The Vaults - By Toby Ball Page 0,20
they were drinking.
She shrugged and frowned slightly, watching something across the room. She was distracted, in her own world, which tonight had Frings alternating between an anxious sadness and complete indifference. The bond between them had always been unclear. She was the chanteuse of the City’s vibrant white jazz scene. For now at least. He was a “name” reporter, stirring up trouble among the wealthy and powerful. As a couple they seemed to epitomize the glamour of the City that was at once elegant—her—and seedy—him. But while this played well as a symbol, their relationship had, from the start, been based on a mutual sense of excitement that had eroded with time. Leaving what? More and more nights like this in which they seemed only to be living lives side by side.
A tall, elegant man in a tuxedo walked over to their table. He wore his hair slicked back, and a thin mustache was barely visible against his dark, dark skin. He leaned over Nora and they exchanged kisses to each cheek. Then he shook hands with Frings.
“How are things, Frank?” said Floyd Christian, the floor manager at the Palace. Frings had known him for years. “What do you think of the band?”
“They’re hitting on all sixes,” Frings said. Floyd looked to Nora. “Nora’s not talking,” Frings explained.
She had returned to staring vacantly at the stage, blowing smoke through parted lips with practiced sensuality that by now seemed unconscious.
“Floyd, if you’ve got any reefer . . .”
Floyd gave a low laugh. “These days, I’m always holding. My cup runneth over, I think is what they say. Those headaches bothering you again?”
Frings smiled. “Not so funny when you have them.”
Floyd nodded in sympathy. “Hey, there’s something I need to tell you. Some hood was poking his nose around in here asking about you. He didn’t know from nothing but he was fishing.”
“Big guy, yellow hair, pole up his ass?”
“That’d be him.”
Smith. “Anybody say anything?”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, sorry. Of course not.”
“He official?”
“Afraid so.”
“You got yourself into one?”
Frings nodded.
“Now I see why you need that mezz. I’ll be back.”
The band took a break and Nora turned to Frings with a look that made him realize her distance that night had been less the product of indifference than anxiety. She put her hand over his, holding it. He let her, but did not move to take hers in return.
“There was someone watching me at the club last night.”
“You’re onstage—everyone’s watching you.”
“No, they’re watching the show. This man was watching me.”
“You’re thinking too much.”
“Am I?”
“How can you possibly tell, a roomful of people like that, that one particular person is watching you like . . . differently from just watching the show?”
“How many shows do you think I’ve done, Frank? I can read people in the audience. I can tell when men are thinking what it would be like to sleep with me, or to hurt me. I can see the women who are jealous or who think I’m a tramp.”
“Or who also want to sleep with you,” Frings suggested with a smile.
“Don’t be an ass. I’m serious. This was different. This wasn’t . . . I don’t know. He seemed to be there with a purpose, and it wasn’t seeing the band. He was watching me. For a reason.”
“Guy with a crush?”
Her temper flared, though Frings knew that it was triggered by fear, not anger. “People look at me every goddamn day, Frank. I have a pretty good sense of the difference between being ogled by a guy with a crush and being watched.”
Frings thought about this for a second. A woman with Nora’s beauty and fame was bound to be an object of obsession for any number of men, and she ran into that problem frequently. Frings had seen it for himself on more than one occasion. It didn’t rattle her. So if this one did, Frings figured, maybe there was something to it.
“Okay. Listen. Describe him for me.” For some reason he assumed this might be Smith. The guy was showing up everywhere lately.
“He was little and had dark skin. Like an Indian. From India.”
“Did he say anything to you?”
“No. Just hung around at the bar and watched.”
“Was he with anyone?”
“I don’t think so. Didn’t see him talk to anyone.”
She pulled her hand away from his. Cross-examination was not what she had wanted from him, Frings knew, but he did not know what else to say.
“I don’t know, Frank,” she said into her drink. “I’m off for a week, so maybe he’ll get bored