Bea gave her friend a single, anguished look, then plastered a smile on her face as she hopped up onto the bandstand. She made it to the microphone just in time, and the song poured out of her, rich as whiskey and smooth as honey. The energy in the room grew even brighter.
Vivian stared at her, the only one in the club shocked and still, thinking that there had to be some mistake.
Bea’s uncle had arrived in the city only a few months before, following his sister-in-law and her family north from Baltimore. He had started working at the Nightingale as a bouncer less than two weeks after he turned up. Vivian had never found out what connections hehad that made Honor Huxley give him a chance so quickly or whether it had just been as a favor to Bea. She hadn’t asked, either—it was the sort of thing it was usually safer not to know. And Pearlie had been popular with everyone at the Nightingale, friendly and outgoing, always ready with a joke or a smile.
But there had been shadows lurking in his eyes, and he had been jumpy and mistrusting, even for a bouncer at an underground club. No one knew why he had left Baltimore, and Pearlie had never volunteered to share the story. He had turned up in New York with nothing but the clothes on his back and one suitcase, and he hadn’t been there long enough to have gained much more.
Even if she didn’t know the details, Vivian knew his kind of story. They were a dime a dozen in the run-down corners of the city, and they rarely ended well. It didn’t surprise her that Doc Harris had ruled his death a suicide.
She made her way quickly back to the bar, where the bartender was waiting impatiently for her, his hands busy with other orders while he rolled his eyes at her. “Good of you to help us out, Viv.”
“Danny.” Something in her voice made him pause, the long-suffering humor in his expression replaced by concern. “Where’s Honor got to?”
“She has a meeting upstairs.” Danny Chin was known as the Nightingale’s star bartender and smoothest talker, but he was much more than that. Most of the club’s patrons never guessed that he was Honor Huxley’s second-in-command, half of the brains and plenty of the muscle that kept the place running and in good with the people who mattered. There was little that happened at the Nightingale that escaped either Danny’s or Honor’s notice. So it only took him one look at her face to see that something was wrong. He gestured to one of the other waitresses. “Ellie, take this order. Table on the far corner where that doll in the red dress is sitting. Vivian and I need to have a chat.”
“On it, Mr. Chin.” Ellie was new at the Nightingale, eager as a puppy to please and fit in. She scooped up the tray as Danny gesturedfor Vivian to meet him at the end of the bar, putting at least a little distance in between them and the many sets of ears that might overhear them.
“What is it, kitten?” he asked, lowering his voice.
“It’s Pearlie,” Vivian said, swallowing nervously, not sure how to say what he needed to know. “He didn’t come in tonight.”
“And I’m guessing it’s not because he suddenly moved to Park Avenue?” The world that the Nightingale existed in wasn’t always a safe place to be, and Danny had been in this business too long not to know what the expression on Vivian’s face meant. “When did he die?”
“I don’t know when,” Vivian whispered. “Doc says it was a suicide. Bea’s a wreck.”
Danny nodded, his mind clearly already working. “All right. Get her off the bandstand once this number’s done,” he said. “I’ll tell Honor. But don’t make a scene about it.”
“Holy hell, did you say Pearlie’s dead?” someone whispered behind them. It was Ellie, holding out Vivian’s empty tray. She was too new to know better than to get close when Danny had pulled one of the club’s employees aside like that.
Danny closed his eyes, sighing. “Don’t blab it around, okay, Ellie?” he said, giving Vivian an exasperated look. “Thanks for handling Viv’s order, but don’t forget you’ve got your own waiting, too.”
“Right, yessir.” Ellie nodded. “Here you go, Vivian.” She handed over the tray and hurried away, eyes wide.
“It’s going to be all over the place in five minutes,” Vivian predicted, watching the girl scamper off.
“Folks liked Pearlie,” Danny said with a resigned shrug. “They’ll want to know what happened to him. You just get Bea back to the dressing room so they don’t have a chance to pester her. I doubt she’s up to it. I’ll let Honor know.”
Vivian parked her tray on the corner of a table whose occupants were too busy gazing into each other’s eyes to protest. The band hadjust started a new number, and she had to weave her way between couples as she made her way across the dance hall.
“Vivian, pretty girl, where are you off to in such a hurry?”
Vivian, her mind on her friend, nearly jumped out of her skin as someone grabbed her hand playfully.
“Come on, baby doll, you promised me a dance last week and you still haven’t paid up.” The sandy-haired man laughed. He gave her hand a tug to pull her closer to the dance floor. “You’re a treat to look at running your feet off, but you don’t get nearly enough time to dance anymore.”
“Give me an hour, Jimmy,” Vivian said, forcing a smile as she tried to tug her hand away. Jimmy, laughing, continued to tow her slowly toward the dance floor. Vivian planted her feet, using all her weight to pull against him. “One hour, I promise, then I’m all yours on my next break.”
“Oh, fine,” Jimmy said, giving her hand an exaggerated kiss before releasing it and waving her on her way. “I’ll be pining until then, wasting away to a shell of a man.”
“You’ll find twelve other girls to dance with in the meantime, you goof,” Vivian said, shaking her head, though her eyes darted toward the bandstand once more. Pretty Jimmy Allen was the sort of boy who was all flirtatious bluster and absolutely no follow-through, and usually Vivian liked spending time with him. But not tonight. She could see Bea’s fingers locked in a death grip around the microphone, though none of the tension could be heard in her voice. “See you in a jiffy.”
It took Vivian a moment to get the bandleader’s attention—she had to wait until the trombone player’s solo. Mr. Smith glanced around the club, taking stock of how the dancers were enjoying the music, and Vivian was able to catch his eye with a wave. He nodded back, giving her a wink and a brow raised in question. She signed a letterHwith two fingers before raising her pointer finger toward the ceiling—and toward the second floor, where the owner’s office was located. It waspart of the club’s private code, a way for employees to quietly let each other know that Honor wanted to see one of them.
The bandleader, who had worked at the Nightingale for years and been in more than one fight on Honor’s behalf, took it in stride. When he pointed at himself, Vivian shook her head. She nodded toward Bea, who had just begun the final verse, her eyes closing as she crooned the plaintive song, as heartfelt as if she were singing to a lover and not a roomful of strangers.
Mr. Smith’s sigh was visible, even if Vivian couldn’t hear it over the music. Vivian couldn’t blame him; he had planned out his set thinking Bea would be up there with them, and now he was losing her again after only two songs. But there was no help for it.
As the piano trilled a final flurry of notes, Mr. Smith—Vivian knew it wasn’t his real name, but no one ever pestered him about it—stepped over to Bea and whispered in her ear. She stared at him, and the sparkle of the dim electric lights caught her just enough that Vivian could see a tear slipping down her cheek. She nodded and stepped back from the microphone, turning to hop down and join Vivian just as the bandleader lifted his hands.
