arm that holds my reticule, I press the other wrist between my eyes. “Beastly ones. And like an idiot, I left home without . . . well, without anything practical. Just my money and my keys and powder. So now I’ll have to go home, and I was to meet a fellow here, and now . . . God, I’m sorry. . . . Now I’ve ruined everything.”
“Not yet, you haven’t! One of the girls upstairs might have something.”
“Do you really think so? I can pay for it. For anything—laudanum or, or maybe a headache powder? I’d be simply the most grateful girl in history.”
“Just wait right here.”
I intend to.
The instant she’s gone, I slide into a forest of coats. Fox furs, woolen overcoats, cape-backed numbers. There may well be another girl working for tips, so I haven’t long. But I don’t need long. My fingers skip over an ermine shoulder wrap, a duster, a tweed, and then.
Straight flush, ace high, and the casino erupts in applause.
There isn’t much light in here, but it’s definitely Officer Overton’s trench coat. The lining tells me that he smoked a cigar on the way here and the stitching and fabric inform me that this isn’t some cut-rate factory copy of a gentleman’s garment, it’s the straight goods. Not more than two years old. So Overton greeted Prohibition’s arrival as doth the wandering tribes manna from heaven.
I’d be annoyed about that, but hypocrisy makes me itchy. I move onto the outer pockets: matches, keys, and a few odd coins in the left. Two crumpled receipts for laundering in the right. I’m hemorrhaging time, seconds spilling through my fingers onto the worn carpeting, but then I spear my hand inside the garment, fumbling for the inner pockets, and on the left side, hey presto.
A gun.
That’s not part of the uniform for police. But it’s all the rage for feds, bootleggers, and the coppers who pay their bills skimming off hard-earned profits from fermented refreshments. It’s a Smith & Wesson M&P .38 caliber Special. I sniff the barrel, pop open the cylinder. Clean. Well-oiled. Six virgin bullets.
Fast as fox-trotting, I plunge my hand into the last pocket, which is the right inner. A piece of paper. It’s folded in quarters, edges soft as if they’ve been much handled.
When I open it, I fight the urge to tear it in awfully minute pieces.
Not that the contents surprise me. It’s a flyer for a concert here in Portland, dated some years previous. Standing in full-feathered regalia, with her face flung back and her arm outstretched as if she’s plucking a star from the sky, is an illustration of Blossom Fontaine, the headliner.
Voices. I start to duck out—but there isn’t time. Replacing the revolver, I take two long strides toward a hanger on the opposite wall and snatch my salvation from it, turning to face the music.
“Whatever are you doing in there?” the coat-check sweetheart demands. “Well, never mind, now I’ve caught you! Nasty trick, sending me off while you pickpocket our—”
“No!” Aghast, I clutch the coat to my bosom. “This is my own coat! I was just terribly desperate once you’d gone, and I wanted to check my pockets. And now I’ve gone and made you angry—see here’s the ticket—oh, I could just kick myself down the stairs, I—”
“All right, all right.” She sighs. “Here, I scared up morphine tablets. She wants two bits for them.”
I pay four instead and stage a strategic retreat. When I reach the bar, carefully distant from the long arm of the law, I request more of the bubbly goods and take the morphine, because my stitches really are starting to buck the reins.
Taking a deep breath, I look about me.
Ruby-toned light, painting the thickening crowds. Clinking of glasses, chattering of socialites, snap-clack of gambling chips, the intoxicating whirr of the roulette wheel. Blossom at the forefront. Arms wide now, making an ebony cross of herself, telling the rest of us what shattered hopes sound like.
Smile the while you kiss me sad adieu
When the clouds roll by I’ll come to you . . .
“May I beg a word, Miss James?”
Since I’m a positive ninny of a Nobody this evening, I startle again, nearly dropping the champagne. Lucius Grint deftly cups my hand. His mustaches twitch like the antennae of a grasshopper, and you could pluck out “Dixie” on his nerves.
“Oh, Mr. Grint!” I make a few pathetically humorous gestures at the flute, ordering it to stay. “Isn’t Blossom just an absolute peach of