“You can keep an eye on her from the dance floor,” he suggested. He had to stand close for her to hear him over the music, and his breath brushed across her temple as he spoke. “Come on, you’ve got that look in your eye like you’re all jittery and mixed up inside. And I know you like to dance when you’re feeling like that.” When she still hesitated, he eased back, watching her face.
“Mrs. Wilson said she didn’t have anything to do with it,” Vivian said, trying to distract herself from her unhappy, confused thoughts. What had happened to Pearlie should matter more, anyway.
“Do you believe her?” Leo accepted the change of topic without a protest, watching the dancers as Vivian quietly filled him in on the conversation upstairs. And then she told him what they had discovered about the arsenic letters, as she had begun thinking of them. Hedeserved to know that much, given how he had helped out with the medical examiner.
“So whoever is behind the thefts wants them to be whispered about, so the people receiving the letters will be scared into doing what they say. But they don’t want things to look so suspicious that the police get involved, which means making Pearlie’s death look like a suicide.” Leo frowned as he spoke. “Whoever’s doing this is scum. It’s bad enough on its own. But stealing from folks who are already poor, taking the one or two valuable things they own?” He shook his head. “Absolute scum.”
“That makes me think Mrs. Wilson was right,” Vivian said, thinking it through as she spoke. “Why would some mob boss want to rob poor people for such a small payoff? Would that be worth it? There are much easier ways to make a lot more money.”
“So you think you need to look closer to home?”
Vivian glanced around the dance hall. It was filled with laughter and music and dancing lights reflected off a million spangles. But it was also filled with secrets. She knew that as well as anyone. “Pearlie spent a lot of time here before he died,” she said slowly. “He got pretty cozy with the rest of Honor’s muscle.”
“Well, you’re the one who works with them now,” Leo pointed out. “They don’t seem like a chatty bunch, but you might be able to weasel it out of them.” The foxtrot was just drifting to a close, and almost immediately the brass section was on their feet, launching into the first Charleston of the night. Leo shook out his head and shoulders, as if clearing his thoughts. He smiled. “But before you do, how about that dance? I know you can’t resist a Charleston.”
“I should…” Vivian trailed off as she glanced back over at the bar. A blushing Florence was just being urged onto the dance floor once again, Danny grinning and cajoling her as he held both her hands. She was laughing, but stood her ground, clearly hesitant to join the couples moving at lighting speed. Danny relented, and instead of pullingher into the sweaty crush, he held her hands and walked her slowly through the steps just at the edge of the crowd.
Bea caught her eye, her own brows raised as she gestured toward Danny and Florence. Herwill you look at that?expression was clear, even at a distance. But before Vivian had any sort of chance to respond, Bea was off, striding across an empty corner of the dance floor and catching the hand of the bandleader so he could tug her up onto the bandstand with a flourish. She arrived at the microphone just in time to launch into the song’s lyrics. The club filled with cheers and whoops as her voice joined the music, notes tumbling through the air as lightly as any dancer moved across the floor.
“Okay,” Vivian said, relenting. It was hard to keep her feet still when the air was filled with movement. And Florence… she looked away. Why did the sight of the two of them together make her chest feel like someone had wrapped a giant hand around her heart and squeezed? “Just one dance.”
Leo followed her gaze to where Danny and Florence were laughing together. But he didn’t say anything, just took her hand and tugged her onto the dance floor. When she finally looked back at him, he placed her hand on his shoulder, gave her a smile that was pure challenge, and took off.
And for a few minutes, Vivian was too breathless to think of anything else. No matter where she spun or what she did, he was there, a touch on her wrist sending her in the other direction, where he would catch her around the waist and spin her back the way they had come, heels kicking up, hips pressed against each other for a brief second before they broke away to mirror each other and come back together again.
If heaven meant not needing to think about anything else but the joy and ease of a single moment, then Vivian was in heaven. She laughed, reckless and free for the length of the song, and Leo grinned back. He caught her around the waist and spun them in a tight circle,finally slowing to a stop as the music ended. “There’s that smile,” he murmured, his words barely loud enough to reach her ears.
Vivian, still catching her breath, relaxed against him for a moment, resting her head against his chest so she could feel his heart racing at the same tempo as her own. “Thanks, pal,” she whispered. “I needed that.”
“I know.” He kissed the top of her head, a quick, friendly gesture. “Now get back to your sister. At some point Danny will have to drag himself away from those smiles of hers, and she’ll be looking for you. I see a girl over there who looks like her fella left her high and dry tonight—”
“Coulda been her gal,” Vivian pointed out, the tension in her still eased by the dance and Leo’s comfortable presence.
“Either way, she looks like she needs someone to ask her to dance, and I’m too much of a gentleman to leave a girl in the lurch like that.”
“Yes, such a gentleman.” Vivian laughed, rolling her eyes.
He winked. “Always. Now scoot along.”
Vivian had to weave through the throng of dancers leaving the floor, and her path took her close to the corner where Pearlie had often stood, keeping an eye on things. Mostly the bouncers kept folks from getting too rowdy as the night went on. But there had been enough trouble not long ago—a police raid, a break-in, threats from people in high places looking to settle scores—that Honor had hired extra muscle that spring. Pearlie had been one of those hires, and he had fit in quickly with the fun-loving, world-wise crowd that made up the Nightingale’s staff. And even though he hadn’t been there long enough for anyone to know him well, he had been chattier than the normal muscle that worked for Honor. Vivian had never seen Benny or Saul smile, and Silence, who often worked the door, rarely spoke at all. But she had noticed them talking with Pearlie more than once.
So when she saw Silence standing in Pearlie’s old spot by the bar, arms crossed as he surveyed the night’s crowd and kept them in checkthrough sheer hulking presence, she changed directions and headed his way.
Stationing herself at the end of the bar nearest the mountain-shouldered bouncer, Vivian gave the bartender a little wave. He nodded back to let her know that he’d seen her, even though he was currently swamped with customers who had carried their buzzing energy with them from the dance floor.
“French seventy-five if you have a bottle to use up, but no rush,” she said when he was able to tilt an ear in her direction. The bartender nodded, and Vivian turned, leaning back to rest her elbows on the bar as if she were surveying the dance floor. Beside her, Silence—his real name was Silas, but his preference for glowering looks over actually speaking had earned him his nickname—glanced her way for a brief moment.
Vivian smiled when she caught his eye. “Drink for you, too? Or do you have to say no when you’re working?”
She couldn’t tell if he was scowling at her or if that was just his permanent expression, but after a moment he nodded. “Little glass ain’t gonna do much to me,” he grunted.
Vivian laughed. The coat he wore could fit two of her inside it, and it still looked like it barely squeezed over his shoulders. “That I believe. Hey, honey, two if you can!” she called to the bartender, who raised one fist and bobbed it up and down twice—the club’s signal foryes.
“How’d you come to work here, Silence?” she asked, hoping to soften him up while she decided how to steer the conversation in the direction she needed. Silence didn’t do small talk, as far as she could tell. But she was pretty good at getting people to chat when she wanted to. “Fella like you could probably get a job anywhere he wanted.”
He gave her another brief, sideways glance, as if surprised she was talking to him, before turning his gaze back to the floor. “Benny.”
“Really?” Vivian leaned her elbow on the bar, resting her cheek on her fist. “I didn’t know you two were friendly.”
