“What a crowd!” Honoree said.
“Did you see all the handsome men?” asked another girl.
Between cigarettes and the next routine, the girls hastily stripped off their costumes and changed into robes amid a flurry of chatter, sweat, and talc powder.
Honoree sat in her chair, shaking, her spirits soaring with excitement. Her first solo performance at the Dreamland Cafe was a swell time. Better than in her dreams. Hot damn!
“Miss Honoree.” A waiter called her from the doorway. “Honoree Dalcour!”
“I’m over here.”
Walking toward her, he carried a long white box, twice the size as the one from Oscar.
In the other white-gloved hand, he held a note card. A showgirl received one of those notes when a VIP was inviting her to join their table. It was an honor and meant a healthy tip, hobnobbing with the wealthiest, most influential patrons in Chicago.
“Give me that.” She seized hold of the note card and the flowers before the waiter had a chance to hand them to her.
A warm tingle stirred in her stomach with only a touch of apprehension. She recognized the handwriting: Ezekiel. He wanted her to join him and his guests at his VIP table. Well, wasn’t he a hoity-toity man about town?
“Tell him I’ll be right out,” she said to the waiter.
Shimmying out of her costume, she changed into a jade chiffon gown with a sheer lace bodice and low back decorated with a rhinestone clasp at her waist. A jeweled silver headband adorned her new boy-cut hairstyle, and she double-looped a long strand of white pearls around her neck, allowing the length to touch the middle of her back with a loose strand at her bosom.
She glanced in the mirror. “Now. What am I missing?”
She dug into her shopping bag and removed her orchestra-length cigarette holder.
“No. Not the cigarette holder.” Colethea pointed. “The peacock feather hand fan. Now that’s elegance.”
Honoree considered the chorus girl’s idea. The fan was gorgeous. “I’ll do both,” she said, with the cigarette holder in one fist, propped on her hip. On the other hand, she fluttered the peacock fan over her breasts. One last glance in the mirror, and she tilted her head and smiled.
“Stop preening.” Hazel laughed from her chair. “You are a looker and can make a dead man’s heart go thump-thump. No need to add the extras.”
“Fortunately, the man I’m looking to dazzle is very much alive,” Honoree said with a wink and thought maybe being a special friend of the man Ezekiel was now might not be that bad after all.
* * *
She strolled into the dining hall, elbow bent, her orchestra-length cigarette holder held just so, and blew smoke rings to halo her head. Her long pearls, knotted beneath her bosom, swung over the sheer fabric of her jade dress to the rhythm of the bass picker’s chords and the sway of her hips.
Envious and lustful eyes, male and female, followed her as she passed by, but she scarcely noticed. She was fixed on Ezekiel.
“Hello, everyone.” She smiled her brightest as she reached the VIP table.
“Thank you for accepting my invitation.” Ezekiel stood, looking like Joe Brooks, with a broad grin, deep dimples, and kind dark eyes.
His beauty and his size blocked her view of everyone but him. He pulled out a chair and gently touched her shoulder as he guided her into the seat.
“Ezekiel, what a surprise.”
The other people at the table were invisible until she sat next to Archie and suppressed a groan. She greeted him quickly, with more of a snarl than a smile. She turned to nod at the white man at her other shoulder—but then her heart stopped.
How could this happen?
The flash of gunfire, bright-red blood, a mumbled cry, and the memories trampled across her back and crushed her bones. Pain and fear lanced through her, slice after slice, cutting into her soul.
How could this happen?
The white man who gunned down George “Houdini” Mills stood with his hand extended to greet her.
