“Thank you,” Zihan said. “I have never been part of something like this before. But it’s good. I can be myself. You all make me feel safe.”
A smile formed on Daisy’s lips. “Very good! We’ve all got secrets. Well,hadsecrets. You’re in good company.”
Jay turned to face all of us, and as he walked backward, his eyes moving between Daisy and me, something clicked in his mind. “Okay so... you twoarecousins?”
“Yes,” we both said.
Jay let out an energetic laugh. “I was right! This explains so much—the way you two talk, the way you trust each other! Why you look similar!”
“Very smart of you, Jay,” I said, feeling light as a breeze.
“No more secrets,” Jay said. “You’re full of surprises, Nick Carrington!” His voice exploded like a firework through the night.
I quickly looked away and tamed my smile. No one had ever said that about me before, and for some reason it felt like I needed a private room to respond to it properly.
Daisy stepped up beside me. “Look at us,” she said, her voice carrying sarcasm and whimsy. “A bunch of oddballs with nothing to lose!”
Ahead of us lay a dangerous mission at the Aphrodite Casino. It was a place none of us were prepared for, but would be far easier to take on as a team.
16.
I entered the Aphrodite through the wine cellar above the joint, gave the guard the password—Lepanto—and slipped past. A narrow staircase led me down, the air getting warmer with each step. At the bottom, red curtains parted to reveal the cellar-turned-casino.
The space unfolded in tiers, a multilevel room draped in deep carpets. Though I could see its full layout from where I stood, it still felt deep enough to disappear in. Poker tables, gilded slot machines, and game setups crowded the floor in a riot of color and movement, filling every inch of the place.
Women in rompers sat at bars smoking from sticks, some swinging their hips to the ragtime blues that blasted through the Aphrodite. Men in suits and hats came to flirt with them. Smoke blurred all their faces, so they appeared and then dissipated.
Everyone is Italian,I realized, careful not to let my nerves throw me off my mission.
Some people looked at me funny as I entered the room becausea well-dressed Negro was a remarkable sight. I was wearing a white shirt from Arrow, slacks from Dickies, and a gold chain from Bailey, Banks, and Biddle. They were anything but cheap, altogether or separate.
I settled on a stool by an empty poker table, where I could people watch in obscurity. Daisy arrived from a different entrance, a vision in shimmering gold and green, sideways bangs curling out of a black hat. She barely looked at the men who watched her walk in—she headed straight for the bar while absorbing their attention.
A voice erupted behind me. “You some kinda pusher?” A drunk Italian with a big round head was leaning off his chair, holding out his empty glass.
Already?I pulled a flask filled with Daisy’s stash of liquor from my jacket, filled his glass to the top, and told him, “15 cents.”
The man slapped some coins in my hand. “My brotha! Keep the change!”
Well, at least there’s money to be made here!
I tucked away my flask and teased my suspenders at the bottom to adjust them. They were too tight and then too loose! My clothes did not fit as well as the older people’s did.
Jay entered the casino from where I came, in a glittering black shirt and white slacks, and walked over to a row of slot machines. He put a nickel in a slot and pulled the handle. I watched as his eyes lit up at the patterns in the window.
Now we had all made it inside, while Zihan waited outside for us.He’d offered to be our lookout and getaway driver.
I approached Jay as he pressed the glowing buttons. I could tellhe was hoping for a line of matching symbols to appear.
I took a padded stool beside him. “Any luck yet?”
“It’s been thirty seconds,” he said. “The chances we find Pierre that quickly are slim to none. Any one of these guys could be him.”
“I meant with the machine.”
“Oh. Ha! Not yet. I’m looking for a line of cherries.”
I surveyed the room until my eyes landed on a rolling catering cabinet. Its attendant was working something out on the back of the machine, and it gave me a mischievous idea.
