“Is that a real question?”
“I see,” she said, smiling. Sam was clearly liking this more than the usual doss-house or back alley he had to frequent in their line of work. “Well, we can’t hold up the bar forever. I think we’ll have to dance,” she suggested.
She pulled Sam toward the dance floor, and they inserted themselves among the throng of swaying patrons, standing close to each other and then swaying in time, measuring the moment. This would provide a different, less obvious vantage point for a while. She placed one gloved hand on Sam’s right shoulder, which was practically at her eye line; he took her other hand lightly in his leather-gloved one, his thumb pressing gently against her curled fingers, and slid his strong right hand around her waist. She could just make out the feel of the false fingers and the real ones as their hands touched. There was electricity there in the touch between them, taking her off guard. Billie winced, then fought off the feeling with a bite of her lip. Memories. Just memories of Jack. Of intimacy. Had that been the last time she’d danced? Now it was Sam’s turn to lead, and she felt his unspoken hesitation. “She is my boss,” that hesitation seemed to say, and perhaps he’d felt her inner jolt.Side, side, rock step, side, side...He was younger and stronger than a lot of the other men on the dance floor, but more tentative. They looked at each other, herhead tilted up to meet him, his aquamarine eyes searching her face for the right moves, the right approach. Just then the tempo changed and their gaze broke.
The band was back to its Benny Goodman set list, a new song, a touch faster. Would he be okay with this faster tempo? And could she really dance in this dress? Well, yes. She could run in it, too. She turned back to her dance partner just in time to see his face break into a wide grin as the rhythm quickened. As if in answer to her unspoken question, Sam swung her out from him, guiding her lightly with his gloved hand before pulling her close with his right, his body coming confidently to life. Billie laughed softly as he swung her out again and their clasped hands rose like a steeple. She spun beneath their raised hands, whirling and feeling weightless, the peplum of her dark dress fanning out around her. For a blissful moment her body took over—and that was the beauty of dance, wasn’t it?—her body moving to his lead, and her mind for just a little while taking its focus off the purpose of their visit to this place, off the case, off the mystery and the violence in the world. His injured left hand taking her right with surprising ease, Sam spun her out again and she came back, curling into his broad chest. She’d almost forgotten what it was like to dance.
Eyes...
There was the feeling again. Billie felt eyes drilling into her, not observing the dance, butwatchingher, just like she’d felt at the arcade. She was pulled from the moment and scanned the dance floor, then the tables beyond, her face dropping as she concentrated.
“Are you okay?” Sam whispered, and Billie saw the question more than heard it. The music had not slowed, and they transitionedinto an open hold and moved toward each other, then away in sugar push as Billie nodded that she was fine, but broke again from his gaze to watch the crowd, trying to identify whose stare she felt. Was she being paranoid? Now they were side by side, and Billie followed Sam’s backward lock steps, almost in time, and it brought her back to their dance. She had to watch him to anticipate their next move, and that made other preoccupations impossible for the moment. He sent her out in a Lindy whip and she kept her eyes on him, her focus returned, turning, swapping hands, and doing a Texas Tommy. She’d had no idea her assistant could dance like this. He was tall and fluid, yet retained his raw charm; he was naturally elegant but unpolished, never too smooth, never too practiced.
Time flew, and the music’s tempo slowed again; the patrons returned to their swaying. Had it been a different crowd, they might have pushed things up a notch to a jitterbug, but not with this set. Billie looked once more for Boucher, for the country couple, the woman in violet, the pale man. None was to be found. She’d spent more time looking at Sam than she’d expected, but the dance had required that.
“I’m impressed. You didn’t step on my feet once,” Billie quipped.
“And you didn’t fall over,” he countered, not missing a beat.
She laughed. “Touché.” They made their way back to the bar, which was beginning to clear. “My lolly kicks aren’t what they ought to be.”
“Is that what they call those?”
“I think so,” she said. “Barman, can I have some water please?”
“Whatever you want, lovely lady. You dance well,” he replied.
Billie smiled at the compliment, though she doubted it was true.
“I haven’t danced like that for years,” Sam confided, and Billie wondered why. His injury was no real hindrance, she’d noticed. She’d never seen her assistant with his glove off, but he clearly had enough comfort with his thumb and his pinky to guide his partner and keep that hand in play. Surely Eunice would like to dance with him? He was a young man, and dancing was what young people did when they weren’t on the front lines, wasn’t it? But while other couples had done the Lindy in dance halls, she’d been crawling through bombed-out buildings with Jack, sleeping off long, dangerous nights in strange beds with Jack. Their courtship had involved dancing, but much else as well, not all of it traditional. A photographer and a reporter driven by the same things: The war had brought them together—and ultimately torn them apart, it seemed.
“I’d forgotten what it was like, too,” Billie replied. Sam’s personal business was his own, and she would do well to forget her personal business in that moment, too. She had to be on the job, not thinking of her husband missing across the seas.
The barman returned with two tumblers of water. Billie took hers, lifted it to her lips, and downed it quickly. Dancing made her thirsty. Sam watched her for a moment, gave her another of his grins, and excused himself to the men’s room. Billie watched him go, the white dinner jacket sitting just so on his broad shoulders. She scanned the slowly dissipating crowd. Boucher had been entertaining his guests by this hour the night before. He was unlikely to show now. Perhaps the previous night had been a fluke, or maybe Fridays were his usual routine. His was not a late-night trade. Perhaps it was for the best that he didn’t see her again tonight. She wondered what the auction would be like the next day, and if he would be a strongpresence there or would prefer to hover out of sight. The real question was why the boy was trying to reach Boucher, if that really was his reason for trying to get into The Dancers.
“Miss...” a voice said.
It was the barman. He smoothly delivered a glass of champagne in a delicate coupe, placing it at her gloved fingertips. “Why, thank you, but I didn’t order this,” Billie protested. She didn’t protest too hard.
“This one is on the house,” the barman said. “You seem thirsty.” His lips curled a bit at the corners, his eyes crinkling. “And it’s nearing closing time. It’d be a shame to waste the rest of the bottle, particularly when there’s someone like you at the bar.”
“You devil,” she replied, thinking this wasn’t his first time flirting with a customer, and she smiled mischievously in response. “Thank you kindly.” She took a sip. The champagne was good. “I was meaning to ask if you knew anything about some boys who came round last weekend, trying to get in. Adin Brown, five foot nine, curly hair? Did you hear anything about that?”
The barman leaned toward her, perhaps closer than was professional. “Like I told your boyfriend, I don’t know anything about him. He sounds too young to be coming to this place.” It was an honest enough answer, she decided.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Billie corrected him, sipping the champagne. It went down beautifully. “And regardless of what you might have to say to anyone else, I was wondering what you thought about it, on the QT. Did those boys cause a bit of a scene? An embarrassment of some sort?”
The barman flicked his eyes to something or someone behindBillie, and he stiffened, his demeanor switching in an instant. “Look, lovely lady, I wish I could talk to you,” he said, “but I have my job to consider. Sorry.” He moved away to polish the far end of the bar.
Blast,Billie thought. She turned and scanned the room. She’d thought she had him. Who was it who’d caught his eye?
Sam arrived a beat later, looking cut up about something.
“You didn’t give the bartender a cross look, did you?” Billie asked, a touch accusingly.
“No. But guess who I saw in the corridor,” he seethed, clearly focused on something else entirely. “That bloody eye-tie.”
Billie sighed. This was just what she needed. Sam had what might delicately be called “impatience” with Italians since Tobruk and that AR-4. “You aren’t still holding a grudge against the entire population of Italians, are you, Sam?” she responded darkly, and sipped her bubbles.
