The Lavender List

by Meg Harrington

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  All the food and coffee’s given him energy and turned him feverish. His eyes are wide. “I took what he was selling, Amelia. I accidentally stole from your uncle.”

  Shit.

  “And his clients.”

  Double shit.

  “And whoever he was selling to.”

  Triple. Quadruple.

  “And her.”

  Just shit.

  Laura’s still at the counter eating. Still unassuming. Still the Laura she knew before Jimmy walked through the revolving door.

  She bites her lip. Because, if she’s gonna be honest, she’s confused. And out of her depth. And confused.

  Jimmy was supposed to come in all puffed up and ready to lie. Then she was supposed to tell him to drop the act, lay off the prostitutes, and spill the name of the pimp.

  He wasn’t supposed to come in half dead and hunted.

  She straightens up again and glances back at Laura.

  It’s just a moment. One little instance. She looks past the broad line of Laura’s shoulders and catches her reflection in the chrome blender just beyond.

  Who she makes eye contact with isn’t that sweet distant woman she kissed, the one she has been half killing herself trying to help.

  It’s something sharp and savage and familiar.

  She’s so shocked, she bumps into the table. Flatware clatters noisily and half the automat stops briefly to stare.

  Laura whips around to look at her all inscrutable like.

  Amelia would like to think Laura’s looking shocked and sorry. Only she’s still seeing that other face—that reflection.

  “Jimmy,” she doesn’t take her eyes off Laura, still frozen on her stool. “You need to leave. Now.”

  She’s not sure if he sees Laura at the counter. He must. “You’ll be okay?”

  She hasn’t taken her eyes off Laura.

  His clothes rustle as he stands, and he squeezes her hand and presses wet, cold lips to her cheek before fleeing. “Thanks, Amelia.”

  Across the room, Laura’s gone cool. All that posh, upper-crust reserve freezes her into an ice sculpture.

  So Amelia crosses the room, steps measured. Her heels sound too loud against the linoleum. And she still doesn’t take her eyes off Laura. She can’t.

  “So he is a friend,” Laura finally says when they’re face to face with just the counter between them.

  “Yeah. Lookin’ like the only one I got in the joint.”

  “I’m not entirely clear,” Laura is conversational, “what your game is, Amelia Maldonado.”

  She can be conversational, too. So she leans on the counter. “You know? The same thing’s been crossing my mind.”

  That gets her one raised eyebrow.

  Then Laura’s sipping her drink and purposely taking her eyes off Amelia. “I suppose you could lay your cards on the table. Explain yourself.”

  “How ’bout you try first. Because I’m not the one that’s gotta explain a pool cue between a fella’s ribs.”

  “Well, that’s a bit complicated.”

  “Only because you make it that way.”

  There’s a little crack in Laura’s armor. For a half second, she gets an addictive glimpse of what’s going on beneath. And Amelia thinks if she can just snag the right words, she can use them like a dagger. Slide right in through the crack and take the whole mess down.

  But tires screech and horns blare and metal crunches outside. Like just about everyone else, they both rush to the window to gawk.

  Amelia sees a familiar shock of black hair at the center of the mess of cars. She runs through the revolving door and ignores Laura calling after her.

  She runs, and even though she and God are on the outs, she throws up a little prayer.

  Which is worthless. There’s no prayer that’s gonna help Jimmy Andronico now. Not when he’s crushed between two cars and his blood is bright like paint on the street.

  Her heel catches on a crack in the pavement and she dips. Then she rights herself. Stumbles through the crowd to be beside him. Ignores the men telling her to come away.

  “You shouldn’t see this,” they say. Like she’s never seen something so awful before.

  Jimmy twitches, there’s blood on his lips, and his eyes flutter open and closed. She tries to say something, but she’s not real sure what to say to a dying man.

  Jimmy doesn’t know what to say either. But he reaches for her. Holds her hand tight in his. It’s sticky and going cold.

  Then whatever makes a fella a fella just flickers out of Jimmy. All that’s left is some flesh pressed between two cars.

  She lets the crowd pull her back. Glances down at the hard piece of metal Jimmy put in her hand before he died.

  A roll of film.

  A roll of film at least six fellas are dead over.

  A roll of film Laura’s maybe killed for.

  She spins around.

  Laura’s standing there. Just out of arm’s reach.

  She could be stricken.

  Could be satisfied.

  Could be angry.

  Amelia can’t tell.

  They stare at each other until the crowd swells around them and Laura vanishes into it.

  Then all Amelia can do is think.

  About how Laura had said she didn’t want to kill her.

  She kind of thought that Laura was being a romantic idiot when she said it. Hoped as much too.

  But now?

  Now, she’s pretty sure she just painted a target on her back, and Laura’s off to set her sights.

  CHAPTER 6

  The cops don’t ask a lot of questions of the crowd, or of Amelia, who now has a bloody film canister shoved into her dress pocket. They stare at Jimmy’s body. One says “accident,” and another nods.

  Accident.

  Amelia shivers.

  Jimmy’s dead, and it isn’t an accident.

  She’s confused and scared and things are spinning all wrong, but she knows an accident. Especially a car accident. And this one reeks of purpose.

  “He stumbled out in front of me,” one driver says.

  “Just out of nowhere,” the other says.

  She watches that one. He talks about seeing a gorgeous dame on the street. Red hair. Sweet smile. Great legs. He was distracted.

  “Accident” Amelia’s ass.

  She’s jittery through the end of service and doesn’t even blink when she realizes neither Jimmy nor Laura paid and it’s gotta come out of her own pocket.

  Things are spinning.

  The film is burning a hole in her pocket.

  She can’t sit on the train home. She bounces too much, and people start avoiding her bench. So, she stands close to the door and stares out the window at dark tunnels.

  Jimmy’s squished like a tomato, and Amelia can’t stop feeling like she had a hand in it. Like she really did set him up.

  Only she can’t figure who has folded her into this. Her uncle’s a snake if there ever was one. But Laura beat a whole room of men senseless and came away with nothing but a cut head, some bruised ribs and a bad lie.

  Amelia is spinning and spinning and spinning ’round these lies. So much so that she doesn’t realize the power in the hotel is out until she’s in her room and flipping a worthless switch. That explains why so many girls are milling about outside of their rooms and so many of their boys are downstairs cuddling and comforting them like the war is back on.

  She changes out of her uniform and slips on a different pair of shoes, figuring she’ll look up an old friend who knows a thing or two about pictures. Maybe she can get the roll developed. Figure out who all is involved and…<
br />
  Figure something out.

  Then she notices there’s a breeze coming through a window she never leaves open and was definitely closed when she walked in.

  Nothing’s spinning any more. It’s crystal clear.

  Hands snake around her waist and over her mouth and pull her back like a python. Before she can scream, she smells Laura’s perfume and feels her hot breath in her ear. Laura’s not killing her. There’s no knife or quick jerk of her neck. Just Laura holding her close and breathing hard.

  And there’s no talking because, as she tries to twist around and look at Laura, Laura’s looking elsewhere. A hand comes off her mouth and points at the door.

  The knob twitches.

  Laura drags her farther into the shadows of an already dark room. Her chest is heaving against Amelia’s back, her breath is hot puffs on her neck. If someone wasn’t trying to break into Amelia’s apartment, and she wasn’t confused as to how Laura can move quiet as a mouse, she’d be having a whole mess of other more pleasant thoughts.

  The fingers at her waist dig in, pulling her closer. Pressing her up against Laura like cellophane. She shudders and Laura’s grip loosens just barely. Enough so that her thumb can play across Amelia’s stomach.

  Ah jeeze. She’s screwed.

  Laura’s other hand brushes Amelia’s arm as she reaches back toward herself, and Amelia has to close her eyes because she’s having thoughts when it really isn’t the time or place.

  When she opens them again, she sees the gun.

  Laura’s not like the boys from her neighborhood. The gun doesn’t wobble, she holds it steady. Barrel pointed toward that door.

  It opens silently. And there’s no light to leak in because the electricity is all out, and now Amelia’s got an idea as to why.

  A figure all in black moves through the darkness, melding with the shadows they’re all lurking in.

  Laura’s fingers dig into Amelia’s belly.

  Then the world explodes in flashes of light and sulphur.

  A hollow bang bang bang that makes her ears ring and her blood roar.

  Laura shoves her forward and maybe shouts, “Go!”

  So Amelia goes.

  Out the corner of her eye, she sees Laura charging the other person and sees the flash of another gun firing.

  The other one’s fast, like a featherweight. But Laura’s a goddamned freight train.

  In the hall, girls are screaming and scrambling in chaos. The lights out had everyone on edge anyway, and now the gunshots have sent them screeching over it.

  She pushes through and jogs down the stairs and out onto the street. She’s breathing fast, and her blood is up like she’s sixteen again.

  A couple of guys are outside, leaning against a car and looking too neat and businesslike to be boys waiting on a couple of girls inside. They perk up when they notice her.

  Which… well, whatever’s going on, guys marching toward her cannot be good. She starts walking the other way, a hitch in her step. She resists the urge to all out run.

  Then Laura is by her side, a little breathless, her arm snakes around Amelia, and a great big smile is plastered on her face. “Keep walking,” she says without moving her lips. “And don’t look back.”

  So she keeps walking. Their heels clack on the sidewalk.

  And she tries real hard not to look back.

  “Laura,” she says real low.

  Laura squeezes her arm. “It’s all right.” Her head is held high as if she means it.

  “I got a feeling you know more than me right now.”

  A ghost of a smile graces those full red lips of hers. “I have a feeling you’re right.”

  “Care to share?”

  Her jaw sets. “When you’re safe.”

  “They still following us?”

  “They are. In a moment we’re going to go into an alley. There’s a car. We should get in it.”

  Amelia must tense up, because Laura’s soothing her with that thumb of hers. The one moving in gentle circles to the left of her spine.

  “It’s all right, Amelia. I’ll do everything in my power to keep you safe.”

  “Promise?”

  She feels Laura’s eyes on her, and oh, how they burn. “Promise.”

  The fellas pick up their pace as Amelia and Laura round into the alley. A dark blue Cadillac, missing its plates, is sitting there, front facing out. Amelia slides into the driver’s seat and then across the bench into the passenger seat as Laura pushes in.

  “Just keep your head down,” she urges.

  “Laura where in the bleedin’ heck did you get a car? You didn’t—”

  Laura snatches a screwdriver from under the seat and jams it into the ignition. “Borrowed it,” she says with a grunt.

  The car roars to life as Laura nearly floods the carburetor with gas.

  “Tall, Dark, and French?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “This his?”

  “No.” She actually huffs when she says it.

  The guys are standing shoulder to shoulder at the other end of the alley. The Cadillac’s lights blaze on their matching dark suits and shine on their matching— “Guns!”

  One of Laura’s hands pushes Amelia down to the floorboard, and she drives straight for the men, not even flinching as their bullets ping off the hood and crack the windshield.

  She’s…Amelia sits up after the car twists onto the road and just stares at Laura. Because the streetlamps are lighting Laura like some sculpture out of Europe, and that narrow jaw, high cheekbones, and dark eyes are all resolute.

  Not for the first time, just looking at Laura steals all the breath out of Amelia.

  “Are you hit?” Laura asks. She takes her eyes off the road to scan Amelia.

  “No, I’m fine. Laura what—”

  “I thought you were with the Russians.”

  That’s a new one.

  Laura shakes her head. She’s so damn earnest. Honest even. Amelia’s never seen it on her. “Or some fascist faction. You were so curious, and with your uncle and cousin—” She snorts. Laura breathes in sharp through her nose. “These last two days, I was sure you were a spy sent to kill me.”

  “You thought I was a spy?”

  Laura nods. Like she’s relieved.

  Like all those sort of threats she’s laid at Amelia’s feet can be forgotten.

  “What changed your mind?” Amelia asks.

  “The way you looked when that man died today. You can’t fake that kind of shock and confusion.”

  Maybe, but Amelia likes to think she’s a pretty good actress.

  Wait. “So does that mean you’re a spy?”

  “An agent.” Laura’s voice is tight. “Former.” Before Amelia can dig into that nugget of information, Laura rounds on her. “Amelia what on earth were you doing?”

  Okay. Amelia doesn’t often want to slap another woman upside the head—especially one she’s sweet on. “Me?”

  “Asking questions. Meeting with mobsters. Taking highly sensitive information from a dead man. This isn’t some thriller you pay a dime to see.”

  “No shit, Sherlock. Figured that out when my only ever boyfriend got smashed like catsup today.” All that red’s never gonna leave her head.

  Laura glances away and looks sorry. “I…I had no idea you were so close.”

  “Yeah, I mean I only dated him to get back at this girl.” Something in her eyes is burning, and she has to dig the heels of her hands in to soothe it. She sniffs. “So, Miss Former Agent. You gonna tell me what’s going on?”

  “That war we all fought? It never ended.”

  Well, that’s succinct.

  “And what? I stumbled into the next D-Day?”
/>   Another smile. Amelia really knows how to pull ’em out of her.

  “In a manner of speaking. Italian communists smuggled stolen Nazi weapon plans and were planning to sell them to the Russians. Your uncle is the middle man. Though I don’t think he realizes who he’s dealing with.”

  Cute. Laura thinking her uncle doesn’t know every which way of the deal that went south.

  Laura shakes her head again, “I understand your family’s involvement. But whatever possessed you?”

  She pulls her legs up onto the bench and wraps her arms around them. Squeezing herself into an uncomfortable ball.

  Because here it is.

  Earlier Laura had asked for cards on the table, and now it’s time for Amelia to do as much. She sucks in a breath and lets it out, watching as it fogs the window.

  “It’s silly.”

  “You nearly died for something silly?”

  Amelia rests her chin on her knees. They’re at Lincoln Tunnel now, and the light comes in gentle waves as they pass under each garish yellow bulb. “So there’s this girl.”

  Laura starts to smile and then catches herself.

  Amelia continues. “Comes in every day and a lot of nights. Smiles like she’s seen the world end. And when she looks at me, I want to do the ending. And this one night. This one night, she comes in roughed up. You know, I’ve seen her roughed up before.”

  Laura twists the steering wheel in her bare hands, but she doesn’t speak.

  “But I’m a classy lady, so I don’t say nothing. But this time, this time it’s bad. And when I do just the teeniest bit of investigating, I find the folks who did the roughin’ are my own idiot family. I think that maybe, possibly, I can see to it she’s not getting roughed up anymore. I felt obliged.”

  “Obliged?”

  She sighs. It’s gonna sound stupid. In the wake of spies and saving the world, she’s gonna look a fool. But she’s gotta say it. “To have a chat with your pimp.”

  Apparently, this revelation is shocking, because Laura swerves off the road and back onto it again. Gravel spits up into the undercarriage of the car and makes an awful racket. Even though they’re nearly out of civilization now and there’s no light to speak of, Amelia’s sure she sees a blush.