Vivian narrowed her eyes. “You don’t look too upset from your night in jail, Mr.… I didn’t catch your last name?”
He laughed. “It’s Green. I don’t mind you knowing. But you should keep calling me Leo,” he said, winking. “And it wasn’t my first night in the lockup. They get easier to handle after a while.”
“For you, maybe,” Danny said mildly, but there was an hint of warning to his smile. “No one’s sending you to a reformatory. Lot riskier for Viv to get picked up. Or for me and Bea to step into that station.”
Leo’s expression sobered. “Thanks for coming to bail me out anyway.”
“Anytime.” Danny punched him in the shoulder again. “That’s what friends do, even if they haven’t set eyes on each other in… has it really been five years?”
“Almost six. You were just a kid when I left,” Leo said, rubbing his shoulder. “Knew how to throw a punch even back then, though. I see you still do.”
Danny grinned. “Things Chinese boys learn in this great city. How to throw a punch. How to help their mothers wash the dishes. How to avoid the cops when they come knocking at work.”
“But why was the Nightingale raided at all?” Vivian asked, frowning. “I thought you had things sorted out with the police.”
“We do,” Bea said quietly. “That shouldn’t have happened.”
“Sounds like your boss forgot the milk money this month,” Leo said, his smile sympathetic as he reached out to settle his coat more snugly around Vivian’s shoulders.
“Hux never forgets,” Danny insisted, shaking his head.
“And the Nightingale wasn’t the only place raided last night,” Bea said, earning stares from the others. “I overheard Honor talking. Three other places in the neighborhood got a surprise visit last night.”
Danny let out a low whistle. “Four in one night? Did she think it was some kind of threat?”
“Or a warning. Because, get this.” Bea lowered her voice even further. “All four of them were places where the dead fella was seen before he ended up in our alley.”
Vivian stopped again, surprised into stillness. “The captain back there at the precinct said he had orders about raiding the Nightingale, and from what I got out of the matron, those orders would’ve come direct from the commissioner.” She hesitated, remembering Honor Huxley’s warning once more.Forget you saw anything.But she couldn’t help thinking it through. “That means either the raids were about something else. Or whoever the dead fella was…”
“He was somebody important,” Bea finished. “Or he meant something to somebody important, someone the commissioner needs to stay in good with. God, what a mess. Glad no one knows we’re the ones who found him.”
“Bea, can it,” Vivian said quickly, glancing at Leo.
Luckily, he didn’t seem to have heard. He had already gone a few steps further when she stopped and was busy looking up and down the street. “Anywhere nearby that we can get some breakfast?” he asked. “What’s around that’s open this early?”
“Early isn’t the issue.” There was a quiet edge to Bea’s voice. “And who are you?”
“Leo,” he said. “You’re a waitress at the Nightingale, right?”
“Bea is one of our best,” Danny said. “And she happens to be right. We’re not going to find a place nearby where she and I are welcome.”
Vivian was glad to see that Leo looked embarrassed. “Oh,” he said quietly. “Right. Wasn’t thinking.”
“A complication of going out in daylight hours,” Danny said, his voice somewhere between resigned and mocking.
“And like I said, Viv and I have somewhere to be. So no breakfast for us.” Bea gestured to Vivian to start walking again. “Come on, we need to hustle.”
“You girls gonna be okay getting home?” Leo asked, a worried frown drawing deep lines between his brows. “Plenty of drunks wandering around this early.”
“We don’t have far to go. Danny, she wants to see you too, I think.”
Bea’s words made Vivian, who had been following along with dazed, sleepy footsteps, frown in confusion. She had assumed Bea meant they needed to get home—home to Florence, who had been waiting up all night with no idea where her little sister had gone or how to find her. But Danny didn’t even know Florence, much less need to see her.
“Where are we going, Bea?” she asked.
“To the Nightingale, of course. Honor paid your bail, and now she wants to see you.”
“What?” Vivian stopped so suddenly that Danny bumped into her.“I thought you’d have borrowed it from your neighbors, or maybe some of mine.”
