,” Lou murmured.

  I thought I’d stumbled into a farce, one of those stage plays that I’d watched with Teddy on one of our early excursions into the city, when I had looked at the constellations in the plaster firmament of Grand Central and dreamed of stars. I’d heard all the jokes and innuendoes that mostly went right by my head while the audience reeled with laughter. I looked from Louie to Melody, flummoxed.

  Then out of the blue I remembered my promise to Aunt Mary. “Melody.”

  She looked at me. “Yes?”

  What in the world was I to say? Your mother asked me to look out for you. I’m supposed to spy on you. Be a good girl, Melody. Don’t drink. Don’t smoke. For pity’s sake, cover up those knees. Walk the straight and narrow. Come to a temperance meeting with me. Leave the boys alone. Leave John Rushton alone.

  Instead, I blathered. “What are you up to tonight? You know, what’s going on, and such….”

  Melody looked at me as if I was out of my mind. I was, after hearing Rushton’s last comment, and then after sensing whatever it was between him and Mel.

  I floundered in this unfamiliar water. Teddy liked John Rushton enough to save his life. And Melody: Was I getting the feeling that she liked—more than liked—John Rushton, too?

  I started in again, trying to sound casual. “Maybe I’d like to try one of those highballs.”

  “Well, okeydokey! Coming right up,” Melody said.

  “That’s the spirit, doll,” said Louie. She opened a cigarette case and thrust it in my direction. “Ciggie?”

  Good heavens. What had I just done? And why? When what I needed to do was go into the privacy of my room and read Teddy’s journal, now I’d trapped myself here, with these two and a glass of alcohol.

  What an idiot I was. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

  Melody showed me how the hidden liquor cabinet worked. Push here, slide there—a fals
e wall of bookshelves slid away and revealed bottle after bottle. It looked like enough alcohol to run an entire speakeasy. The cabinet was a dark place, a hoard, a great place for hiding secrets of any kind.

  Giggling, she pulled out a small flask and showed me how she stowed it in her garter for excursions on the town. And she mixed my beverage with an expert hand, telling me how soda water provided the base and when you ordered soda water it was a wink-wink clue that you carried a flask.

  My first taste of alcohol, in the form of a highball, was so unpleasant that I let the ice drift in the glass and pretended to sip, while Lou and Melody gossiped away. The concoction I held in my hand made my throat burn and my eyes water. Honestly, it tasted like ammonia.

  I’d heard that some alcohols were, in fact, not far from cleaning fluid. That in the early days of the Prohibition, when desperate folks took matters into their own hands and built homemade stills, some of the resulting potions could kill a body. Crazy people distilled all sorts of stuff: rubbing alcohol, camphor, bichloride of mercury, embalming fluid. Innocent young girls from the sticks drinking liquor lost all inhibitions and all decency. They drank until they were stupid. Some went blind. Some went mad. Not a few died.

  Melody then opened a bottle of champagne for herself and Lou, popping the cork so that it hit the ceiling and the champagne foamed out of the bottle so that she had to guzzle. She held the bottle by the neck and laughed like crazy as she swiped her mouth with the back of her hand. I watched as she drank more than her share, and watched as Louie took a more circumspect approach. Lou’s glass was never empty, yet she guarded herself. She was clever, that girl.

  As I had expected, there was nothing I could say or do to stop Melody. I could only sit and watch and bite my tongue, feeling for my aunt, who was so full of worry and, I thought, for good reason.

  The afternoon skimmed past. Melody turned on the radio, searching until she found a station that played slow jazz, then she swayed around the room to the rhythm. The setting sun cast a rosy glow down the hallway from the living room windows into the foyer, and we switched on the library table lamps. Melody and Louie gossiped about some club up in Harlem that played a wild kind of jazz; Melody wanted to take me there, although Louie seemed to have other ideas.