“I’m taking the night off.” She signaled to Philip behind the bar and yelled, “A Twelve Mile Limit, pal!”
Philip gave her a nod to indicate he’d heard, then went back to mixing drinks for the crowd in front of him. Holly turned back to Sam. “How are the hands?”
Hexed gauze still wrapped Sam’s palms, but already the pain had faded. “Not too bad. I should have the bandages off in a few days.”
“Good. Cute cheaters, by the way.”
He self-consciously touched the tortoiseshell frame of his new glasses. Tiny hexes were inscribed along them to prevent breakage or scratching. He’d never had hexed glasses before; his family didn’t approve of magic, unless it was to their immediate benefit. “Thanks.”
Holly seemed distracted, her head turning in birdlike movements as if to keep the rest of the room under surveillance. “Is everything all right?” he asked.
“Wait until I’ve got my drink.”
Soon enough, Teresa brought the Twelve Mile Limit. The orange-red concoction seemed to glow from within—Philip had used a hex on it for that extra dash of class. Holly took a generous sip and seemed to relax slightly.
“Can I tell you something in confidence, Sam?” she asked.
He sat up straighter. “Sure, anything.”
“You can’t tell anyone.”
Was something wrong? Something must be wrong. “Not a soul, I swear.”
She took another generous swig of her drink. “You know I love Wanda, but the Gattis are all up in each other’s business, and talking to one of them is like talking to all. Which is the cat’s pajamas when you need them, don’t get me wrong, but right now I’d like someone…less involved…to lend me an ear.”
Maybe Holly and Wanda were having relationship problems. “I’m happy to listen.”
She glanced around, confirming Teresa was well out of earshot. “So there’s this friend of mine, Essie Wakefield, we met in the Signal Corps. We flew messages to the front together, but in her down time, she got her hands on one of the movie cameras. Had a real knack for filming, though it all had to be censored, of course.”
Sam nodded, unsure where all of this was going. “Right.”
“Anyway, she’s in the process of setting up her own film studio in Los Angeles.” Holly bit her full lower lip. “She wants me to come out and star in one of her productions.”
“That’s—that’s great!” Sam couldn’t count the number of times he’d pored over the glamorous images of movie stars in the magazines back home. Valentino, Gloria Swanson, Douglas Fairbanks…maybe he’d see Holly on the cover of Screenland one day.
Except… “You haven’t told Wanda yet,” he guessed.
Her shoulders slumped. “No. I’d have to leave Chicago, move to LA, and her life is here. And I love her, I want to stay with her, but…”
“You want to go to LA as well,” he prompted.
She finished off her drink and twirled the glass by the stem. “Well, yes. And I want to get out of Chicago, to be perfectly honest. Teresa’s been shot, you’ve been shot, every day the newspapers report on some new explosion or murder or something. And sure, there’s crime everywhere, but not like this.”
“Yeah.” Sam stared down at the half-finished sketch he’d made of the piano player on the stage. It wasn’t his best; his hands stung a little, but he wanted to keep his fingers flexible for his hexwork. “I can’t say I’ve enjoyed being shot and almost blown up. But I need a job, and I’m not sure I could quit if I wanted to, not and stay in Chicago.”
“And Alistair isn’t going to leave the others behind.” Holly took out a silver cigarette case and lighter. Sam politely took the lighter and lit her cigarette for her. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you. You understand. And I know you won’t blab to anyone.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” she said miserably. “I love Wanda. But I also love not being gunned down on the street. I think I could do well for myself in the movies, and the music scene is a lot less crowded out there than it is here, if I have to fall back on singing.” She took a long drag from her cigarette. “It’s a pickle.”
“Yeah.” Sam understood what she meant. He loved things about Chicago—hell, he loved his job. The work itself, anyway, apart from the criminal aspects of it. But the moment of the explosion, followed by the assassin in the smoke, kept replaying itself over and over in his mind.
Well, in his case, it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to leave Alistair; just the thought made his heart hurt. “I wouldn’t blame you for leaving,” he said wryly. “Or think you’re a fool to stay for Wanda’s sake.”
She let out a long stream of smoke from her nostrils. “The one thing I know right now, is this—” she gestured at the room around them “—can’t last forever. Running a speakeasy isn’t a long-term game, no matter how badly the Gattis want it to be.”
A man approached their table, still wearing his hat and overcoat. He seemed vaguely familiar, but Sam couldn’t place him. “Mr. Cunningham? Mr. Sullivan sent me.”
