like a promise, even though it isn’t one. When we emerge from said shrubbery, I create a discreet distance whereby he can follow after. Some sort of porter or a servant, it doesn’t matter so long as he’s beneath me, he isn’t legally allowed to be in Oregon at all. Meanwhile, I’m still tasting him, and my lips are flushed and warm. We turn on Southwest Salmon Street. It’s a busy thoroughfare, muddying the slender drizzle with bustle and noise. For a little while the mere idea of Max behind me drowns out everything else. But then the cloud relents and it’s just air again, and I notice a building that looks much grander than most of the city hereabouts.
“What on earth is this, the courthouse?”
“Might as well be,” Max’s voice growls. “That there’s the Arlington Club. Anybody what thinks they’s anybody belongs to that place.”
It escapes me for a moment. The association.
But then it hits me square in the kisser.
“I know what I can do!” I exclaim.
“Come again?” Max questions. But for once, I’m paying him no mind.
“I’m the wrong person, though.”
“Alice, you better be joshing me, because I ain’t in no mood to piece your brains back together.”
Mrs. Muriel Snider. From the train. My cabinmate.
Mrs. Snider said that her husband was a member of the Arlington Club.
I glance behind me. “We have to get back to the hotel so I can become who I was on the train. You recall Mrs. Muriel Snider?”
He looks like he’s ignoring a pungent smell. “Can’t say as I cottoned to her.”
“Neither did I, not the smallest thread did I cotton to her, but her husband belongs to the Arlington Club, and if I pump her, I could tell you what the aristocracy think of Davy’s disappearance. If they’re thinking of it at all, that is. Don’t you suppose some of the Arlington Club lot are Klannish, and don’t you suppose they chat with their wives?”
I can finally accomplish something other than surviving a bullet wound and whistling “Dixie.”
When we arrive back at the Paragon Hotel, we duck into the alley. I pull open the kitchen door, and I’m not halfway inside before I can’t help but overhear a conversation.
“It’ll pass,” says Rooster’s rumbling bass.
“But it’s so unfair,” answers Miss Christina in a voice I’ve never heard from her before. Plaintive, desperate even.
I push backward and Max pauses, easing the door closed. This provides me with the dual advantage of eavesdropping and gripping Max by the shirtfront even though just now, I can’t enjoy it fully. Quelque waste.
“Soon enough all this’ll pass us by,” Rooster intones. “We’re the bridge, remember? Just let the water slide on past.”
Miss Christina, to my shock, sounds almost tearful. “I’m just considerable tired of waiting.”
The inner door flip-flaps open. As Miss Christina and Rooster fall silent, Max coughs and kicks the door behind him so it appears we’re arriving at the same time. It’s inelegant, but I dearly hope the duo in the kitchen doesn’t notice that.
“Hello, all,” I trill, entering the room. “Are we interrupting? I was just getting a bit of air.”
Three Paragon residents view me with positively sprightly skepticism. Miss Christina, whose ropy forearms are tense with frustration—and who I could swear just shoved a letter in her apron. Rooster, whose impressive bulk is as still as a monument. And Mavereen, who just arrived, greying hair wound into a perfect corkscrew beehive despite her lack of sleep—which if I hadn’t heard about it from Max would be evidenced by the lines of grief bracketing her full mouth.
“Miss James.” Mavereen sighs. “I hope you’ll forgive me for that sorry display. Can’t say as I approve of Blossom running her head into trouble like that, but it weren’t your doing. I’m real glad you’re safe.”
Safe. If only.
“Thank you.”
Rooster checks his watch, turns, and leaves the kitchen. Miss Christina slits her eyes at us before going back to her bubbling pot.
What on earth did we just witness?
“Must’ve run into Max here when he was getting Wednesday Joe, I reckon,” Mavereen continues dryly.
“She did, and I done already told her I’m tired of fetching that boy back where he belongs,” Max agrees in admirably irritable style. “Anyway. ’Scuse the change of subject, but Alice here has an idea she wants to try out, needs to gussy herself up. I’ll give you the goods while she changes. Over a drink, I hope to Christ.”
“Language, young man,” Mavereen scolds, slapping his arm. “You best believe I won’t stand for it, you