ONE
The rumor went through the Nightingale like a flood, quietly rising, whispers hovering on lips in pockets of silence.
Dead,the voices murmured.Dead?
On the dance floor or jostling at the bar, voices and drinks raised in equal measure, the club’s patrons didn’t hear it sweeping around them. They were too caught up in escaping from their daylight lives, too distracted by the music that carried them together, apart, together again, kicking up their heels for the Charleston or catching their breath in a waltz. They were too busy calling for another drink, another kiss, another song. Too busy following the rhythm of the music, shaking sweat from their eyes, enjoying being young and free or old and freer.
Dead,the voices murmured where the dancers couldn’t hear.Dead?
Instead, the rumor went through the workers, the waitresses and bartenders, the bouncers and busboys. They dodged between the tables, guarded the doors, and flirted with customers while they mixed drinks, as light on their feet as the dancers as they moved through the club that was their second home. And the rumor moved with them.
Did you hear?they murmured.Dead.
When the band took a break, the rumor made its way to them too, delivered with a tray of drinks for the thirsty, curious musicians who had watched the whispers rippling around them.
How’d you find out?they murmured back.What’s she going to do?
The rumor went through the Nightingale like a flood, creeping higher and higher before anyone realized it had traveled quite so far.
Dead,the voices murmured.Dead?
Dead.
TWO
“Bea, where the hell have you been?”
Vivian Kelly had a moment to whisper the question as she waited at the bar. Around her, the hot summer air was filled with laughing voices, the stomp of feet on the dance floor, the clink of glasses, and above all with the sound of music. The band was in the middle of a Charleston, Vivian’s favorite dance, and she couldn’t stop her toes from tapping inside her shoes as she slid her tray forward for the next round of drinks.
She’d had less time for dancing since starting work at the Nightingale, but she didn’t mind. Three nights a week she could still tie on her dancing shoes for the whole night. And the ones she worked, she usually managed to snag a dance or three anyway, depending on how her breaks worked out. Either way, she was there in the jazz club that had, almost without her realizing it, become her home. No matter that the whole thing was illegal—Honor Huxley, the club’s owner, paid enough protection money that the club was usually safe. Vivian knew for a fact that one of the men drinking two seats down from where she stood was an off-duty police sergeant.
The band was hot that night, the trumpet and the piano competing to see who could wear out the dancers first. But the song still wasn’t hitting with quite the flair that it usually did, because there was no singer up there with them.
That was usually Bea, who had just come rushing into the club an hour and a half after she’d been due on the bandstand. The staff break rooms were behind the bar, and she was heading that way when Vivian caught her arm with one hand.
“I was about to send out a search party, I was that worried,” Vivian said, giving her friend a quick, concerned once-over. “I waited for fifteen minutes before I had to leave without you. And where’s your uncle? Honor had to call Silence in to man the door tonight, and she’s not too happy about it.”
“I hope I didn’t make you late, too?” Bea said, her voice shaking as she checked her reflection in the mirror over the bar. She looked her usual glitzy self, with gold beads sparkling against the black of her dress and a feather curling over her pinned-back hair. Bea loved singing in its own right, but it was also one of the few good ways that a Black girl in New York could get herself noticed, and she had confessed to Vivian that she wanted to look the part every night in case a chance to move up ever came. But tonight she was clearly upset, her fingers clumsy as she fidgeted with her hair. “I’ve got to get up on the bandstand, I’ll—”
“Wait.” Vivian stopped her from turning away. “What happened? Are you okay?”
“No,” Bea whispered. She was vibrating like a plucked string, and her eyes were red, as if she’d been crying. “Uncle Pearlie’s dead.”
Vivian’s arm dropped. “Dead? But… but he was just here last night. What happened? What do you mean, dead?”
“Mama is crying her eyes out at home,” Bea said, her voice still low. She glanced around, then pulled Vivian toward the bandstand with her. “Doc Harris said it was a suicide. Says that he’s seen it before, andmaybe he had, with folks that’ve lost everything or got no hope left. But…” She trailed off, looking nervous.
“Vivian!” The holler came from the bar, where the bartender had a round of drinks ready for her. “Table’s getting antsy, so shake a leg, kitten!”
“But what?” Vivian whispered urgently. She had to get back to work—the club’s patrons were having too much fun that night to wait patiently for their booze—but the look in Bea’s eyes worried her.
“Pearlie hadn’t lost everything,” Bea whispered, her voice dropping even lower as the band flourished to the end of their number. “Or at least, he was on his way to getting it back. Vivian, I don’t think he killed himself. I think someone killed him.”
“Wha—” Vivian stared at her friend, too stunned to even finish a single word.
At that moment, the music started up again. The bandleader, Mr. Smith, had clearly spotted Bea, because the musicians were just launching into the first bars of “It Had to Be You.” “And here she comes, the Nightingale’s own songbird! Beatrice, get up here,” he called playfully as the dancers hollered their approval. “This one’s no good without you!”
“What do you mean,killed?” Vivian breathed, finally finding her voice.
