With Nate, a new world opened up. As did the power of perspective. The side of life bordered by her parents’ insistence on society functions, dances, and parties. Nate translated the lives of the people who were experiencing a world flipped upside down. The safety of their houses and jobs shattered by an economic downfall. Their pride depleted by waiting in line for hours for the Temporary Employment Agency to open. Nate did what he could. But his job was to ensure that the North End was functioning and habitable. More than once he had remarked on why Luca Valari was there in the first place. “Men like him don’t usually take the time to drive over Cross Street into our quarter.”
Reggie never knew what to say in response. She answered more phone calls and was pleased to have the opportunity to practice what she had learned about the specifics of the Flamingo with an eager reporter. Outside, the evening was lemony light, serenaded by the laughter of kids spilling out of the Prado and diners in the open windows of street-side cafés. A thought of Vaughan pinged her. She almost missed having someone to rush home and apply red lipstick for. Someone to turn in front of a mirror and adjust her skirt for. Someone she would watch the clock to be fashionably late for, sitting on her made bed, picking at her nylons.
The world beyond her seemed to be made in pairs. Like Noah’s ark. Two by two by two by two . . . and then Reggie. Reggie sporadically reporting her whereabouts to her parents. Reggie working a far-too-easy job for a whimsically absent employer. Reggie who now, alone, was taking the North End in stride. She tucked her train fare back into her purse. Why rush over the tracks to Charlestown? She could afford the time and the stroll over the bridge, the ramshackle tenement buildings sloping behind her. She had nothing to do and no one to rush back for. But maybe she had something better. She thought about what Nate said. She could be the eyes and ears to determine whether her employer was, as he said, an innocent businessman opening a new club—or involved in something darker.
CHAPTER 6
Settling into Luca’s apartment was not unlike trying to fit into an oversized sweater. Hamish wasn’t used to being waited on or demanding things: Luca’s method for gliding through life with his usual ease was a surprise to him.
But Luca wasn’t without his positive qualities. He was genuinely fond of Fidget and he spoke of his employee, Reggie, with the highest esteem.
“Honestly, Cic, never underestimate a proper upbringing,” he said, speaking of Reggie. “There is something about cordiality and professionalism that stretches so far. It makes clients die to work with you. Raises the bar!”
Luca had visited the office earlier that afternoon, telling Hamish to enjoy himself and not worry about anything but unpacking and tasting Fidget’s cooking.
“Make everything to his specification!” Luca had instructed the housekeeper the previous night. “My tailor will be by tomorrow, Cic. He’ll see to everything appropriate.”
Hamish pulled at a thread on his cotton trousers. “I don’t need—”
“You will represent me,” Luca said. “And I need to put forth an image of confidence and professionalism. Don’t look at me like that. You look fine. It’s not like you’re a cat I found under a newspaper near Mystic River. No. And I want to treat you.”
He treated Hamish immensely—to several new pairs of pants and suspenders and short-sleeve polo shirts, a few tailored jackets, and silk pocket squares.
Hamish stared at the stranger in the mirror. His hair trimmed and slicked to the side, his eyes brighter with the effect. The new suit jacket hung perfectly tailored on his slim shoulders and gave him a command he usually associated with men like Luca. “Clothes make the man,” Luca said while Fidget dragged a full-length mirror into the sitting room and Luca consulted with the tailor, refilling the man’s empty whiskey glass.
Hamish’s two-toned shoes were scuffless (something rare considering the amount he cycled), and his trouser legs brushed the tops of his shoes in perfect measurement. He was presented with an array of silk kerchiefs and cuff links in an open mahogany chest. The tailor grabbed at a burgundy scarf, which he affixed as a sort of cravat at Hamish’s collarbone.
Hamish scratched at the unfamiliar sensation.
Attentively, the tailor detached the cravat at his neck and held up a variety of bow ties in silk and brocade. Happier, Hamish selected one. Luca was across the floor in two long strides and selected four more. “We’ll take the lot of this,” he said, his finger moving liberally around a selection of shirts and pants and shoes.
Hamish shoved his hands in his pockets and swayed a little. He didn’t want to see how much this was costing Luca, who easily put it on credit.
“And you must come to the Flamingo,” he cooed to the tailor as he walked him to the door of the penthouse. “Opening night. You come and bring your lovely wife and we will see you have the most magical evening of dancing and the best wine. Or this.” He gestured to the empty tumbler Fidget was taking from the tailor’s steady hand. “More of this gold, eh?”
When the tailor left, Luca turned back to Hamish and clapped his hands. “Well! That’s settled. What else do we need to see to?” Hamish dropped onto the sofa, surrounded by carefully laid-out clothing.
“You could show me where the Flamingo will be,” Hamish suggested, itching to be outside. The window spread out over sunshiny Boston, and while he was excited for the opportunity to test his bicycle wheels through it, he would settle for a stroll.
Luca consulted his watch. “We have just enough time.”
“Do we have plans tonight?”
“If plans mean the Red Sox versus Chicago . . .”
Hamish beamed. “Really?”
“I told you I had season tickets, didn’t I? Wasn’t it part of my grand plan to lure you here? We have great seats,” Luca said as they stepped onto the elevator.
Hamish checked his reflection in the elevator’s mirrored wall: casual slacks and one of the collared cotton shirts his cousin had purchased for him that afternoon, hair slicked to the side. He thought the style made his ears stick out a little, but Luca waved away his insecurity.
Hamish knew Luca didn’t care as much about baseball as he cared about being seen at a baseball game. It was the same when they went to the Maple Leafs Baseball Club at Bathurst Street in Toronto. Luca had splurged on seats behind the first baseline. Baseball visibility was to Luca as opera boxes were to characters in an Edith Wharton novel.
“One stop first,” Luca said as the bell dinged and they exited the elevator. “Let’s check on my Flamingo.”
They took Tremont at a fast stride, the sun splashing over the tall buildings and spreading over the grand entrance to the Parker House Hotel like an outstretched hand. They turned on School Street and crossed in the direction of King’s Chapel, slowing before City Hall, which towered in Empire style, domed windows under frowns of gray stone, columns colossally joining one embellished layer with another like a cake. Josiah Quincy’s statue stood sentinel, umbrellaed by a tree whose branches curved down to the manicured lawn. They crossed beside it in the direction of Scollay Square. Luca was silent, but Hamish could feel his eyes drift toward him.
“You’re watching me a lot,” Hamish said.
Luca laughed. “I’m practicing. I want to make sure I see you seeing the Flamingo for the first time.”
Scollay Square assaulted their view with garish neon lights, automobiles, and a large pedestrian walkway populated by women and men who looked like they had stepped directly from the pages of a Sears catalog. They jogged over the stones and ascended from and descended into the subway kiosks, bordered stairs to an underground world below Washington Street. Large advertisements for cigarettes and Coca-Cola hung from buildings facing off on either side of the hurrying droves.
Hamish’s hand shook slightly: an involuntary response to multitudes and sound. Luca noticed the slight change. “You grew up in a city just as large.”
“And crowds have the same effect on me there.” He tensed.
Luca didn’t re
spond, just grabbed Hamish’s arm and dragged him across the street like a kid spotting a candy shop.
And there it was: not as large as Hamish had conjured in his mind, but an exclamation mark in a row of cafeterias, small hotels, liquor stores, penny arcades, and burlesque theaters, lights winking down even in the cotton candy light of early evening.
The russet awning over the door clashed with the bold, bright cursive announcing “The Flamingo” and the club’s saucy fluorescent emblem, one leg lifted, beak drooping down to meet the sign’s flashy o.
Luca’s eyes were on Hamish’s profile. “What do you think?” he asked, intently surveying. “Do you see that?” Luca stretched his hand out over the red carpet leading to the club’s revolving door. In the center, in mock gold, was the same flamingo emblem. “Soon, when we get this one off and running, I want to open more! Luca Valari’s Flamingo Club.” His hand gestured on each syllable. “Luca Valari’s Russet Robin!”
“Russet Robin?” Hamish chuckled.
“I’m still thinking of other bird themes.” Luca led Hamish to the front door.
Hamish peeked inside, holding his hand up over his eyes for a better view. “Luca Valari’s Painted Ostrich.” His delivery was deadpan, his eyes bright. “Luca Valari’s Precarious Pigeon. Luca Valari’s Blusterous Blue Jay.”
“You mock now, Cicero.” He swatted Hamish’s arm.
Hamish looked up at his cousin’s face, painted with sheer childlike delight, and smiled.
“It’s really beautiful, Luca. It truly is. Looking inside, I can just imagine what it will be like with all the press here: the bulbs flashing, you making your grand entrance from a shiny Rolls. People dancing and drinking.”
Luca’s eyes shone with satisfaction. “You really think so, don’t you? It’s grand, isn’t it? I have my bandleader, Roy Holliday. We’ll get Maisie Forth out here for a weekend. Let her rip up the dance floor.”
Hamish smiled, thinking of his best friend and sometime dance partner from back home. “Your ship is coming in.”
Luca laughed. “Oh, Cic, it already docked.”
They turned from the empty club and Luca acquired a cab. The world at his fingertips. Soon Hamish was watching Boylston Street through the taxi window as they entered Back Bay. Though less convoluted than the bustle of Scollay Square and the four-way traffic jams of Tremont Street at the Common, it still reflected one of its earliest names: Common Street. Copley Square and the Public Library were visible over the manicured green. Traffic moved slowly toward Fenway Park between streets rimmed with craggy tall buildings, steeples, and clock towers. Each building was rutted with bobbling brick. Telephone wires sagged over high awnings blurting from ornamented windows. Hamish squeezed his eyes shut, taking a mental photograph of everything around him. Making this new stretch of this new place familiar.
While Luca continued to talk excitedly about his plans for the club, the car swerved onto the Emerald Necklace where Hamish watched the fens span wide around a bubbling brook rimming the path to the stadium.
Then Fenway Park sprawled like a leviathan with its tall stadium wall: a metal sheet that, when surmounted by ball, was a point of pride for every slugger on the field. The lights of the neon billboards streamed popping rays onto everything below: trattorias, ice cream stands, hot dog vendors, and gas stations.
The taxi maneuvered carefully through the crowds and vehicles, depositing Hamish and Luca as near to their gate as possible.
Wandering through the stadium for the first time, Hamish experienced the contrast of reality to what he had imagined listening to recorded games on the radio. Peanut shells crunched under his shoes, the salty smell of popcorn mingled with the yeasty smell of foamy beer. Press bulbs flashed and rowdy fans squirmed in their seats, cheers mounting even before the first pitch.
Luca and Hamish sidled to their prime seats directly behind the first baseline, Hamish blinking at his proximity to the green turf.
Luca removed his hat for a moment and ran his fingers through his hair. “I told you I have the best seats!”
And Luca’s name was on the lips of the other men and women in their direct vicinity. People of the same status, season ticket holders accustomed to the proximity to the field. The first baseman so close, Hamish could reach out and almost touch him. He watched Luca a moment, surprised at his cousin’s celebrity at first.
“You’re popular,” Hamish said, rolling his eyes.
Luca gave a strained side smile. “Can’t go anywhere, can I?”
An announcer with the buoyant inflection of an auctioneer announced the starting lineup of the Red Sox, and uniformed men took to the field to rapturous applause. The rival White Sox took their positions and the first pitch was tossed.
The thwack of the bat’s belting power shuddered through Hamish.
Luca passed him a bill and motioned to a vendor weaving through the stands.
Hamish purchased two cartons of popcorn and Cokes, nervously perspiring but holding himself together.
While he was passing Luca the change, he was interrupted by a smallish silver-haired man, accompanied by a buxom woman smacking gum.
“Schultze!” Luca lit up, exclaiming a name Hamish had heard several times since his recent arrival. “Cicero, you must meet Tom Schultze.”
“Ah! The cousin.” Schultze’s voice was nasal. “I heard you were in town.”
Hamish set the snacks on the empty seat beside him and extended his hand. “Hamish DeLuca.” He wanted to be polite, but he ensured one eye was peripherally watching Grove toss a smooth pitch.
“And this is Mary Finn.” Schultze nudged the pretty woman at his arm, the age disparity between them leading Hamish to think the man was old enough—with crinkly eyes and receding silver hair—to be the woman’s father. He took the offered hand politely.
“Very nice to meet you, Miss Finn.”
“Miss Finn!” Mary smiled. “You’re a gent.”
Luca leaned forward, took Mary’s hand, and kissed it. “Here you are, lovely Mary, with this brute who would drag you to a baseball game against the White Sox of all teams rather than show you Boston’s sparkling nightlife.”
“I’m going to work at your club, Mr. Valari.” Mary giggled. “Schultzie here said I could be a cigarette girl.” She smacked her gum. “You have the cutest outfits.”
Schultze’s fingers worked up Mary’s arm. She tittered. Hamish averted his eyes.
“You don’t mind, do you, Valari?” Nothing in Schultze’s tone made this seem like a request.
“I need all the pretty girls I can get.” Luca’s tone was gracious. “Welcome to the Flamingo.”
Pleasantries aside, Hamish was eager to turn his attention back to the game.
“It comes with the territory,” Luca said out of the corner of his mouth once Schultze was out of sight. “An investor with a mistress and you have to put up with her.” Luca ran his palms over his kneecaps.
As the innings slipped by, Hamish sparkled with the possibility of the night. The stars winked happily in the navy canvas above them as the pipe organ belted out riffs in major chords to rally the crowd. The popcorn left his tongue parched enough to order more Cokes, and Luca stretched happily beside him. Having been acknowledged early in the first inning, he was satiated enough to fall into the ease of the game and Hamish’s company.
Hamish realized, stealing a sideways look at his cousin before turning back to the game, that this was the perfect sort of evening. No expectations. Just snickers of laughter and too many bottles of soda. When the ninth inning gave way to celebratory shrieks, they made their way out of the stadium, Luca throwing his arm around Hamish’s shoulders, more relaxed than he had been in an age.
But unlike their transportation to the stadium, they weren’t in search of a hired cab. Instead, Luca pointed toward a large man standing under a streetlamp, solid like a tree trunk, arms crossed to exaggerate his biceps.
“Phil.” Luca stepped toward him, tugging at Hamish’s elbow. “Hamish,” he
said as they approached the man, “this is Phil, and he is part of my . . . well . . . how would we say it? My team?”
Phil didn’t extend his hand, but he did nod in Hamish’s direction.
Hamish nodded back with a slight smile of recognition from their meeting (if it could be called that, so silent and terse was the driver) at the train station.
“If you need anything, you call Phil. If we are out late at the club and the liquor has flown a little too freely, you find the nearest phone booth and call Phil. If you need a ride anytime, Phil will be there. We will arrange it. You’ll be seeing him a lot.” Luca squeezed Hamish’s elbow. “You don’t need to navigate this city at night, Cic.”
Hamish wasn’t sure what to say. Fortunately, Phil was a man of no words. He was, however, a man who could part a crowd easily with his size and intention, and so they found their way with ease back to Kenmore Square.
“Is he your bodyguard?” Hamish whispered once they were settled over the slick black leather of the back seat.
“Phil is to ensure I can open my club without a hitch.”
Hamish swallowed. “So you think you need protection?”
Luca smiled confidently. “Don’t worry, Cic. It’s partly for show. I want everyone to know I have an entourage of people. I am untouchable.” He tapped Hamish’s kneecap. “And so are you.”
Hamish worked his tongue over a kernel of popcorn still wedged in between his teeth and concentrated on its excavation as Phil wove them through the postgame traffic. Was there always to be a part of Luca he could never understand? Hamish couldn’t reconcile the Luca he wanted riding beside him in the back seat, laughing and talking about the rises and falls of the baseball game, with the prickling feeling his cousin was like the gargantuan wall barricading the field and stands.
Luca stayed relatively silent the rest of the ride home. Hamish thanked Phil for the ride and was met with a stony gaze. The man still had not uttered any words, merely acquiesced to Luca’s requested time for the next day with a nod.
Murder at the Flamingo Page 5