Murder at the Flamingo

by Rachel McMillan

  “Maybe we could skip the picture and just take a walk? We could decline dessert here and find some gelato.”

  Vaughan’s smile widened, puncturing his cheeks with semicolons of smile lines. He was a looker all right. He could have any number of girls in their circle back home. Far prettier girls. He was a study in perfect contrast to Hamish DeLuca. Strong cheekbones and chin, and just the slightest cleft in that chin. Bright hazel eyes and sunshine-kissed hair. Broad shoulders and those rower’s arms, their muscles visible even now through his light cotton shirt.

  Vaughan settled the bill and Reggie watched as he left a generous gratuity. More, he shook the waiter’s hand with a sincere thanks before they set out into the starlight.

  “The North End becomes an entirely different character at night,” Reggie explained, relishing the last flicker of sun before it disappeared completely, leading Vaughan to her favorite gelato place. “Music funnels out of the windows and everything comes alive. People loiter on the fire escapes and smoke and talk and drink wine. And a guy is always whistling after his girl. And kids are finished with school so they jump rope or play hopscotch or draw on the stones in the Prado.”

  Vaughan watched her a moment then stole her hand. She didn’t pull away. “There’s life here, Vaughan.” She squeezed his hand and tugged him farther. “Life in these streets and over these stones and in the women hanging their wash to dry. There’s life in that smell—you smell it? It’s so fresh. Oil and basil and bread.”

  “And you love this life, don’t you?”

  “I do. And I belong here.”

  “But, Reggie—these people are so different from you. From your life.” It was the first shade of Vaughan-ness she had experienced since he had appeared. But rather than narrow her eyes at its apparent derision, she decided to give Vaughan the benefit of the doubt.

  “I know.”

  “But I also know that you love your new friends. And your work.”

  “I worry about Hamish. More than I do my work. Oh, don’t look at me like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Don’t be jealous, Vaughan. He’s my friend. Ah! Here we are.”

  Inside the small shop, she ordered pistachio gelato for Vaughan and lemon for herself.

  “What do you think?” she asked after placing a few coins on the counter and smiling at a woman who wished them good night in Italian, brushing away a loose tendril from her sloppy gray-black bun. Vaughan flicked his tongue over the ice. “It’s delightful.”

  Reggie swallowed a bite of lemon that melted on her tongue like a cold cloud. Once their cones were finished, Vaughan stopped her. By now, night brandished the sky with its blue-black canvas and stars overhead faded with the shine of the streetlights.

  Vaughan’s hand moved over the back of her neck, then down her spine. He pulled her in, his cologne, an expensive smell, immediately taking her home to her parents’ parlor, to the sticky leather of his car’s front seat en route to a picnic at the sea. It was a smell that transposed her to church on a Sunday morning, the heavy fabric of his suit jacket brushing her bare arm. It was a smell delectably familiar and yet oh so dangerous.

  She was just learning how to cross things off in her Journal of Independence. She was just beginning to abandon all thoughts of home. But he was sincere. And he was here.

  His smile. His eyes.

  “I’m not the only one to blame, Reg,” he said. “You know that. You are not the easiest girl to get along with. Don’t flash me that look. You have a very set opinion of how people should act and react as it pertains to you. And it was hard—knowing that you wanted me to follow you in any small way you could turn away from your parents. I am not like that. I don’t want that.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you? Do you understand that I can disagree with that part of you and not go along but still care deeply about you? That my announcement that evening at the party was my way of being impulsive? Have you ever seen me do anything that rash before? I was standing to confront as much humiliation as you, and I bore the brunt of it with your slap.”

  Something turned over in Reggie’s heart. “Honestly, Vaughan, I never thought—”

  “Of me?” he said. “No. You only thought of yourself, and maybe I was in earnest. I’ve always wanted you.”

  His finger caressed her shoulder blades. And, as difficult as it was for her to admit it, she had wanted him too. She turned so that their faces were an inch apart, their noses almost touching, their collective breaths joining in the tang of late summer. Here was Vaughan out of place in the North End. Here was Vaughan trailing her over the North End.

  “And you used me as an excuse, Reggie. To run away. Don’t say you came here because you were escaping the embarrassment of that day. Because you were going to run anyway. You were always going to run. It was a matter of time.”

  “Were you going to follow me?” she asked, tipping her face up, searching his eyes, and what she found in them was her—all her.

  He answered her with a kiss, his lips over hers in a gentle butterfly brush before pressing harder. She kissed him back, rising slightly on her oxfords, feeling the carefully cut tendrils of hair over the back of his neck, just where they were downy and light beneath her fingertips.

  She loved the feel of his hands on her waist and around her back. She loved the strength and breadth of him. When she finally pulled away, her face was alight with a smile that she could feel stretching her cheeks.

  “I still love you, Reg.” His voice was thick, in recovery as he caught his breath. “That doesn’t change because you stole off to Boston for half the summer.”

  “I needed time,” Reggie explained. “With or without you, I needed time. Away from my parents, away from our life. This”—she spread her hands out toward the tenement houses hugging each other, the road undulating with uneven stones, the church towers beginning to toll brassy bold markings of the half hour—“this is living, Vaughan.”

  Vaughan followed her gaze, scraping his eyes around them, then looked back to her. “Is it this Hamish fellow? Playing Nick and Nora?”

  “He’s a good friend,” Reggie said again.

  Reggie felt Vaughan straighten beside her. Then the hopefulness bubbling through her during their dinner and stroll was a bright red balloon and Vaughan the pin. “Why are you here, Vaughan?”

  “I miss you, Regina. Before, we were . . .” He let the wave of his hand finish everything encompassed in their relationship: Dating. Nearly engaged. Inseparable sometimes. She heard the words even when he didn’t say them: We were always friends.

  Their friendship was often the one bright light in days of endless routine and her mother’s lace teas. Her stupid pride had kept her from seeing that.

  “See, Reg, not everything about home was completely insufferable.”

  His fingers lightly brushed hers as their arms swung with their slow stride, and she pressed their palms together, a summery dry kiss.

  “I’m looking for a flat, you know.”

  Reggie sparked. “So you’re going to stay in the city? You and Dirk got the job?”

  Vaughan nodded. “It’s grown on me.” He squeezed her hand. “I was thinking more about our last conversation, Reg. And I was thinking that of course you took off. I was insufferable there. I can be myself here.” He took a beat. Reggie drank in the familiar sights and sounds and smells of the community that clutched her heart and tugged tightly.

  Reggie fell back a step, taking Vaughan with her. He looked down at her, concern filming his blue eyes. “What is it?”

  “For the first time in my life, I haven’t been thinking or planning. I have divided my summer into little hurdles that I had to jump. So I’ve been living in the moment. It’s been so freeing.”

  “You’re going to let your hair grow out and go camping at Walden Pond?”

  “No.” She giggled. “Vaughan, my entire life has been a series of routines. It was about time for some disruption.” She bit her lip. “But I thi
nk I am a free agent.”

  He walked her to the elevated train, kissing her on the cheek. “I hope your friend is all right, Reg. And I hope this means we’re starting over again.”

  Reggie smiled in lieu of a response. She wasn’t sure she wanted to start again. But she admitted to herself it was nice to have someone who reminded her of home.

  In her room that night, she thought about her evening and how she wanted to change. She couldn’t go back home. Intimidating. That’s what Vaughan had called her. Funny, Hamish never seemed to be uneasy around her—other than his usual nerves. She absently fingered the pearls of her heirloom necklace, a nervous habit from the time she was a child.

  “They’re not a toy,” her mother had scolded. “They’re too expensive. Worth almost as much as some people’s mortgages!”

  Reggie unlatched the clasp and pulled the necklace over her head, holding it out to the light, admiring the pearls’ milky sheen. And with fervent internal apologies to Great-Grandmother Euphrasia, she made up her mind to visit a pawnbroker on North Bennet Street the next day.

  CHAPTER 27

  Hamish stayed two more nights at the hospital, staring at the four walls around him, beating Nate at chess, lying to his parents that he fell off his bike and was temporarily hospitalized but they were not to try to see him. It was a superficial wound. Accepting the lemon jam and flowers and telegrams delivered from Toronto with a sheepish guilt. Receiving Maisie Forth’s phone call and wandering through pleasantries, knowing that a return trip to Toronto wasn’t enough for him anymore.

  There was nothing from Luca. Hamish wondered where his cousin was, and if he was running, who he was running from. Arthur, maybe, Mark’s associate. Hamish knew enough about this type of business to know that when someone disappeared, another took his place, like sharks’ teeth.

  Reggie broke into his thoughts on several occasions. And visited often.

  “I did better than I thought,” she said, just as the nurse was preparing him for departure, checking his temperature, applying a clean bandage.

  “At what?”

  She held up an envelope. “Pawning my nana’s pearls.” The envelope, he saw when he peered closely, was full of cash.

  “Looks like we’ll be needing a few North End detectives.” Nate clapped, appearing at her shoulder. “For every crime you solve, you get cannoli.”

  “Even Winchester Molloy doesn’t have it that good!” Reggie’s excitement shone brightly.

  Hamish gingerly slid off the bed, smiling at the nurse and gathering his few belongings. “The idea is ridiculous,” he said.

  “You look lost.” Reggie’s eyes were on him intently.

  “I am. Do I go back to Luca’s? Do I—”

  “Vaughan’s cleared out of his suite at the Park Plaza,” Reggie said. “It’s yours until you figure out what to do. I mean, soon enough we will be in booming business, but until then—”

  “And I am just here to collect my chessboard,” Nate said with a kind look at Hamish before gathering the board and pieces.

  “Your friends take good care of you,” the nurse remarked as Hamish maneuvered into his coat with his stiff shoulder.

  “They do, don’t they?”

  “Well, William Powell?” Reggie smiled as Hamish ascended the steps to the second-floor landing. He had slept better than he had at the hospital, thanks to Vaughan’s illustrious suite. Any guilt or discomfort he felt in taking the room was erased when he found a box of bruttiboni and a note from Vaughan on a slick monogrammed pad: Any friend of Regina’s is a friend of mine. Get well soon.

  There was still a sadness to Hamish’s pale face, but Reggie’s words twitched a smile in his cheek. “Well, Myrna Loy, I don’t even know why I keep showing up here. The Flamingo isn’t our problem anymore.”

  “True, but you are one half of my new endeavor.”

  “And what endeavor is that? You rented an office with your nana’s stolen pearls?”

  “We’ll be detectives. Or legal consultants or . . . we’ll basically just keep doing what we’re doing. But with our names on the door instead of Luca’s! And part of the day I will be doing pro bono work at the Temporary Employment Agency. We’ll be a fixture here!”

  He spread out his hand to lay imaginary type. “DeLuca and Van Buren: Consultants in Nightclubs and Crime.”

  Reggie giggled. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Fine. Consultants in Crime?”

  “Just crime?” Reggie raised an eyebrow. “Also, it’s Van Buren and DeLuca.”

  “Alphabetically, DeLuca comes first.”

  “The heirloom pearls I just pawned and the money I just wired my father for with no questions asked say differently.”

  Hamish stretched his arms then winced at the tug on his shoulder. “Anything! Consultants in Anything! If you think your employer has cut some off the top to improve his bottom line!” Hamish flushed as he warmed to his theme. “Murder! Mayhem!”

  “Kittens!” offered Nate from his open door. “Someone is bound to have a lost kitten.”

  “True,” Reggie complied.

  “And who is going to take the Flamingo anyway?” Nate’s voice filtered into the hallway.

  “Mr. Galbraith,” Hamish explained. “The fellow whose club went under when Luca’s opened. He’s legitimate, Nate. He won’t be using any properties here to feed into the club.”

  “I trust you.”

  “It’s Van Buren and DeLuca,” Reggie emphasized, framing the glass window with outstretched fingers. “It rolls easily off the tongue and I am the one with the impressive familial connections. Secondly . . .” Reggie swatted his good arm, stood back, and watched him a moment.

  Hamish waited. “Secondly?”

  “It’s just . . .” She rose a little on the balls of her feet, then rocked backward. “It’s De-Lovely, DeLuca.”

  “You’ve waited a long time to say that.” Hamish grinned, the muscles in his face much looser than they had been at the beginning of the summer. His smiles came easy now.

  Reggie jogged into the office.

  “You’ll get the girl, Hamish DeLuca.” Nate joined him in the hallway, speaking near Hamish’s ear just as his smile was wavering off.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You don’t think you will, but you will,” Nate said. “Patience, young DeLuca.” He squeezed Hamish’s shoulder and retreated to his office.

  Reggie licked her tongue over her bottom lip. She had tugged so much of her life into her future, she just couldn’t help but keep her left foot on the ground. And maybe he needed time to learn who he was. And maybe she needed to keep flipping back the pages to see where Vaughan led her. It was confusing. More confusing still with him sitting there looking at her expectantly, the blank pages of their new adventure purchased with her pearl money still unmarked.

  “We should get a plant.” It was the absolute stupidest thing to say the moment he walked into the office, but it brought her down to earth and kept her eyes from tracing the shape of his lips much as she would trace around her fingers with a crayon in school.

  “Oh yes.” He nodded. “That would brighten the place up. Give it some life.” His smile tugged at his cheek.

  But the place didn’t need life—it had plenty of it. She was ridiculously attracted to him but circling around expectation and fear and a bond that still tied her to Vaughan.

  “I’ll get one. Tomorrow.”

  “Good.” Hamish smiled. “That sounds good.” He looked toward the open door to the hallway as a messenger boy delivered a telegram across the hall. He would watch every day as the boys ran in and out on their errands, and he knew somehow, some way, one of those telegrams would be for him. It might be in code. It might be from a million worlds away. But Luca would reach him and Hamish would wait until he did. And then the final unraveled piece of the new life he was knitting would tighten into place.

  Meanwhile, Reggie played with the dial on the radio.

  “Hello!�
� Mrs. Leoni’s voice chimed from the hall. Mrs. O’Connell was at her elbow. “Hamish DeLuca.” She looked Hamish over, clucking her tongue like a hen. Hamish rose and greeted them both.

  “We heard you were hurt,” Mrs. O’Connell cooed with maternal affection, inspecting the top of Hamish’s black hair and his pale face.

  “And your mother is not here.” Mrs. Leoni sighed, holding up a basket. “This is all you need. Soup and bruttiboni and lemon sandwiches.” She lifted the checkered cloth covering the food, and Reggie could see from her vantage point that it was enough to last several men a week.

  “How can I ever thank you?” Mrs. O’Connell was saying. “It was enough. Just to say that I had someone who was looking into my case. Those rats, they scurry back into their holes.”

  Hamish smiled. “It was my pleasure, Mrs. O’Connell.” He accepted the basket from Mrs. Leoni and it nearly bowled him over. “That’s too much! So heavy.”

  Mrs. Leoni leaned her portly figure over the desk and cupped his cheek. “You are a good boy, Hamish.”

  Reggie wasn’t sure if it was an opportune time to peddle their services, but she seized the moment anyway. “Hamish and I are going to keep the office. Not for any nightclub business. For helping people like you. People who need mysteries solved. People who don’t want to be gouged by Baskit’s ridiculous prices.”

  Hamish wasn’t sure what he was doing, signing up to return day after day to a space she inhabited, knowing that he was so in love with her it hurt to breathe when she was in his near vicinity. That sometime she would look over at him and his heart would likely burst. But what was love if not the ability to make a complete and utter fool of yourself daily just for the gift of breathing the same air as a person who made your heart sing and soar?

  Reggie had the wireless playing and the familiar talk-singing of Fred Astaire spilled out the door. “The way you wear your hat . . .”