by Michelle Cox
“And what’s this about the kiss?” he asked steadily, nervously storing the detail about Neptune wanting her. This was sounding worse and worse.
“Oh,” she said, screwing up her face in what looked like disgust. “Seems Lucy and the girls are right. Jenks is . . . you know, the other way, too. Apparently that’s why she leaves them alone. But . . . as I was leaving . . . I . . . Jenks grabbed my face and kissed me and said something like she could take what she wants.” Henrietta visibly shuddered. “Then she pushed me through the green door . . . and I . . . I left as soon as I could get away and then . . . well, you know the rest. Kelly followed me down Canal and handed me your message. And here we are. So . . . ,” she paused, finally, “what do you think? Haven’t I done well?”
Again, it was distressing to see how badly she wanted to please him, but his mind was whirling. He had to admit that this was just the situation he had been hoping for. He was so close to nailing Neptune he could taste it, but how could he jeopardize Henrietta this way? It would be dangerous enough if he were sending in an experienced woman of the streets, but Henrietta was a complete innocent. Somehow she had faked her way through to this point, though, or had she? Had Neptune all along seen through her where he himself had not? Was this what Neptune was actually after all along? Young girls for himself while supplying experienced prostitutes for the crowd? Had Henrietta walked right into a trap?
God, it would be a beautiful sting, though; this chance might never come again! But could Henrietta actually pull it off? What if something went wrong? No, he just couldn’t risk it, he concluded with a sigh. He held up two fingers to the bartender, signaling two more drinks. He could feel Henrietta looking at him expectantly, wanting him to praise her.
He cleared his throat. “Yes, it’s excellent work, Miss Von Harmon. First rate. But I’m afraid I’m pulling the plug on this operation. It’s getting far more dangerous than I thought.”
“Inspector! You can’t do that! Not after all I went through to find out about the door and get the feather and all that. I’m supposed to, well, you know . . . start . . . tomorrow night. We’re so close! Surely you can think of a plan?”
He could think of several plans, but unfortunately all of them were risky.
“Please! I want to do this. I . . . I want to help.”
“You have helped,” he insisted. “Plenty.”
“But I . . . I want to finish this. See it through.”
“But why?” he asked, looking at her steadily. “Why do you want to do this so badly? We’ll pay you for the work you’ve done so far, if that’s what you’re worried about.” He knew this wasn’t it, and the look of anger on her face now confirmed it.
“It has nothing to do with the money! I—”
The bartender arrived then with two new drinks and clinked together their empty glasses between his thumb and forefinger, lifting them neatly off the table and silently retreating.
“Honest, Inspector . . . I . . . I want to help find out what happened to Polly’s sister.”
He arched his eyebrow at her, disbelieving.
“I have a sister, too, you know. I . . . let me just try.”
There was something she wasn’t telling him about her motivation. Surely she couldn’t be all that concerned for Polly and her long-gone sister. A bit maybe, but enough to risk her life? There was something else, but he just couldn’t put his finger on it. Why was she so eager to help him?
He went through the details once more in his mind. He had to admit it was the perfect setup, but he could not in all honesty ensure her safety. Not a hundred percent, anyway. Something just wasn’t sitting right.
“You . . . you don’t think I can do it, do you?” she asked him, a hurt look on her face. “That’s why you’re hesitating, aren’t you?”
“I’m quite sure of your many talents, Miss Von Harmon, but it’s your safety I’m rather thinking of.”
“Seems you should have thought of that before now,” she said heatedly.
He winced at the jab and admitted to himself that she was right. He had been foolish.
“You could send someone in, you know. To be my client . . . undercover, like.” The toss of the hair again.
“Perhaps,” he said grudgingly. She’s very clever, he reflected with a grin. He had been thinking along the same lines. “I suppose I could send in Charlie to . . . solicit you.”
“It wouldn’t be you?”
He could hear the disappointment in her voice. And there was that look again. Was it desire he read in her eyes? He swallowed hard. “They might recognize me from the night at the Promenade. I’m not entirely sure Mama Leone wasn’t stabbed because they spotted me and were afraid she’d talk.”
Her brows furrowed. “Yes, of course. I see,” she nodded absently. “So it would be Charlie.” She sipped her drink carefully.
“Believe me, Charlie’s a good one to have in a pinch. You’d be okay with him.”
She seemed to think this over. “So Charlie chooses me,” she said as if checking items off a list. “Then what?” she asked, taking a drink.
Clive’s mind began to consider the situation more closely. The plan was actually sounding plausible now, and he couldn’t help but follow the line of speculation. “Once Charlie got back behind this green door with you,” he suggested, almost to himself, “he would get the lay of the land, hopefully sniff out Neptune red-handed and then wait for the raid, if it even came to that. Shouldn’t be too hard for Charlie and the boys to nab him,” he said snapping his fingers. “Meanwhile, I’d be waiting outside in the back with my men just in case Neptune tries to give them the slip that way.” Or if Charlie signals for help should things get out of hand, he speculated to himself, not wanting to share this possibility with Henrietta. Why was this plan sounding so logical? He had to admit he was excited about the prospect of finally closing this case. Perhaps he would get a citation for it. Besides, with Charlie behind the scenes, would Henrietta really be in any danger?
“So it’s a plan then? We’re actually going to do it?” she asked excitedly.
“You’re really not afraid, Miss Von Harmon?” he asked gently.
“Afraid? Not a bit!” He perceived that she shook her head a little too quickly. “And don’t you think you should call me Henrietta?” she asked coyly. “After all, we’re sort of partners, aren’t we? And we have danced together, remember?”
He did indeed remember, but he pushed this thought aside. He could swear she was flirting with him, but he reasoned that it must be the excitement of the case that was making her giddy. “Yes, but that wasn’t the real thing, was it?” He had meant it in jest, but he could see by the look on her face now that he had injured her. He tried to think of something to say to counter this, but she beat him to it.
“Well, yes. I suppose that’s true, isn’t it? Just part of the job,” she said somewhat stiffly. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Suppose we go over the details, then, about the plan before I need to leave. Ma will be wondering if I’ve disappeared off the face of the earth.” She tried a little smile but failed miserably.
“Yes, I suppose we should.”
There was nothing for it. If he were going to allow this scheme to go forward, he had to retain his professional distance, or he would not be able to watch it happen. As it was, it was going to be difficult enough to sit in a squad car in the back alley, knowing what was supposed to be happening to her inside the theater and hoping Charlie could stop it in time. But if she were brave enough to go ahead with it, surely he could, too, couldn’t he?
Later that night, after he had gotten home and fed an exuberant Katie, he had a final scotch and lay down in his big empty bed, his shoulder aching. Try as he might, he could not stop thinking about Henrietta, how they had parted very cordially, despite his desire to hold her, kiss her, love her—somehow hang on to her as she slipped into her building. His thoughts drifted against his will to imagine what it would be like to undress her, to have her lying here next to
him. He groaned and turned over to the other side, beating the pillow as he did so, causing Katie to move to the end of the bed and resume her sleepy position. He needed to let this go, needed to stop it, or how was he any different from Neptune in his lust for young girls? He tossed and turned through the night and then finally lay curled up in a sweat, a prisoner to a deep, troubled sleep in which he cried for the first time in a long, long while. When he woke the next morning, he tried to hold onto the foggy strands of his dreams, not sure if he had been crying for Catherine or for something else altogether, and hoped, regardless, that it wasn’t a bad omen.
CHAPTER 14
“oh, Henrietta! What have you done!” said Lucy as the two of them stood in the dressing room. Lucy had grasped hold of Henrietta’s hands but now let one of them go to reach up in an attempt to pluck out the white feather she saw artfully arranged in Henrietta’s auburn hair. Henrietta pulled back so that she couldn’t reach it, though, smiling nervously despite the struggle. There was only about thirty minutes before the show opened, and most of the other usherettes had gone out already. The band’s warm-up notes could be heard floating back from the stage. Henrietta had tried hiding in the bathroom until everyone had gone, pausing only momentarily in the dressing room to pull out the tiny feather from her pocket and place it in her hair, her hands shaking a bit as she did so. She took a deep breath to steady herself, having been discovered now by Lucy, who had stayed behind as well, searching for her. Lucy looked as though she was on the brink of tears as she stared, horrified, at the feather in Henrietta’s hair. “Is this your idea of a joke?” she asked her.
“Lucy, don’t worry! I’ll be fine!” Henrietta said, trying to sound reassuring, if not for Lucy than for herself.
“Who put you up to this? Was it Ruby? I’ll get her!” Lucy said vehemently, squeezing Henrietta’s hands as she did so.
“No! No one put me up to it. I—”
“Is it the money? You’d only have to say. I . . . I know you got it hard at home, gumdrop, but we could’ve all scraped together to lend you some to get by.”
Henrietta smiled and felt in danger of crying, touched by her new friend’s generosity and her strained emotions. “No . . . it’s not the money. I . . . I just have to find out what happened to Iris . . . and to Libby.”
“For your friend, you mean?”
“Yes. For my friend, Polly. We were taxi dancers together. Then the dance matron was murdered, and, well, maybe it’s all connected . . . ”
“But Libby disappeared a long time ago! And how would it be connected?” she asked disbelievingly. “And anyway, isn’t that a thing for the police to figure out, not that they’re much good at it,” Lucy said, wryly.
Henrietta vacillated. Should she tell Lucy to whole truth? She supposed it wouldn’t hurt since it was unlikely that after tonight she would be working here any longer. The realization oddly saddened her. “Listen, Lucy . . . ”
“There you two are!” said Gwen urgently, suddenly appearing at the doorway. “Jenks’s been asking for you, especially Henry . . . ” She stopped when she saw Lucy’s face. “What’s wrong?” she asked, stepping into the room, Rose close on her heels.
“Better hurry, girls; Esther’s been dispatched to find you two!” Rose said breathlessly, popping into the room as well.
Lucy merely pointed to Henrietta’s white feather, eliciting the expected murmurs of shock from Gwen and Rose.
“Henrietta, is this some sort of joke?” Gwen echoed Lucy, looking nervously down the hallway. “If it is, you’d better not let Esther see you,” she said stepping into the room further.
“No, it’s not a joke!’ said Henrietta. “I . . . I spoke with Jenks and she . . . she agreed I could be ‘in the club,’ as it were.”
“You can’t be serious!” said Gwen.
“That’s what I told her,” said Lucy dejectedly, as if already giving up hope.
“Listen! It’s not . . . it’s not what you think, girls. I’m just trying to find out what happened to those missing girls. I . . . I won’t let it get out of hand.”
“Good luck!” said Gwen, derisively. “How do you think your dress got torn in the first place? And what about all the screams?”
Henrietta felt sick to her stomach. She had hoped to avoid all this fuss; it was lowering her resolve by the minute.
“Forget it,” said Rose, finally speaking. She looked into Henrietta’s eyes briefly and then said resignedly, “It’s just like Libby all over again. She didn’t listen to us, either. It’s her funeral. Come on, girls, let’s go.”
Gwen took one of Henrietta’s hands and squeezed it. “Good luck, sweets,” she said with a sad smile, and then dropped her hand and hurried after Rose.
“I guess we’d better go, too,” Lucy said, keeping her voice even as she started to turn away.
“Lucy—listen—it’s not what you think,” Henrietta whispered. “I’m . . . I’m working with the police . . . it’s . . . it’s a setup,” she said, searching her eyes to see if she understood.
“A setup?”
“Shhh!” Henrietta said looking toward the open doorway. “Yes . . . I’m undercover! I’m . . . they’re trying to find out what’s going on around this place. With Neptune and all that.”
“Really?” Lucy asked disbelievingly. “All this time you’ve been . . . ”
“Yes, sort of. I . . . I’ll explain it all later.”
“Are you a cop?” Lucy asked, drawing back a little.
“No! I’m . . . I’m just a girl like you. I just . . . the police want me to help them.”
“Holy mackerel, Henry! Why didn’t you say?”
“I couldn’t! But now do you see why I need this white feather? It’s the only way to find out what’s going on behind the green door,” she said, whispering still, but stopped suddenly when they both heard Esther’s distinctive waddle in the hallway.
“Where is yeh?” Esther shouted. “Mrs. Jenkins’s fit ta be tied, she is!”
“We’d better get going,” Lucy whispered agitatedly. “Come on . . . ”
“I’ll tell you the rest later,” Henrietta whispered back. “But don’t tell anyone . . . even Rose or Gwen . . . promise?”
“Yes, yes . . . I promise . . . ”
They were nearly at the door now when Esther’s big form filled it. “Dare yeh are! Mrs. Jenkins will skin yeh both if yeh don’ get out dare in two shakes. ‘Ere I is, traipsin’ all over the place, lookin’ fer yeh, when all along yer back ‘ere doin’ unnatural tings. Don’ tink I don’ know what goes on round ‘ere . . . disgustin’ dat’s what . . . ”
It was impossible to know how long Esther’s tirade would have gone on, but Henrietta and Lucy did not stick around long enough to hear it and instead ran through the hallways to the main show floor. They pushed through a set of thick curtains stage left and hurried onto the floor and back up toward the bar to find the list of assigned stations for the night. Lucy gave her a quick hug and a smile, whispering “good luck” as she held her momentarily, then picked up her silver tray and hurried to her station before Jenks could find any further fault with her. Henrietta picked up her tray as well, studying the station list and finding that she was now in a premium station, of course, down in front, center. Larry stood hanging about the bar, waiting for his signal from Jenks to go open the doors. Nervously she arranged the cigarettes for sale on her tray, trying to catch her breath as she did so, not ready yet to go to her station. She could feel Larry’s eyes on her, so she finally looked up at him, giving him a false smile.
“Nervous is ya?” he grinned, looking deliberately at the white feather.
“Maybe a bit,” she smiled, relieved that she didn’t have to keep up the façade of experience around him and surprised that he seemed to know about the ‘club.’
“I’ll be seein’ ya later then,” he grinned. “Always has to be a first time, doesn’t there, miss?”
Unnerved, Henrietta wasn’t sure what to make of his comments but felt a str
ange desire to confide in someone, and Larry, in his unworldly, imbecilic state, seemed the perfect person with which to do that at the moment. “Yes, you’re right, Larry, there does have to be a first time,” she answered, feeing herself blush, or was it just unbearably warm? It suddenly dawned on her that he must have a more integral part than she would have supposed. “Ah, you’re the escort, aren’t you, Larry?”
He grinned idiotically.
“Well, then, you’ll be able to keep an eye on me,” she suggested with a weak smile.
“Oh, aye, miss. I’ll look after ya.”
“Larry!” shouted Mrs. Jenkins from across the room. “What the hell are you doing! Get out there and open the doors, you fool!”
“Be seein’ ya later, then, miss!” he repeated, and after his writhing bow, he hurried away to the lobby where the first of the crowd was waiting.
Alone now, Henrietta took a deep breath and tried to slow her heartbeat. As the men began filing in, she eagerly began searching their faces, anxious to find Charlie. The inspector had said he would be wearing a brown suit.
She flushed warm again when she thought back to last night, when she had suggested he call her Henrietta and he had rebuffed her. It had cut her to the quick, especially when he had said that their dance at the Promenade hadn’t really been real. Of course it wasn’t, she scolded herself. She was just a dancer for hire, little better than a prostitute one might say, she thought with a wince. When she had gotten her summons from him through Kelly, she had resolved on the way to the Lodge that once there she would only talk about the case. It had been difficult, though, to keep her mind only on the facts and the evolving plan and not his warm, hazel eyes that made her stomach clench each time he looked at her. He was so confident, so distinguishedly handsome, she couldn’t help it. And though he tried to be the aloof inspector most of the time, she had seen that he could be attentive as well. She longed to brush her hand along his cheek and ask him what troubled him, as she might do to one of her siblings if they were ill or sad. But she couldn’t trust herself to leave it at that. Just the scent of him if he were standing too close to her made her melt with desire to be held by him, to bury her head against his chest. She didn’t care that he was so much older than her; it made her feel safe in a way she hadn’t since her father had died. And anyway, hadn’t Ma told her that ‘age doesn’t come into it’?