On the receipt, the sloppy signature at the bottom read: “care of Hey Nonny Nonny, LLC.” No name. Of course Leo’s name was on Hey Nonny Nonny’s ticket, but who would ask, if a fellow was willing to take the blame?
“I own this establishment,” said Benedick.
Dogberry gave him a doubtful look.
Benedick crossed his arms over his chest. He summoned every inch of the Ambrose Scott in him and tilted his chin in an imperious manner. “I’m eighteen. I have every right to own property. Why do you think my father was so concerned with shutting the place down? I bought it off the original owner and have been managing it through the back door for a year.” He snatched the court summons right out of Dogberry’s hand. “I’ll see you before a judge, sir. And I’ll thank you to give me an honest man’s business day to get my affairs in order.”
That was taking the bluff perhaps a tiny bit too far, but Dogberry didn’t argue. He smiled, as if he understood. “All right,” he said. “I reckon a summons could get misplaced for a day or two—”
“In the post,” Verges suggested.
“Or under a coffee mug.” Dogberry leaned in and winked. “You’ll have until next week, but if you don’t take care of it . . .”
“Don’t worry,” Benedick said grimly. “My father hates tardiness.” He didn’t think he’d go to jail. His father would pay whatever fine was needed; but that meant Benedick would be in his debt, and he’d have to go home. College or Wall Street. No more Hey Nonny Nonny.
Dogberry tipped his hat. “Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Scott.”
Benedick waited until the agents were gone, then went back to the entrance to pry the sign off. He’d deal with the court summons, and no one would ever know the speakeasy went under. Those agents wouldn’t be back again.
He shook his head and wiped sweat off his temple with his shoulder. He wrestled the end of the crowbar under the sign and tugged, grunting, but the plywood sign only bowed.
“You need a hammer, for the nails.”
Benedick jumped.
Hammer already in hand, Beatrice came beside him. Dungarees on, like the first day they’d met. Her hair was positively demonic, coming out of her pins ten different ways. The difference was that today she seemed considerably less full of bean and buck than so many weeks ago. But the standard of gloom for the day was such that compared with Leo and Hero, stewing in gin and waiting for the end, she looked almost indecently cheerful.
She pried each nail out one by one. When she was finished, Benedick silently lifted the sign and turned it around. “Wait one moment,” she said, and pulled another tool from her pocket. This one she used to pick the padlock and tugged the chains loose.
“This is a federal crime,” he told her.
“So’s murder,” she muttered, with enough dark promise he wondered if she had a list already prepared. She looped the chain over her shoulder.
“How is our girl?” Benedick asked, following her back to the porch.
“Not good. Not anything. Her spirit’s been squashed like a bug. I’d like to tear Claude’s heart out and eat it. Then Prince’s for dessert. Conrade Minsky’s I’ll wrap for Monday. When they strap me in the chair, please let them know the killing was just.” She stopped and frowned, getting a good look at him. “Are you all right? You seem—”
“Just tired. Long night.”
They trekked their way up to his room. He kept the sign inward, and every few seconds he’d catch it sticking its tongue out at him. Beatrice dropped the chain on his floor without further ado, tack-tack-tack. Benedick stuffed the sign behind the sofa, which he sank onto, propping his arm up on the back.
Beatrice looked at the arm, then at the chest to which it was attached. She pulled on one of her freed curls, then at last sat and edged in his direction. After a minute of silence, except for slightly labored breathing after the upstairs trek, he concluded that the kissing problem was still at emergency level.
The dungarees in fact had made it worse.
Go figure.
He cleared his throat. “Naturally I’m relieved to once again take up the position of your mortal enemy with no fear of breaking your heart. If you in fact have one.”
She turned and smiled at him. Like a swinging baseball bat. “Sure. We remain unscathed from this whole mess precisely because we were wise enough to stay away from love.”
“Exactly.”
“What will happen? Does Leo have to go to jail?”
“Of course not,” he said brusquely. “In fact those chains are just a formality. Speakeasies reopen all the time. You check the office, you get a slap on the wrist, and off you go.”
She frowned. “Even without—”
“Trust me,” he interjected. He took her hand and squeezed once. “Trust me; this will be taken care of.”
She slid her fingers free, rubbing them. “All right.” She tipped her head back; all at once she deflated, as if shedding a top layer that had made her taller. Her eyes fluttered with exhaustion. “I wonder if I ought to stay, just for a year, and help out.”
“Absolutely not. You’re going to pass your regents’ exams, study at some fancy college, become a surgeon or whatever—”
“And win the Nobel Prize, don’t forget.”
“And win the Nobel Prize. The rest of us are counting on your coattails to carry us along, so I’m afraid there’s no other choice.”
For a minute she said nothing. Then, half asleep, she mumbled, “And you’ll be here at least. I won’t worry if you’re here.”
He hesitated. “Beatrice . . .”
“Hmm?” She blinked at him.
He lost his nerve. “Are you hungry?”
“Gosh, yes. Enough to eat you alive.”
Later Benedick sat on Hey Nonny Nonny’s porch as the sun went down, twirling a pen (at this point purely decoration) between his fingers, around and around. The chairs along the porch were weatherworn and haphazardly placed. Cigarette butts had blown off ashtrays to join smeared sparrow droppings. From here the speakeasy’s entrance wasn’t visible, and there was only an expanse of shadowy trees before him.
After a phone call from Maggie, Beatrice had taken the car to pick up their favorite jazz singer from the station (and promised to ask around for Prince while she was there). Benedick was on the porch now, he admitted to himself, to wait for her return. He was partway through a terrible love sonnet when the front door opened and Hero stepped through, taking a lot of care to shut the door behind her quietly.
“Good evening, St. Helen,” said Benedick.
She turned around and gave him a displeased look. Her dress came with sleeves and a collar; Benedick was unaccustomed to seeing so much fabric on her at once. With a small sigh of defeat she perched on the chair beside him. She propped one heel up and reached to a lace garter, where a silver flask was lodged. She removed it and set it on Benedick’s knee, then dug a cigarette case from her brassiere. “Got a light?”
Benedick got up and found Prince’s stash of matches, hidden under one of the heavier ashtrays. She looked away as he lit the first cigarette but didn’t refuse it when he passed it to her. Flask in hand, she said, “Should I make a toast?”
“I was just thinking the scene could do with a bit more dialogue.”
“Here’s to never again putting on shoes that hurt my feet and undergarments that pinch, and never giggling at boys who aren’t funny, and especially never being a good sport about it.”
“Here’s to that noble experiment the Eighteenth Amendment,” he said, “which makes a toast so thrilling and this wonderful, mad time in history in which we live.”
“Show-off.” Her grin was a pale imitation of the original, but at least it was there. She glanced at his papers. “How’s the great American novel coming? Ready to deliver your inspiring message to mankind?”
“Alas, it’s beginning to look like unless I hit my stride some time in middle age, mankind will remain a message short. I did finish a poem that you’re welcome to read and then us
e to light your next drag.”
Hero looked at him, the smoke from her cigarette casting a hazy screen around her face. “Give it here.”
He passed her the scrawled-upon piece of paper.
“‘The god of love, who sits above, and knows me, and knows me, how pitiful I deserve—’”
“Oh, God. It’s even worse out loud.”
“Well, it’s not Shakespeare.” Hero lowered the paper and touched her knuckles to her chin. “What is it, some kind of love poem?”
“Your doubt speaks volumes. Perhaps it will serve better as a torture device for future blackmail. . . .”
“Love poems aren’t your usual style, that’s all.”
“Maybe I’m in love.”
“Are you?”
He closed his eyes. “I hope not,” he said. He opened his eyes to glare at her. “Which reminds me, I think you owe me an apology for that particularly ill-thought-of joke.”
Hero’s eye rolling was not of the apologetic sort. “Well, pardon me, but no one’s holding a gun to your head, making you write sonnets. It’s Beatrice, isn’t it? I knew it. You’re good at seeing people, Ben; you’re good at seeing what they truly are and not making a fuss about the gap in between.” She cupped her face in both hands, cigarette pointed away from her ear, and, blowing out smoke, leaned her elbows on her knees. “That’s one good piece of news anyway.”
“Good news! Is that what you’d call it? I’d like to hear your name for reciprocated love.”
“Why, she turn you down?”
“Like a bedspread. No. I don’t know. Not exactly. I didn’t ask, but I didn’t have to ask to know the answer was no, you know?”
“You’re a mouthful,” Hero said affectionately. She straightened. “And I guess I do know, don’t I?” She paused. “We’re both here on the porch waiting after all.”
“You love Prince?”
“I hope not. But probably.” Hero scowled. “I didn’t even know you could love a person like this without ever kissing him.”
Benedick had to force his brain not to imagine kissing Beatrice.
“Or maybe I don’t after all,” said Hero. “I’m so mad at him for leaving. He’s got a lot of nerve abandoning us because his feelings got hurt. You know whose feelings are hurt? Mine.”
“Right. Who needs the big lug?”
“Maybe we just expected too much once and for all.” The cigarette burned between her fingers, resting on her knee, the smoke curling up like a question mark. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I got used to him protecting me.”
“So what’s it going to take, darling? For you to forgive him?”
“Nothing,” she said shortly. “Haven’t I asked the world already? Let him go. Join the mob and live off showgirls.” She set her chin and paid no mind to Benedick’s plaintive look.
“Are you going to rally the speakeasy?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “Never done it without him.”
“He can’t stay away forever. I’m sure of it.”
Hero sighed, just as the car roared up the drive. Beatrice waved to them with her whole arm as they got closer. Not glamorous but tremendously capable. The kind of girl who drove a six-stroke automobile with one knee while loading her rifle with her free hand.
“Well,” said Benedick.
“Goodness,” Hero murmured. “I see it all right. You poor boy.”
The car parked, and Beatrice climbed out from the driver’s seat, Maggie from the passenger side. Kohl was smudged at the corners of Maggie’s eyes; fatigue hung off her clothes, but her face was lit up with a big smile.
“I did it!” she announced, hands spread. “I got the spot!”
“Oh, Maggie,” Hero said, “that’s so wonderful!”
And then she burst into tears.
Maggie’s smile fell. “Hey now, it’s not like I’ll never be back.”
“I know, I know.” Hero hiccuped, scrubbing the corners of her eyes. Benedick handed her a handkerchief (he was going through them quickly), and she blew her nose in it. “I mean it. I’m happy for you. But just on top of everything else—”
“Beatrice told me about Claude ruining your party,” Maggie said.
“Hero. Why didn’t you tell them it was me?” She glanced at Benedick, then Beatrice. “I kissed John. In Hero’s room. Claude must have seen it.”
Benedick’s stomach dropped. Never mind Claude. If Prince didn’t feel awful already, this revelation would put him through the wringer.
“I said I didn’t, never mind who actually did.” Hero sniffed. “Everything happened so fast, and when it was all over, what did it matter anyway?”
“But in the hall,” Benedick said, “you acted like—”
Hero glowered at him. “I was keeping Maggie’s secret! I thought John was walking out on her, and no girl wants an audience for that if she can help it.”
“Unless John planned for him to see it all along.” Maggie’s fist clenched; if John’s face had been nearby, Benedick thought that was where her fist would have been headed. Maggie strode up the porch. “I think I know how to find Prince, and if I have to drag him home by the ear myself, we’ll get him back.”
CHAPTER 31
AS THE GREYHOUND’S MOUTH, IT CATCHES
Maggie went the next morning. The pocket of Mulberry Street where she found John’s apartment was rough, but today it was just the kind of place to fit Maggie’s mood. The shop signs were in Italian, as were the gruff conversations out on the street. And if that large man on the corner kept looking at her like that, she’d knock his block off.
She stopped near a café. A woman swept the stoop. Past a striped overhang was the tenement building matching the address John had written down for her so many days ago. The only way to get up there was by a rickety set of iron stairs bolted into the building’s brick side.
“Hey, honey.” The man on the corner had his hands tucked under his armpits, elbows sticking out, feet spread. “What you looking for?”
Hurrying to the rusted staircase, Maggie ignored him.
“Talking to you, princess. What kind of business you got up there?”
Her lips pressed together. She might have been asking the same question if this had been her street and a stranger was nosing around, but she was itching for a fight. She turned.
“I’ve got business with John Morello,” she said. “If he’s not home, I’ll wait till he is.”
“Say”—the man mused—“you’re not—”
If he said “that jazz singer,” she might scream. That gal John got into the Cotton Club. That sucker he’d kissed to dupe one of her dearest friends. That’s her all right, what do you know?
“—Margaret?”
She whipped back around. Her fury somehow spiked and vanished at the same time. Up on the top landing, John had emerged. She’d never seen him so underdressed, a thin undershirt bunched around his elbows, suspenders loose against his thighs. Set in front of the afternoon sun, his hair looked almost soft. All the things she wanted to say welled up like a river.
You should’ve heard me on that stage. I lit the place up.
She’d expected him to be at the club, and he hadn’t been. But standing on that stage in front of Duke Ellington and his cigarette and focused eyes, she hadn’t needed John, or Hey Nonny Nonny, or anybody else. She knew who she was, up there.
It was only after—when she was done celebrating with Tommy, Jez, and some of the other new chorus girls, when she was watching Hero’s eyes fill with tears—that she realized it hadn’t been entirely true that she didn’t need anyone. She’d been able to sing in front of Duke Ellington with everything she had because she’d known Hey Nonny Nonny would catch her if she wasn’t good enough. Somehow, it would be there; they would be there.
And John, whose kiss filled her with the best music, who already thought she was good enough for the Cotton Club?
You kissed me. You kissed me and it was like heaven and you used me, you bastard, you bastard, you basta
rd.
John cut his eyes down and across the street at the man who’d called her honey.
The man held up his hands. He said something in Italian that she couldn’t understand, but it sounded like an apology, a please-don’t-cut-off-my-head-sire kind of apology. John answered brusquely, and lo and behold, the street cleared like magic, people off to mind their own business.
John jumped down the stairs so fast they rattled. “What are you doing here?” he asked when he got to the bottom. His thumb almost brushed her cheek, but he caught himself and drew back. His collarbone peeked out of his collarless shirt, and for half a second she was transfixed by this part of him she’d never seen before.
And damn it, still wanting to touch him was the last straw. Her hand bunched into a fist. His eyes widened. Fighter that he was, he knew it was coming; but he didn’t stop her from swinging into his rib cage, his shoulder, anywhere she could reach. She bet it hurt her more than it did him, but she didn’t care.
Eventually she gave out, her body listing toward the chest she’d just abused. “I’d keep at it,” she said, panting, bracing on her knees, “if I’d had any breakfast.”
“I guess I deserve that.” He rubbed a spot on his upper arm where she’d belted him good.
“You better believe you do.”
“I’m sorry.” He looked away.
“I know why you did it.” Maggie bit off each word, straightening. She brushed her curls out of her eyes. “To break Hero and Claude up, make Claude think she wasn’t faithful. Not that it means I forgive you, but I understand you. I always have, top to bottom.”
“What are you talking about—”
“You kissed me. You brought me close to the window. You could have told me. Then at least when you did, I would have already known it was a lie.”
He closed his eyes. “Margaret—”
“I’m glad I got to say it”—she interrupted—“but it’s not why I’m here. I’m looking for Prince. Do you know where he is?”
“John?” A tall, dark-haired woman stepped out onto the landing above them. “I can’t find Pedro.” She disappeared.
John pressed his lips together, then motioned Maggie to follow him.
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