Moonshine

by Alaya Johnson

  We took a taxi to City Hall, since I couldn’t bear the thought of managing my bicycle, and Lily couldn’t bear the thought of her precious garments splashing through slushy puddles. Well, so long as she paid, I was happy enough to travel in style.

  As far as I knew, no organization had planned an anti-Faust demonstration that day, but a bit of a homegrown one had developed outside the marble steps anyway. I wasn’t the only person furious about this situation, I realized. It made me more confident about confronting Jimmy Walker.

  I looked at my pocket watch: here with five minutes to spare. The Night Mayor was nothing if not punctual about his lunch dates. No one paid me much attention as I jostled my way to the front of the crowd.

  “Hey, move aside!” Lily shouted. “Vampire suffragette coming through!”

  I could feel the dozens of eyes suddenly homing in on me like the sightlines of a rifle.

  “Hey, is that her?” a girl close to me asked her companion. “The one who staked that whole pack of suckers this morning?”

  “Guess you changed your mind about how good they are, eh, Zephyr?”

  “Maybe Beau Jimmy will give you a medal for doing his job for him!”

  I turned around and glared at Lily—and I apparently looked fierce enough to make her flinch. Good. Next time she might reconsider making a fool out of me to get color for her newspaper column.

  “I don’t judge all of humanity because of some damn fool drunks who get themselves in trouble,” I said, loudly enough for the crowd to hear me.

  “But you killed—” It was that girl again.

  “I didn’t kill anyone. I was defending myself, and I regret what ever harm I had to cause.”

  But I remembered the sensation of raw power when I held that vampire in my grip, delicately burning her flesh with my silver blade.

  “So is that who you are?” said a drawling voice to my right. “Not just any over eager bluenose.”

  His pale visage barely flickered in my peripheral vision, but I suppose I could have identified him blindfolded. I turned to him leisurely, as though I was merely curious to see who would address me in so impertinent a fashion.

  “Good afternoon, Mayor,” I said.

  “Likewise. You’re making quite a name for yourself, Miss . . .”

  “Hollis.”

  “Charming picture, by the way. I wish I could get press like that.” He tipped his hat to Lily, gaping behind me.

  “Well, perhaps if you hadn’t let your mob connections dictate legislation, I wouldn’t have had to fight off a pack of Faust-addled vampires this morning.”

  He gave me a hard, contemptuous smile that thinned his already bloodless lips. “Talk to me when you have a real scandal.”

  I was furious enough to spit, but I reined myself in. “Twenty new turnings in just the last two days. Dozens of vampires burned half to death in the Tombs. A dozen more poppers. And you think this isn’t a fucking scandal?”

  He laughed. “Watch your language, Miss Hollis. You’re in the presence of a lady.” He doffed his hat to Lily again, and stepped off the curb. “Good day, Miss Harding,” he said, while his chauffeur opened the door to his Deusenberg. “Valiant attempt, by the by,” he said, nodding in my direction, but as though I wasn’t present at all. “The intent is chic, but you know what they say about silk purses and sow’s ears.”

  I could hear my blood rushing past my ears. My breath wheezed in my chest, my neck felt rigid enough to crack. Part of me would have wept with joy to kill him.

  “People are dead because of what you did,” I yelled. So much for cool cultivation. I’d come here to make a scene and damn me if I didn’t. “Good, loved, upstanding members of the community are dead because of Faust. Their blood is on your hands!”

  “Good grief, they’re not people, Miss Hollis. Just Others.”

  “Well, that was . . .”

  “Don’t talk to me. I can’t handle you talking to me right now.”

  I was marching away from City Hall, rudely ignoring the few people who had come up afterward to speak to me. I knew I was behaving like the worst sort of disdainful, imperious Long Islander (maybe Lily put a spell on the clothes), but I didn’t think I could handle human interaction at the moment. We were living in boom times, the war was over. But we lived in our own little cesspool of the Lower East Side, and they made money off of our suffering. To hear it said so explicitly, when the tragic toll of his actions was so abundantly, painfully clear . . .

  “He’s inhuman. I don’t know why he calls us Others, I really don’t.”

  Lily looked surprised. “But Zephyr, you’re not—”

  “Of course I am! To people like you and him? What’s the real difference between a vampire suffragette and a vampire? Novelty, maybe.”

  Lily was silent for several minutes, though she kept pace with me as I walked. “I don’t agree with everything he does, you know,” she said, finally. “Don’t lump me with him just because we go to the same parties. I like women’s suffrage. I might not want to go to a meeting, but I use prophylactics.”

  I slowed. “When families are living ten to a room, without heat or electricity, and meanwhile you and Beau Jimmy are bingeing for three days on illegally imported Cointreau at some glamorous Long Island party?”

  It was odd, I thought, how angry this seemed to make her. “Jesus, Zephyr, what do you want from us? Blood?”

  I had to smile. “It’d be a start.”

  After a beat, Lily laughed and shook her head. “Touché. Are you going somewhere? I can pay for the cab.”

  And with that, I felt the last of my anger dissipate. Lily couldn’t help the world she was born into any more than I could. Getting angry with her or Jimmy Walker was only a proximate target of a much larger, systemic problem.

  I graciously accepted Lily’s offer of a cab fare and then left her for Gramercy Park. She would come by Mrs. Brodsky’s later to night to take me to the fancy party, but for now I had a few errands to run, of a sadly familial nature.

  I found Daddy sitting with Troy and two other well-muscled Defenders in the parlor of his suite. A brace of arms worthy of a large militia covered the dining table. Knives, swords, bows, shotguns and dozens of rifles glittered dangerously. Caught unawares, the Turn Boys wouldn’t stand a chance.

  Troy saw me first. “Zephyr! So you changed your mind after all.” He strode toward me and punctiliously helped me remove my coat before I could do so myself. “Loved the story in the paper,” he said. “I knew you couldn’t keep up with this Other-rights nonsense forever.”

  I wrenched my arms out of the coat and whirled on him. “Troy, you are quite—”

  “Oh, leave her be,” said Daddy, who had not so much as raised his head from the gun he was loading. “Zeph’s gone soft. She thinks it’s best to help monsters, not kill them.”

  Troy’s blond brows came together and his lips pouted in a way that, five years ago, I had fancied I loved.

  “But didn’t you see the papers, Mr. Hollis?” Troy asked. “Derek, show him.”

  The bigger of the two Defenders shrugged and reached under his chair to pull out the morning paper. It was the first time I had seen it, and so despite myself I walked closer to get a good view.

  Bloody Christ. Well, Lily had called it a money shot. My hat had fallen off, and my hair was flying as I apparently tossed a vampire over my shoulder. His mouth was open comically wide and mine held an expression that would not be out of place on an avenging goddess. Daddy looked impressed despite himself.

  “When did that happen, sweetie?” he asked.

  “This morning,” I mumbled.

  “But you didn’t pop none of them, I bet.”

  “Daddy!”

  Daddy turned to Troy. His smile was strange, disdainful with an edge of fondness.

  Troy looked bizarrely disappointed. “Is that true, Zephyr?” It was almost flattering to think that he’d wanted me back in his Defenders so badly.

  “I just need you fellas to . . .
delay for a while. Give me a week.”

  “What for?” That was Derek, looking suspicious.

  “I have a . . . side job I’m doing for someone. It sort of requires the Turn Boys to be alive for the next few days, right?”

  “Is this some kind of trick?” Derek said. “I heard you were working for them. Some buddies of mine have seen you around that gin joint of theirs the past few days.”

  Oh, great. Now Daddy and Troy looked at me like they’d found out I was selling babies. “I’m not working for them. Exactly. Well, Nicholas thinks I’m teaching him his letters, but really I’m spying on him for this job I was telling you about, see?”

  Troy crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the table. “Well, it appears we’re on opposite sides of this, then, Zephyr. I’m afraid there’s no way the client will permit us to delay the strike.”

  Daddy frowned at me. “These Boys are nasty, Zephyr. I know you think suckers are just like us, but these guys are different. This damn wog of yours needs to learn to take care of himself.”

  “Daddy, you sound like an ignorant yokel. I’m perfectly capable of making my own—”

  He stood up and tossed the gun to the floor. I winced, but the safety held. “Oh, I can see that! Rolling around in the hay with genies, teaching gangsters to read . . . vampire suffragette, they call you. Is that it, Zephyr? You just want the monsters to take over all of us and destroy our country?”

  Daddy finished this with a very effective shake of his head and deep, bone-weary sigh. It made me furious. “You are the most self-absorbed, ignorant—”

  Troy apparently decided this was too much. “Now, now, Zephyr, this is your father—”

  “—pigheaded,” I continued, even more loudly, “bigoted, small-minded little man I’ve ever known. It is none of your damn business why I do what I do, but I’ll have you know it has piss-all to do with destroying the country!”

  “Well, you’re giving a damn good impression of it, sweetie,” said Daddy, with such mildness that I wanted to stomp my foot like a little girl.

  “There are ways to help people that don’t involve rolling in with your own little private army and blowing your problem to ribbons. Ever heard of diplomacy, Daddy? But maybe not—you did vote for Wilson, after all.”

  “So you think that Wilson should have tutored the Germans? That would’ve helped! Shown them the error of their ways, would it?” He turned to the others. “My little girl sure has some strange notions.”

  “I am not,” I said, emphasizing the negative with a pounded fist on the weapons table, “your little girl. And I’m not tutoring Nicholas to show him the error of his ways. I’m tutoring him to help someone. But what would you know about that? You boys strap on your weapons and call yourselves Defenders, but who are you really defending? Your pocketbooks, maybe. And your shrivelingly small self-conceptions.”

  “Little girl,” said Daddy, quite deliberately, “you read too damn many books. What ever this job of yours is, it’s not worth it.”

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes against his smug expression. “Daddy, Troy,” I said, when I had calmed myself, “I can only tell you that this is important to me. If you could just—”

  “Great bleeding Jesus, Zephyr, can’t you see we got better things to do than play around with you? Now, your mother told you she’d let you know when we go out. That’s got to be enough.”

  Mama caught up with me while I waited for the elevator. I smelled her before I felt the gentle tug on my sleeve. Pressed lavender, the same homemade perfume she’d worn all my life. I smiled despite myself as I turned around.

  “Dear,” she said, “your father didn’t mean all that. He’s been under a lot of stress lately. And seeing you with that genie . . .” Something in my expression made her hurry on. “You know how he always gets before a hit.”

  “But, Mama, this time the one he’s hitting is Amir. I might be his little girl, but he couldn’t care less about that.”

  At least Mama looked upset. She took my hand and squeezed it. “Maybe you’re getting a little too involved, dear. Amir seemed very concerned about you. He seemed to think you were getting in over your head. Are you, Zephyr?”

  It took me a long moment to pro cess what she was saying. “Amir . . . you’ve seen Amir? Did you go back to his apartment?”

  She laughed. “No, no, he came to see your father this morning, but John was out so I spoke to him. He has lovely manners. And he obviously cares about you, dear. He gave this to me.”

  She held out a scabbarded short-sword that took me a moment to recognize: the foreign-blessed blade that Troy had sold to Amir at discount.

  “I could tell it was unusual. Amir said I should keep it. As a gesture of his good faith, he said.”

  Well, that sounded like Amir. Give my mother a blade blessed in the tradition most likely to kill him. “That was nice of him,” I managed.

  “I don’t want anything bad to happen to him, either, Zephyr. I promise, as soon as I know when your daddy’s moving out, I’ll tell you. I think you still have a few days.” Her mouth twisted a little. “I don’t think Troy’s mysterious client has paid his last installment.”

  I had to laugh. “Well, that would hold things up, now, wouldn’t it?” The elevator arrived and I signaled for the operator to hold the doors. “Thanks, Mama,” I said, kissing her cheek. “I guess I’ll keep trying.”

  I needed to ditch the subtle approach with Nicholas and the Turn Boys. I didn’t have time to waste trying to prize clues out with memory games. I was jittery with nerves by the time I sat down in the dimly lit back room. Nicholas looked better than he had yesterday, but I wondered if it was because he’d indulged in less Faust the night before, or just more fresh blood this morning. His cheeks were as rosy as the Nutcracker’s.

  A general lack of good ideas coupled with panic made me an utterly useless spy for the first half of our lesson. On the other hand, I was a tolerably good tutor, and Nicholas applied himself. We went through the rest of the alphabet almost painlessly, and he wrote his letters backward only about a quarter of the time. I took a primer from my bag that I had borrowed from Chrystie Elementary and helped him struggle through his first words, then his first sentence.

  “Blessed are the . . . pure at . . . heart,” he said triumphantly, after a battle of perhaps five minutes. But the smile fell from his face like an ill-handled soufflé when the meaning caught up with his reading. “That’s a dumb sentence,” he said. “Who needs the Bible, anyway, Charity? What good’s it gonna do me?” I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. Turning so young had obviously damaged his mind, and I had a feeling that Rinaldo had left even more wreckage there before that.

  Nicholas had started rocking gently back and forth. His gaze was fixed at some point past my shoulder.

  “Too dark in here,” he muttered. “A flat. The trains all got a flat.”

  “Where are you?” I whispered.

  But he blinked and then stared at me, as though startled to find me so close. “What, you wanna kiss me, Charity?”

  The contrast between his childish voice and leering eyes made me rock back in my chair. Nicholas probably would have continued in that vein, but at that exact moment Charlie poked his head into the room. He was so pale that in the dim light his head seemed to float disembodied. His hands shook a little, like an old man’s.

  “Nick,” Charlie said, his voice rasping. “Kathryn’s here. Won’t leave unless she talks to you.”

  Nicholas frowned. “I’m fucking busy, Charlie. Tell her to blow off.”

  Kathryn had apparently heard this response, because her voice now pierced our inner sanctum. “You come out here now, you scum, you dirty ungrateful piece of slime!” Her voice—high-pitched, but melodious—broke. I could hear her sobs. “Come here!” she cried again.

  Nicholas strode through the door and closed it firmly shut behind him. I was at the doorknob a second later. I turned it carefully, hoping to peek through the crack to the sce
ne in the bar, but instead I had a view of Charlie’s corduroy pants. I could just barely make out a swath of feminine blue fabric if I peered between his legs. Fashionably cut, I surmised, from the simple fact that the hem appeared to be more than five inches from the floor. Kathryn, whoever she was, whispered furiously to Nicholas, but emotion made few of her words audible.

  “. . . you must tell me . . .” I heard.

  I strained to hear more clearly, but the conversation remained largely unintelligble. After a moment I stepped away from the door. So much for discovering his secrets that way.

  I paused. Maybe he stored important Turn Boys paraphernalia in this room, in addition to broken instruments. I scrambled off the floor and scanned the walls.

  I could still hear the stream of disjointed whispers as I located a set of wooden boxes shoved underneath the broken player piano. I pulled one out and lifted the top. Dust scattered and I held the edge of my green jacket over my nose to stop the sneeze. Lily was going to kill me. I quickly thumbed through the haphazard stacks of papers inside.

  Music. Modern jazz, strangely enough, given that Nicholas seemed to have his grounding in a classical repertoire. Maybe these belonged to someone else? Joplin, Gershwin, Goodman, Armstrong . . . well, I’d like to visit what ever gin joint would play all this, but it didn’t tell me anything at all about Rinaldo. I replaced the top and pulled out the second box.

  “Get out of here!” Nicholas was yelling. “You’re just a whore. Get out, you puttana.”

  Kathryn let out a wail that made me shudder. My God, what had happened to her? Why was Nicholas being so cruel? Could it be a lovers’ quarrel? “Please, please,” she begged, her voice so abject that I had to tune it out. I didn’t have much time left, and couldn’t afford to pay attention to the scene inside.

  This second box held even stranger papers. Old maps of Manhattan, some dating back to the 1890s, with certain streets and buildings marked with indecipherable symbols. As I flipped through I started to notice a pattern: the areas with the most markings seemed to represent an area of Rinaldo’s current activity. I even saw one mark that represented the Beast’s Rum. These must be some of Rinaldo’s old plans for his crime operations. Maybe even schedules and drop-off points and smuggling routes. Maybe, if I was lucky, a secret palace fit for a vampire.