Mags straightened when she heard her name and stepped out of line to take Mr. Lawrence’s arm, smiling. “Dad would be furious if I needed bail money again. You’re a peach, Laurie.”
Vivian watched, too numb to be angry, as they were escorted out of the station. The woman ahead of her in line was called; Vivian heard her refuse to give her name, though she didn’t hesitate to provide a phone number for the sergeant to call. And then it was Vivian’s turn, and a burly officer was nudging her out of line and nodding toward the sergeant’s desk.
“Your name, miss?” he asked with the disinterested efficiency of someone going through a script that he had already recited a dozen times.
Vivian swallowed. There was no way she was giving her real name. “Jane?”
The man behind the desk snorted. “Any chance that would be Jane Doe?”
She let out a shaky breath. “That sounds right,” she agreed.
“You’re our tenth Jane Doe of the night,” the officer sighed, making a note in his log book. “One call. You tell me the number, I dial it.”
Vivian shivered. She felt cold and exposed in her spangled, sleeveless dancing dress, though the precinct was a sweltering mass of sweaty bodies crowded together. “I don’t have anyone to call.”
He shrugged, clearly unsurprised. “Hope you made some friends in this lot, then. We’ll come back to you in a few hours and see if you’ve changed your mind. What happened to your hand, Jane Doe?”
“Got cut during the raid.”
“You gonna faint or anything?”
“No, but it hurts something awful.”
He shrugged again. “If you’re still here in the morning, someone will probably take a look. Keep the bandage on, we don’t need you bleeding all over the cell.” The sergeant jerked his chin toward a seat in the corner where two other women waited. “Women’s matron will be along in a moment. Don’t make any trouble.”
Vivian started to say that of course she wouldn’t, but the officer was already turning to the next person in line, clearly finished with her. So she just nodded and went to sit down.
One of the women waiting was complaining that she had lost her headband in the raid—“And it was the first time I wore it, too! That’s the last time I go to such a seedy little place. I think I’ll stick with the Swan from now on”—and the other one nodded along, looking bored and occasionally wondering aloud when her gentleman friend would arrive with her bail money.
Listening to them, Vivian realized that most of the people in the precinct, including the officers running the drunk tank, were treating the whole thing as more of an inconvenience than anything else. And why wouldn’t they, she wondered, feeling dazed. New York had barely made a pretense at Prohibition before the booze started flowing once more. For the police, arrests for imbibing were a nightly occurrence. Most of the people they had picked up at the Nightingale seemed confident that, sooner or later, someone would be along to paytheir fine and pick them up. They would never set foot in front of a judge or have a record attached to their name.
Looking around the room, she saw the man she had been dancing with, Leo, had just reached the head of the men’s line. He had been watching her, she realized, and when he caught her eye at last, he gave her a wide smile and mouthed,You okay?Vivian nodded, momentarily lulled into a false sense of calm. If no one else seemed to think it was anything more than a bother, why was she so worried?
That feeling lasted until Leo stepped up to speak to the officer at the desk and a moment later was handed a telephone receiver. Vivian felt sick all over again. Being arrested was nothing more than a bother if you had someone to call, and if that someone on the other end of the phone had money. But when poor girls with no family were caught dancing and drinking, they ended up in workhouses and reformatories.
Especially if someone wanted to make an example.I have orders about that place,the captain had said to Mr. Lawrence. Most raids were just to make arrests, an example that would end up in the papers and show some politician cracking down on immorality. But—Vivian shivered—were his orders this time about the Nightingale itself?
“Jane Doe?”
The brisk voice made her jump, and Vivian looked up to find a tall woman standing in front of her, still wrapped in her overcoat, with dark hair pinned severely back under a plain hat of gray felt. Though she wasn’t in any kind of uniform, she looked exactly like the sort of person who would be a women’s matron for the police.
“Jane Doe?” the matron repeated, impatient. “Number ten, I believe?”
Vivian realized she had been staring and nodded quickly. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Up you get. Either of you stuck here tonight?” the matron demanded, turning on the other two women sitting there as Vivian stood up.
Her stern tone made them both sit up straighter. “No, matron,” theysaid, nearly in unison, and Vivian felt as though she were in the orphan home being called up in front of the nuns once more.
“Well, come along then,” the matron said, ignoring the other two women as she gestured to Vivian. “Back to women’s holding. You’d think they’d have a matron on duty when they know there will be raids. Pack of idiots. Do they think only men go out drinking in this city?”
She didn’t seem to expect an answer, so Vivian didn’t give one, just silently followed her out of the front room of the precinct and back into the holding cell known as the drunk tank. Once there, they stopped, and the matron gestured for her to raise her arms. Confused, Vivian complied, and found herself on the receiving end of a brisk, impersonal pat-down.
“Have to check for weapons or contraband,” the matron explained, stepping back. “You’d be surprised what a girl can stash in a garter.” Vivian thought that she wouldn’t be surprised at all but decided against saying anything. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-three.”
The policewoman laughed sharply as she unlocked the holding cell. “You’re probably lying, but keep telling them that, unless you want them to take you up as a wayward minor. What happened to your hand?”
