“I don’t wanna go outside.”
“Neither one of us wants to be overheard discussing Houdini’s murder.”
She looked through the small window next to the door. “It’s raining. I don’t have an umbrella.”
“It’s drizzling. Hardly a raindrop falling from the sky.”
The look on her face must’ve convinced him she and any kind of rain didn’t mix. He lifted a peacoat from the back of a chair. “Put this on.”
She set her mouth to object, but Ezekiel, straightening to his full height, held the coat beneath her nose.
She snatched it from his outstretched arms.
* * *
Raindrops danced in the moonlight, and a slight breeze pushed across the sky. Cold and beautiful, the drizzle fell like crystal beads, landing silently on the hood of Dewey’s pickup truck and turning the dirt into mud.
Honoree glanced from one end of the dead-end patch of alley to the other. It was barely wide enough for Dewey’s pickup, let alone Archie’s Model T, let alone her and Ezekiel.
He walked onto the landing, and Honoree hugged the peacoat around her shoulders. She wiped the rainwater from her cheeks with the back of her hand.
Ezekiel walked by her, down the steps, kicking puddles of water like a kid and not inclined to talk until he was farther away from Miss Hattie’s.
She followed him.
He planted himself next to the hood of Dewey’s truck and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I had nothing to do with Houdini’s death. A friend got in touch with me and told me what had happened and that you might be in danger, and I don’t want to see you hurt.”
“I don’t believe you, but what I want to ask you has little to do with the barkeep’s death. What do you know about the deal Archie made with Mr. Buttons?”
Ezekiel searched her face in that way he used to when he could see inside her soul. But they were children then, and now his examination made her uneasy.
“What deal, Honoree?”
“Archie bargained me off to Mr. Buttons.”
He stepped toward her but kept his hands in his pockets. “What are you talking about?”
“‘To have come near to sing the perfect song.’” She began the poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar with a bitter sting to her tone. “‘And only by half-tone lost the key.’”
Ezekiel cocked his head and continued the stanza from the poem he used to read to her. “‘There is a potent sorrow, there the grief, the pale, sad staring of life’s tragedy.’” He looked at her with mournful eyes. “What happened with Archie, Honoree?”
“How come good things go hand in hand with the bad?” she asked, wondering if Ezekiel could answer and solve her problems. “I auditioned for a job at the Dreamland Cafe and got the job, and then saw a barkeep shot. The night we make love, you leave town the next morning. See what I mean? Bad and good. Good and bad.”
His lips moved. He wanted to speak but had trouble forming the words.
“Don’t talk. I shouldn’t have said that last part. This is about Archie and Mr. Buttons.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Tell me what happened with Archie.”
“He arranged my audition at the Dreamland Cafe—and also arranged me getting the job, but only until Valentine’s Day. Then I’m back at Miss Hattie’s like I’m on loan, which is not a deal I can live with.”
“And you want me to fix this?”
“Never seen Archie do something someone else told him to do, except for the other night when you told him to take his hands off me.”
Ezekiel nodded. “We have a history, but are you sure Archie is telling the truth about this deal with Mr. Buttons?”
“Why would he lie?”
