“Good Lord, I am. Last night before bed. How did you—”
“The book leaves an impression in your eyes. I can read it.”
“I’m dazzled. Absolutely dazzled. Let me buy you dinner so you can dazzle me more.”
“You have a mission.”
“Then we’ll meet for a drink after I find Miss King.” Thank goodness Koshka returned at that moment to remind me I wasn’t there on a blind date.
“It’s all clear,” I said. “We have to go. Now.”
“I respect your decision,” he said, “but if I cry about it later, don’t think less of me.”
“You’re incorrigible.”
“You started it by being so beautiful.”
Before I could say another word, he took me by the hand and headed for the door.
“They’re going to notice you holding hands with another man,” I whispered to him.
“Trust me, darling,” he said, “down here, they’ve seen everything.”
He steered us through the throng. Everyone looked a little too bleary-eyed to even notice who was passing, much less comment on us.
My plan was simple enough. Get Duke out of here so he could continue the story. In the now-missing scene, the Duke was supposed to spy on Edith King at the Bathtub, then follow her to the Lombard Hotel near Montrose Beach. All I had to do was send Duke to the hotel to catch up with Edith.
We reached the hat shop on the main floor. I scooped Koshka into my arms, cradling him to my chest as we made our slow way through the dark hat shop. Mannequin heads in fedoras and trilbies and bowlers seemed to stare at us as we passed.
“Odd, isn’t it? All these mannequin heads?” Duke whispered. “Makes one feel like you’re—”
“Being watched?” a man’s voice asked.
We froze.
The overhead lights came on suddenly, making it impossible to hide. Then the man stepped into our path. I recognized that stony face, those cold marble eyes. He, too, was dressed for Gangland Chicago in a fedora and black overcoat with a fur collar. And yes, he did, as Duke said, look like a man whose mother had never once kissed him good night.
“X,” I said.
“Hello, Rainy March,” the man said. “We meet again.”
He didn’t smile, but I could tell he was enjoying himself.
“That’s the blighter who got the drop on me,” Duke said, as he interposed his body between X and me. “Shall I thrash him for you? Do say yes.”
Duke’s voice was steady, brash, unafraid. Classic male bravado. While set in the 1930s, Duke’s early books had been written and published in the late 1940s and ’50s, during the height of the noir craze. Noir was a reaction to the societal tumult wrought by World War II, industrialization, women leaving home for the big cities and getting jobs. Noir detectives were their own breed, devils on the side of the angels, fighting a losing battle against evil but knowing no life other than the fight. That was part of the reason I’d fallen in love with Duke as a teenager—we’d both chosen the fighting life.
“She’ll say nothing if she knows what’s good for her,” X said as he pulled a gleaming, period-appropriate pistol from his jacket. “Now stay still. Time to burn the trash.”
“Trash? Are you speaking tomoi?” Duke said.
X shrugged. “What can I say? I don’t like your kind.”
“My kind? What is my kind?” Duke demanded. “Do you hate the English? If you’re Indian, Irish, or French, I’ll accept that answer but otherwise—”
“Shut up,” X said.
For the first time since meeting X, Duke’s charm faltered. “Do whatever you want with me,” he said, “but let the girl and her cat go.”
