Murder at the Flamingo

by Rachel McMillan

  CHAPTER 15

  Reggie, make sure every piece of crystal shines like your mother’s cabinet before a DAR tea.”

  Reggie shook her head. “Very funny.”

  Promising, thought Hamish. Reggie was a woman who knew how to hold a grudge. And while Hamish was delighted she took his side after the night at the Dragonfly, she wanted him to be on good terms with Luca too. He was completely recovered and all of the last-minute details for the club had been coming together. Now all of the fancies crossing through Luca’s penthouse had been safely transferred to the Flamingo in time for the opening the next day.

  “You think I hired you for your secretarial skills?” Luca teased. “Darling, you have no experience—save for the most important experience. You have taste.” He turned to Hamish. “More taste than you, Cic.”

  “So it wasn’t my glowing references and personality after all.”

  “Without me, you would have been charged for eight cartons of canned olives—pitted olives—instead of seven,” Hamish said.

  “Your eagle eye is appreciated,” Luca said.

  Their footsteps echoed over the polished floor, ringing up to the rafters. Hamish closed his eyes and imagined the empty space filled to the brim, clouded with people and music and laughter. He was excited to finally be in the Flamingo. His cousin’s project seemed to be running smoothly with several handymen running the gauntlet on last-minute preparations. Hamish combed his hair back from his face and took it all in. The grand front entrance with its double Deco-style doors whose ornamentation reminded him of the saucy swerve of a flamingo’s beak. There was an Employees Only sign opposite the bar on the other side of the dance floor. Another door opened to the back; on their quick tour upon arrival, Luca had shown the alley it led to.

  But no office. Luca reiterated his need to keep his paperwork and telephone away from the club. “That’s why I have my wonder boy here.” He beamed at Hamish. “And his gorgeous right-hand woman.”

  Hamish couldn’t still his nerves. But he had looked through contracts and signed off on deliveries, ensuring there were no legal loopholes.

  “You okay there, Cicero?”

  Hamish nodded. “I hope I don’t let you down,” he said softly. Reggie averted her eyes. Luca met his gaze straight on. “What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t know. I just hope I didn’t miss anything.”

  Reggie laughed. “Oh, please. Any investor who doesn’t want to snatch you up after the club is up and running isn’t worth his salt. I know, I know, I haven’t spent that much time with you. But I have a good instinct. Call it a Van Buren sense. I sense you would go through anything your cousin asked with a fine-toothed comb.”

  Hamish ducked his head to the side, hiding his smile. It was stretching wide and his cheeks weren’t used to the elastic pull. He would take any compliment from her. Even one about his proficiency.

  “And I am smart enough to know that Cicero is one in a million.”

  Johnny Wade broke into the conversation, striding across the floor with a beaming smile. “Just as you asked, Mr. Valari,” he said. “It was swell to open the door while all these people are milling about dying to see what it looks like inside.” His blue eyes gave it a swift appraisal. “Classy joint. Much better than old Galbraith’s.”

  Luca pasted on a smile and rose to meet Johnny, shaking his hand. “Please call me Luca.” He motioned in the direction of the bar. It was already populated with bottles and glasses of every shape and size. “You should find everything you need. But take a quick inventory and if you find anything missing, let me know and I’ll put someone on it. Our stores are in the cellar and they are stocked too. You shouldn’t run out of anything.” He slapped Johnny’s arm. “And be creative. Every Monday when we’re dark, you can come in with Bill and a few of the others and stock up.”

  Johnny nodded, taking the floor in two strides, rapping his hands on the bar and looking as at home amidst the bottles as a scientist might his laboratory. Hamish turned back to Reggie, who was holding a jar of pickled onions up to the light.

  “All of these things from my parents’ parties always seemed to materialize on the table.” She smiled, extending the jar to Luca, who snatched it.

  “I have people for this,” Luca said. “But I want everything to be to my liking. And—” He stopped as the front door opened and Schultze strode in, Mary Finn just behind the gleam of his walking stick.

  “Valari! Isn’t this just the thing!” the investor boomed.

  “Gee whiz!” exclaimed Mary, turning her head around so quickly, Hamish thought she looked like an owl. Her gaze landed on Johnny and stayed. Hamish felt something in the air as she detangled herself from her proximity to Schultze and walked in the direction of the bar. Something palpable filled the air with the hip-swerving strides that closed the space as Mary neared the bar.

  Reggie noticed, too, exchanging a look with Hamish.

  “All right!” Luca clapped. “Get up off my caviar crates, children!” Hamish and Reggie rose to attention. “Mr. Schultze and I have business. So I need the two of you to inspect the bowels of this fine establishment.”

  “Aren’t there people for that?” Reggie said in her inimitable Reggie way. Hamish couldn’t rightly tell if she was teasing or serious. Her tone bordered on a little of both.

  “You are to do what young Johnny Wade is doing.” His eyes flickered to Johnny, who was dazzling Mary with a smile, while Mary giggled an octave higher than usual. “But I need you.” He pointed at Reggie. “For once this summer, you are going to earn your salary.” He winked, but they all knew there was truth in it. “And I know you love an adventure.”

  Happy to have something to do, Reggie and Hamish maneuvered to the Employees Only sign.

  Hamish creaked the door open. “I wonder if he’ll put a fellow here like that oaf we saw.”

  As soon as they stepped through, cold air gusted over them. It put Hamish in mind of his mother’s pantry under the stairs, heralded by a creaking door. When he was a child, being sent down to the chilly basement for a bottle of vinegar or a jar of chutney always scared him. A feeling that resonated with him now.

  “An easy escape route.” Reggie’s voice was at his shoulder as they stood on the small landing looking down into the dungeon.

  “Like H. H. Holmes.” Hamish studied the narrow stairs.

  “H. H. Holmes?”

  “Holmes built a murder castle in Chicago during the World’s Fair with all manner of nooks and chutes to dispose of the bodies of his numerous victims.”

  Reggie shuddered. “Is it necessary for me to go down there?” she wondered aloud after a moment of dark silence hanging as low as the ceiling above.

  “It is rather dark.” Hamish found the light switch at the top of the stairs. The bulb over the stairwell glowed to life, then fizzled and popped, enveloping them in darkness. Hamish exhaled. “H. H. Holmes’s cellar is ever after how this place should be known. Creepy.”

  Reggie ran her hand over the cold cement; Hamish watched her manicured fingers settle into the grooves. “Old building,” she said. She rapped at the pocked cement with her knuckles.

  “Bulb’s burned,” he said, jogging up the two steps he’d descended. “I’ll just run and get a new one and a torch.”

  He left Reggie, noticing the contrast between the coldness of the cellar and the state-of-the-art air-conditioning swirling through the club. After finding a package of lightbulbs and a flashlight, he jogged back to the Employees Only sign, where Reggie waited for him with a broad smile.

  “I killed two spiders,” she said proudly. “Have to write that in my journal.”

  Hamish handed her the flashlight and reached up for the dark bulb.

  “What is this, Hamish DeLuca?” She curled a lip at him. “You think I can’t change a lightbulb? I’ll have you know it is the first skill I accomplished when I moved to this grand city.”

  Hamish clutched the bulbs to his chest. “Sorry. Be my guest.”
<
br />   “Open the door a little more, Hamish.”

  He shone the light on her, noting how her freckles diminished with her nose scrunched up in concentration as she licked her lips and widened her brown eyes on the task. He set the bulbs down with the hand not holding the torch. The last thing he wanted was for Reggie to trip over her oxford heels and plummet into the abyss at the bottom of the stairwell. He heard a pop and light buzzed around them.

  Reggie bounced elatedly. “There! Reggie Van Buren can change a lightbulb!”

  They slowly descended, Hamish contouring the narrow passage with the flashlight.

  “Someone’s going to kill themselves down here,” Reggie said, grazing her head on a low beam. “Why do you think Luca sent us down here?”

  Hamish, prickled by a portentous chill that intensified as he looked at the dusty storage, wanted to break and run. Writing briefs for some bushy-eyebrowed lawyer with moth-eaten suits and spittle binding his teeth to his bottom lip as he smacked on about tort law was preferable to a safe haven for bats’ nests. “An experiment,” Hamish said levelly. “To see if I could be alone with a girl . . . a woman in an unexpected place and keep my head. He’ll probably have a million questions later.”

  Reggie gingerly felt her head, then transferred her touch to crates upon crates with shredded stuffing springing out of the side slats. “It’s pretty high-end liquor,” she observed. It was clear she had little time for Luca’s experiments. She crouched beside a crate. “My father’s brand.”

  Hamish flashed the light around. At the back of a cubby, larger crates piled in a lazy tower. Reggie crossed over and Hamish followed suit.

  “Champagne!” Her smile widened.

  With torchlight, Hamish saw the storage in shadow, but he gauged by her reactions that this cellar held thousands upon thousands of dollars of goods.

  The intimidation he felt at fumbling around in a dark basement filled with heaven knew how many priceless bottles of liquor was suddenly replaced with a tiny pang of regret. When had he, Hamish DeLuca, ever been as passionate as Luca was in this endeavor? So in love with his business venture that even the dank basement held a treasure trove of specialties.

  “He hasn’t just bought things that are expensive,” Reggie was saying, untangling herself from behind a barricade of boxes. “He has selected things that are rare and perfect. Like jewels.”

  She used Hamish’s arm to steady herself and he wondered if the tingle above his elbow was from keeping the flashlight extended or her touch. She searched his face. “Look at us! Down here without an escort! My grandmother would screech for her smelling salts.”

  She brushed by him and back into the thin, dank corridor.

  “He needs better lighting down here,” Hamish said. “Someone could trip over themselves and ruin those beautiful bottles.”

  Reggie nodded her head so furiously her curls almost made a sound. “You would think with everything that Luca has planned to a T, he would have seen to the lighting.” She extended her hand in the direction of a small lean-to. More crates lined the wall.

  “I can see why he didn’t want an office here,” she said, putting Hamish in mind of the basement office they’d encountered at the Dragonfly.

  They started up the stairs again, Reggie’s newly changed lightbulb fizzling pronouncedly before blinking dark.

  “What?” she cried. “I know how to change a lightbulb, Hamish! I swear! I . . .”

  Hamish edged in front of her and swept the flashlight over the remaining stairs on their slow ascent. “I don’t think it’s you.” He reached up. “There’s something wrong with this socket. Luca will need an electrician.” The bulb flashed and flickered.

  “Let me see.”

  Hamish moved out of the way. Reggie reached up and twisted the lightbulb again. The light then streamed through, illuminating everything around them.

  “Impressive!” Hamish remarked.

  Upstairs, the band ran through several scales.

  Luca and Schultze were draped against the bar, Johnny Wade passing them highball glasses, Mary Finn turning a carton of cigarettes over in her hand.

  She smiled at Reggie and Hamish. “Chesterfields. But we have more brands in the back.” She painted Johnny’s profile with her eyes. “It’s the best stocked in the city.”

  Johnny assembled two drinks with lemon garnish, sliding them in Hamish and Reggie’s direction.

  Neither Hamish nor Reggie touched them.

  Luca noticed. “How’s my stock?” he asked Reggie. “Drink up, children. You’ve worked hard.”

  “You need an electrician here, Luca.”

  “Hamish. Come on. This man makes the best cocktails in Beantown.” He raised his glass.

  “The lightbulb at the stairs keeps flickering off and there is hardly any light in the basement. Someone could trip and kill themselves,” Reggie said heatedly. “Or they could trip and shatter a case of champagne.”

  Luca narrowed his eyes at Schultze beside him. “You said you had someone.”

  “I meant to get a contractor from Hanover Street. But there has been so much else and—”

  Luca cursed and slammed his glass on the bar. His face darkened. “If you ran out of time, you tell me. If you can’t do something, you tell me. I would have done it. It’s my responsibility. But you specifically told me you had someone checking on the club.”

  “Valari, the air-conditioning is in perfect order. The spotlights. The stage.”

  “The whole club means the whole club, Schultze.” He grabbed his drink and drained it. “I can’t have people dying in my basement or wasting thousands of dollars of goods.” He swerved back to Hamish and Reggie. “You could have killed yourselves.”

  “I changed the lightbulb,” Reggie said.

  Luca cursed again. “You kids shouldn’t have had to wade through the dark. Where am I going to get an electrician before tomorrow?”

  “Nate will know someone,” Reggie said brightly.

  “Hmm?”

  “Our friend at the office. He can get someone, but you might have to pay for last-minute service.”

  “Yes, yes. Of course. I’ll pay three times the usual service fee. Just get him down here.”

  “So this is the den of iniquity.” They were interrupted by a man who looped his arm around Luca’s shoulder.

  “Ben Vasser. The best of Scollay Square’s law enforcement. How fortunate that you are on our beat.”

  “My men will make sure this doesn’t get out of hand. And I . . . thanks, young man”—he accepted a gin and tonic—“will make sure that you keep to your liquor license.”

  “We promise to be just as depraved and debaucherous—is that a word?—as every other club on your beat.”

  Vasser swigged his drink. “I expect nothing less. Make me work for my pay. It won’t be too hard if the band is this good.”

  “Roy Holliday is the best. Cic! Take Reggie and give my new floor a spin.”

  The band rolled the last lazy bars of “Easy to Love.” Reggie remembered the way Hamish danced at the Dragonfly. How carefree. How he gave himself to the music. He was stilted now. Holding her, but not too close, as if there were an invisible measuring tape between them. She couldn’t blame him completely. They were the only pair on the floor, watched closely by the bandleader and pretty much everyone else. They slowed and stopped and she couldn’t admit to herself that pulling away from him felt like swinging her feet out from under the covers on a January morning.

  “Take a break, kids!” Luca called. “I ordered cheese sandwiches and Boston cream pie from the Parker House.” Luca waved in the direction of the bar. Johnny Wade had deserted it, but a man had brought covered plates full of food for the band.

  Reggie lifted a covering napkin and snatched a sandwich and a slice of cream pie.

  Hamish followed suit.

  “Your first taste of Boston cream pie?” Reggie asked.

  “I thought it was lemon at first and was disappointed.” A smile danced on his lips
but didn’t spread.

  “You never smile, do you?”

  “Hmm?” That slice of smile was still cutting his cheek. They moved to the side of the club and sat on the stairs leading to the fancy doorway.

  “You never truly smile.” Reggie nibbled a bite of sandwich. “Your cousin, Luca, flashes his bright and brazen. You always just let your mouth turn up a little bit. I think I am going to make it my mission.”

  “What?”

  “To make you really, truly smile.”

  “I am smiling,” Hamish mumbled through a full mouth.

  “Ha!” Reggie’s mouth stretched wide.

  He swallowed, picking ruefully at the crust of his sandwich. “I was smiling when we first danced.” Hamish averted his eyes.

  “Tell me about your parents.”

  Hamish paused. “My dad worries about me. About people noticing”—he held up his right hand—“that I’m just a little . . .” He shrugged. “He means well. My mother understands more, I think. She would understand why I came here. She’s always dappled in mystery.”

  “Mystery?”

  Hamish nodded slowly. “A lady investigator. A private detective.”

  Reggie beamed. “That is the most wonderful thing I have ever heard! So adventure is in your blood, then?”

  Hamish shrugged and fell silent a moment. Then, “What about your parents?”

  Reggie cleared her throat. “My mother thinks I am a disgrace to the family name. I mean, she never said it aloud, but I am sure no amount of damage control can salvage my reputation now.”

  Hamish’s ears piqued. “Is that why you ran away?” he asked, then stopped. “You don’t have to tell me.”

  “It’s perfectly all right. It was at an insipid garden party. They throw one every year and I paste on a smile and talk to the silliest women who only think about who will get the fine tea services when they’re married and really never see a life beyond the circle of our perfect little world. My boyfriend Vaughan . . .”

  Hamish stiffened and drained the camaraderie right out of the conversation. She might just have told him she had smallpox. Reggie continued in a quick jolt. “Yes,” she said, her voice resigned. “My boyfriend Vaughan Vanderlaan—though I’m not sure he’s my boyfriend anymore—dragged me to the middle of the party and announced that he had proposed and I had accepted in front of everyone!”