“Boucher,” Sam whispered. “The penny has dropped, as the Americans say. So, he was the reason the kid wanted to get in, do you think? Or do you still think he was mooning over a girl?”
“I don’t much believe in coincidence,” Billie replied. In her experience there was no such thing. “I’m going to try the doorman again; you watch the room. Look out for Boucher, okay?”
Taking her time, she sauntered toward the powder room in her inky dress, then slipped past it and continued all the way out of the main room, down the stairs to the street entrance. She was pleased to find the doorman she wanted to speak with still out front, as he had been on their way in. He wasn’t busy now. Billie smiled when she saw his bony countenance, but as soon as his eyes clocked her, his long face fell yet farther and he turned away.
“Excuse me, sir,” she called, moving fast on her low heels and taking him by one shoulder. She gave her best winning smile. “I can’t help but feel you aren’t happy to see me.”
The smile had no discernible effect, unless the effect was fear. His dark brown eyes were large and almost scared. “No offense, but I have nothing to say to you, lady,” he told her flatly, eyes focusing on his feet.
One of Billie’s arched eyebrows rose. “I’m sure that isn’t so,” she said, whispering now. “The boy I’m looking for, Adin Brown, wanted something from Georges Boucher, didn’t he? Boucher uses this place as a kind of office for his better clients? He’s here every weekend wining and dining them and trying to interest them in auction items or private sales. The kid wanted to speak with him, is that right? Trying to pawn something, perhaps? He was getting nowhere at the auction house so he tried to catch Boucher here? Stop me when I tell you something you don’t already know.”
The man looked positively stricken. “I don’t know anything and I don’t want anything to do with it.” He looked this way and that, to see if anyone was watching, or perhaps to find an escape point. “I don’t know anything about anything,” he reiterated, palms up.
Billie was not convinced. “Oh, but you do. And I can make it worth your while,” she explained. “And Boucher isn’t here yet to see you talk with me this time.”
The man hesitated, closed his fingers around the coins she dropped in his hand, and shut his eyes. “You’re going to get me into trouble, lady,” he said, defeated.
A couple emerged from the main doors and he turned his back and pretended to busy himself while another doorman assisted them. When they were gone, she continued in low, soothing tones. “Just tell me what the conversation was that you had; then I’ll be out of here and this will all be over—”
“Not here,” he replied, cutting her off and darting his eyes from side to side again. “I can’t be seen talking to you. I’m at the People’s Palace,” he said. The lodging house was named rather ironically, but Billie knew it. “I’ll be there at one thirty, after I get off. Room 305.” He paused. “Maybe I’ll meet you in the lobby. I might have to let you in. I know that’s late, but—”
“It’s fine,” she agreed. The death house could wait another night. “People’s Palace, 305. Your name?”
“Con Zervos,” he muttered.
Another patron walked out of the ballroom and Billie turned away, pretending to adjust her gloves. When she turned around again, Zervos had already ducked away, as nervous as a greyhound. Billie noticed the staff entrance to the kitchen swing shut. He wanted distance from her, at least while he was here. Fair enough.She turned on her heel and walked back up the stairs. The doors were opened for her and she stole a look across the main ballroom at Sam, who was doing a fine impression of the kind of man who liked it there. She crossed the dance floor feeling quietly triumphant and slid into the stool beside him without a sound.
“Enjoying yourself?” she queried, and his gaze, which had been fixed on a woman dancing in a low-backed gown, went to her immediately.
“Crikey, how do you do that?” he asked, looking startled by her sudden presence.
Billie just smiled. “Lovely sequin detail on that dress,” she said, thinking of her mother’s comment. “Really draws the eye.”
He appeared to blush.
“I’ve got a date at one thirty at the Palace. The People’s Palace, not the theater.” She leaned back and planted her elbows on the edge of the long bar, sliding one leg over the other.
“The doorman?” her assistant queried.
She nodded. “One and the same.”
“At one thirty in the morning?” He frowned. “Obviously I’m coming.”
“No, you aren’t. I don’t need any safety net.”
“I’m coming.”
“And I have a hunch he doesn’t want extra company,” Billie said in a low voice.
“Do you think?I’m coming,” Sam said, insistent.
Billie sighed. “I don’t want a babysitter, Sam. That’s not what I’m paying you for.”
“Since when am I a babysitter?I’m coming.”
Now it was her turn to frown. “Okay, but you’ll have to waitoutside.” It might be a good idea to have backup, though Con seemed a nice enough fellow, and more nervous by a country mile than she was. She could handle the likes of him; she was sure of that. Sam nodded in agreement and slowly finished his planter’s punch while she watched the room. No sign of Boucher yet.
“You think you can last here another hour or so?” she asked him quietly.
