The Girls at the Kingfisher Club: A Novel

by Genevieve Valentine

  “You’re very kind,” said Tom, shaking hands like they were friends. “Tomorrow morning. Have a good night, sir. Enjoy your party.”

  On his way out, he glanced into one of the narrow windows beside the door, trying to catch Jo’s eye in the reflection.

  Her throat was tight. She looked away.

  Then he was gone, and their father was smiling and closing the door.

  “Come, Josephine,” he said, holding out his hand for her as if nothing had happened. “It’s time for dessert, and we’re neglecting our guests.”

  • • • • • •

  The guests went home more than an hour later, after dessert, and coffee, and one last drink to toast the Danube because it was a shame to waste good sherry, and a round of extended farewells.

  Van de Maar had talked business with their father. Lou had been resolutely silent. Ella had also been quiet, but Prescott seemed happy to answer his own questions, and she needed only to nod and agree to keep him happy.

  Doris and Sam Lewisohn had recovered best. They made small talk about his business and her favorite books; if she hadn’t known better, Jo would never have guessed they’d spent nights at the smoky Kingfisher, zooming through the room whenever a Charleston played.

  Foster was a drowsy drunk. Jo was worn thin with second-guessing and dread, and was happy to have such an easy problem. She spent the rest of the dinner waiting until he nodded himself awake, head snapping upright, to ask him a question. He blinked and gave her a muddy answer, and dropped off to sleep again; she gathered several facts about bootlegging and decided his business was better off with him here, asleep.

  When the last man (Lewisohn) had shaken all their hands and been escorted out, Walters closed the door, leaving the sisters and their father alone in the little parlor. From the dining room came the soft sounds of china being cleared away.

  “Well,” their father said, “you girls must be tired. It’s very late.”

  Doris grinned, managed to turn it into a yawn at the last second.

  “Thank you for the lovely dinner, Father,” said Ella, and kissed him on the cheek before she started up the stairs. Lou followed, fuming, and then Doris.

  “Josephine,” their father said as she turned to go, “we can discuss how the evening went in the morning.”

  “Sir,” said Jo.

  He leveled a look at her. “There are several matters to discuss.”

  He still suspects, she thought, but just as quickly she caught herself. Don’t give anything away. Don’t give in. If he’s going to catch you, he’ll damn well have to catch you in the act.

  “I look forward to it,” she said evenly. “Good night, Father.”

  On her way upstairs, she passed the younger girls’ bedrooms on the third floor. Each door was open a crack, but she didn’t slow down, and no one was brave enough to step out from safety and question her.

  She must have looked as angry as she felt.

  Lou was already shoving herself into her nightgown when Jo got there.

  “So,” Lou said, “how long have you been planning to have your boyfriend come over and meet the family? What did he need the money for, your elopement?”

  Lou was in a panic and striking where she could, but still Jo felt something snap—a betrayal from Lou she couldn’t bear, not on top of everything, not tonight—and she sucked in a deep and satisfied breath before she said, “Go to hell, Louise.”

  She’d never said anything like that, never to Lou, and it froze Lou solid.

  Lou was still standing with fistfuls of nightgown in her hands, gaping at Jo, when someone rapped softly from the doorjamb outside the open door.

  Without turning, Jo said, “What is it, Doris?”

  Doris’s cropped head appeared in the reflection from the window. “White flag?”

  Lou let out a heavy breath and opened her fists, letting the nightgown fall. “Go on.”

  Doris grinned and slid inside, her hands shoved into the pockets of her robe. Jo turned to face her.

  Doris cleared her throat. “General, I just wanted to say thanks, for earlier. Sam’s much nicer than—well, nicer than I ever expected from any man Father picked.”

  Jo looked her over. “How much nicer?”

  Doris flushed. “A lot nicer. I’ve always thought he was sweet.”

  So many things had happened that first year that Jo had been blind to.

  “What does he think of you?”

  “He’s asked if he can see me again.”

  “No,” said Lou.

  “Good,” said Jo.

  Lou stared.

  Doris grinned. “I really do like him.”

  “Fine,” said Jo.

  Doris looked from Lou to Jo and pulled a face. “Right. I’ll just—Good night.”

  Jo closed the door behind Doris and waited.

  “You can’t let her marry him!”

  Jo moved to her bed, scooping up her nightgown from under her pillow. “Why not? She likes him.”

  “And it would appease Father after that stunt tonight!”

  Jo slammed a fist down on the dresser. Lou jumped.

  Jo choked out, “You think because I’m playing for time I’m out to appease him? I have eleven girls on my hands with no education except the third-floor library and going out nights—where exactly shall I take them? Where would they have a life, if we ran from him now?”

  “So what, you’re going to hope a few more good men wander in the door so you can palm us off?”

  “I haven’t palmed anyone off! Doris isn’t stupid. She knows him, he seems kind, and Father would be pleased—the rest of us should be half so lucky.”

  “Listen to you, telling us all to wait until you say, to go where you say! You’re no better than he is!”

  Lou might as well have hit her; the pain was sharp enough, deep enough.

  Jo pressed a hand to her ribs and concentrated on breathing in and out.

  After a moment, she looked up. Lou looked halfway apologetic, halfway defiant, waiting for the answering volley.

  “If the girls ask where I’ve gone,” Jo said, “tell them you can handle it.”

  And then she was moving down the hall, out the back stairs (quickly, avoiding the faint light from behind the kitchen door), through the alley and around the corner, out of sight of the house.

  By the time she thought about where she was, she was already standing on a street she’d never seen before; she was alone and free.

  fifteen

  SHE’S SO UNUSUAL

  Jo all but ran the first few streets, shocked at herself—General Jo, fleeing from the house without a friend in the world or a penny in her pocket.

  She shoved her fists into the folds of her skirt and slowed down, forced herself to pick a direction, as if she knew where she was going.

  She looked over her shoulder a dozen times in the first five blocks, uneasy and not able to articulate why, until she passed a shop window and saw her reflection.

  Then she realized she was uneasy because she had never gone out at night alone before.

  She was surrounded by sisters at night, the alpha of a little wolf pack in dresses.

  In the apothecary window with the skyline of bottles inside, Jo felt anonymous, swallowed up by the city.

  It was intoxicating.

  She walked without thinking, past the house on Seventy-Ninth that looked like a palace in a Gothic fairy tale, turning onto Lexington when the sharp blue awnings of a chemist caught her eye, ignoring the ache in her feet. She was angry enough that it thrilled her to be lost, with no one to answer to, no one to keep track of, without anywhere to be or anyone to tell where she was going.

  She should be going to the Kingfisher, she thought; but even as she thought it, she knew it wasn’t true.

  She knew exactly where she was going.

  At last, she flagged a cab and put on her most winning smile as she gave the address of the Marquee.

  • • • • • •

  The party
was in full swing.

  Girls had feathers plastered to their hair with sweat, and the men had already begun to unbutton their collars. The frantic conversation threatened to drown out the music, and a cacophony of clinking glasses sounded along the bar in a futile attempt to drink away the heat.

  The bandleader seemed determined to drive the crowd into the ground; he was playing a quickstep in what felt like double time, and the couples flew around the floor, narrowly missing one another, arms pressing forward into the sea of people like the prows of glittering ships.

  It sounded like Jo felt. Her heart was a drum.

  I’d dance this with anyone, she thought as she stepped inside; just give me a partner and get out of the way.

  Alone, Jo was just one of a hundred other girls who came out for a good time. She was still wearing the dinner dress, black with net over it like a shroud.

  It was equal parts terrifying and comforting that without her sisters, Jo was unremarkable.

  No one even looked up from their drinks as she came in, except Tom.

  He was beside her before she even got her bearings.

  “What’s happened?” he asked, eyes searching her face. “What’s wrong?”

  “Can you pay the cab?”

  He frowned. “Of course. Do you need anyth—”

  “I’m fine,” she said, and plucked the drink out of his hand as he passed.

  The band struck up a foxtrot. Some of the dancers stumbled back to their tables to recover; the rest shrugged off the sweat and aches and kept dancing.

  Jo knew how they felt—at the beginning, that first year, she had often danced to songs she hated, just to be moving, just to feel music under her shoes.

  When Tom appeared beside her, she handed him the empty glass. She felt more than saw his eyes on her.

  She was going to crawl out of her skin.

  “Let’s go someplace quiet,” she said.

  • • • • • •

  The second floor of the town house had a pair of doors just off the landing. Tom unlocked the left-hand one, and she let him turn on the light before she stepped inside, as if cops were lying in wait and he wanted to make sure they weren’t in for another bust.

  Of course they weren’t. Like a good businessman, Tom had paid off the cops. This place was safe as a bank.

  Under the stark light of the bulb, Jo saw this was only a studio apartment, not quite what she’d been expecting of a man with a deed to the place. There was nothing in it but a bed and a desk and a chair that looked ready to collapse. Tucked to one side was a kitchenette that looked like it had never been touched, the top of the cabinets an inch thick with dirt.

  “Classy establishment,” she said.

  He pulled a face and closed the door behind them. “Can’t say I spend a lot of time here. It’s good if you need a quick sleep, but I don’t like to be so close to work all the time.”

  Just in case the cops changed their minds.

  “About tonight,” Tom said, coming closer.

  She slapped him.

  The sound of her hand against his cheek echoed through the apartment, snapped his head around on his neck, and he had to take a half step to catch his balance.

  After a second he looked back at her.

  His expression was dangerous; the hair on her neck stood on end.

  She would have been afraid, but she’d burned up the last of her fear for the night, and all she could think was, There you are. This is who you’ve been for all those years. The junior-gentleman bootlegger and the suave nightclub host who’s in good with the cops—those were only suits you put on and off.

  She stood her ground.

  Jo had guessed long ago that to survive in his business as long as he had, you probably had to be something more dangerous than you looked to be.

  (She knew the feeling; it was the way you survived a dance hall, too.)

  Even when she was young and foolish, she’d known there were things about him that she would never see in the false romance of a dance hall. There were things about him it would be better never to face.

  This was the Tom she was meeting now.

  (This was the Jo he was meeting now.)

  He was quiet long enough for her to decide she was up for a fight, if he started throwing punches. She had the arms of a seasoned dancer; she could hold her own. Anything, anything to burn off this anger.

  At last, he half-smiled as if accepting a compliment. “You’re not quite as I remember you,” he said.

  “Good.”

  “Are you done, Josephine, or should I sit in the kitchen? I can, if you don’t trust me.”

  He didn’t say her name like a threat—it sounded more than anything like he was relieved to have something to call her—but she still crossed her arms over her chest to ward it off.

  “Funny,” she said, “I can’t imagine why I wouldn’t trust you.”

  He had the decency to flush. “Josephine, I—”

  “It’s Jo.”

  He blinked. “Oh. That suits you.”

  She ignored the little heat that flared in her belly when his smile came and went.

  “Tom, what were you going to tell my father when you came to the house, if you hadn’t seen me?”

  She waited for him to lie.

  She expected him to tighten his shoulders and grin and assure her he had never planned to say a word, that it was all a ploy, that he had known all along that she was in the house and had come only to rescue her.

  But he didn’t. He slid his hands in his pockets and was quiet for a long time.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  It was closer to the truth than she had expected. She didn’t know if that was better or worse.

  She could punish a lie. She’d never anticipated the truth.

  She didn’t know what to do about any of this.

  (Anything, she thought. She was here alone. She was adrift, restless, exhausted, wild. There was no overseeing General here; tonight she could be anyone she wanted to.)

  She sat on the edge of the bed. He moved to sit beside her but thought better of it, and instead he pulled the desk chair to face her and took a seat.

  He was so close their knees were almost brushing, and in the dim glow of the bulb across the room, her handprint on his face looked like a shadow play.

  “I didn’t even know who had placed the ad,” he said. “I just thought—it was so close to where I had driven you, who wouldn’t put two and two together—I wanted to see for myself what was going on. I mean, you never know what can come from these things. I got my job driving the milk truck because I replied to an ad for a barber’s assistant.”

  He got an expression like a businessman hedging his bets. “I thought maybe there was some old banker who wanted to get those ten dancing girls to his place for a good time. I thought maybe there was some alderman sending you over from the Kingfisher to spy on us, and some councilman was fighting back.”

  He looked up. “I thought maybe you had run, and there was a jealous husband looking for you.”

  She dug her palms into the bedspread.

  When she didn’t reply, he cleared his throat and sat forward, elbows on his knees. “I stay alive on information, Jo. Information is worth whatever it takes to get it. Whatever it was about you that you were keeping secret, I had to know.”

  “That’s not your right.”

  “I know. But that’s not how my business works.”

  A lifetime ago, that might have stung.

  “What would you have told him?”

  “I dunno. I figured I’d go looking first. Whatever I got faced with would prepare me for the man I was dealing with, and then whatever happened after that, I’d be able to handle it. I’d find you, finally, and if there was going to be trouble we could get a fix on anything before—”

  “What would you have told him, if I hadn’t been there?”

  Now she was making fists in the blanket, crossing and uncrossing her legs at the ankles, pinned to th
e bed by the need to know.

  (She knew, she knew, but she needed him to admit the danger he’d put them in.)

  She stared at the flushing silhouette of her handprint on his skin, torn between the urge to cover it up and the urge to do it again.

  At last, Tom shrugged.

  “Whatever he wanted to hear.”

  And there it was.

  At least now she knew how he’d made it this long in his line of work.

  Her dress was tight, suddenly—she could hardly breathe—and she stood up, just to get some air. There wasn’t any air left, where he was.

  His gaze followed her, but he didn’t move. She wondered if he expected her to run for it, and this stillness was his way of assuring her he wouldn’t give chase.

  She wasn’t going to run. She had nowhere else to go, and they both knew it.

  “My head aches,” she said. “Do you have anything?”

  “I can get aspirin,” he said, standing.

  “I was thinking something with a proof.”

  He grinned. “Attagirl,” he said, and moved to the kitchen. One of the cabinets (the least dusty) had a bottle of something unmarked in it, and he took it down and wiped off the cork with his cuff.

  She stood at the edge of the dust, arms folded, watching him.

  “It puts hair on your chest,” he said as he handed it to her. “Be careful.”

  She drank, carefully, and let it coat her mouth and burn down her throat.

  “Better?”

  It didn’t feel at the moment like anything would ever be better again, but she said, “Sure thing.”

  He smiled. This close she could see some familiar sadness seeping into his eyes, and something inside of her twisted and stung.

  “I missed you,” he said. “I was worried for you.”

  There was no sweeping declaration of love, no impossible promise, which was why she believed it.

  It was worse, knowing she could.

  She’d missed him, too. She didn’t say it.

  “That so?” she said instead, and raised an eyebrow. “Poor Tom, crying into your pillow at night, having sweet dreams about that girl from the Kingfisher.”

  His teeth were white when he smiled. “Some of them weren’t sweet.”

  She didn’t have an answer for that. Her throat was burning.