“What do you mean, you saw his ghost?” I ask, wondering if Merle spotted Howard somewhere, if Bridges is holding him somewhere.
“In the audience,” Merle whispers. “His chair was empty. Like a ghost. He’s dead. I just know he’s dead.” He starts to sob, but quietly, someone who’s had to hide crying his whole life. I take out a handkerchief and give it to him, but he doesn’t even move his hand to take it. “He was supposed to be my Galahaut. He was supposed to save me.”
“We don’t know he’s dead yet,” I say quietly. We’re alone, I realize. This could be my only chance to ask him anything before Bridges comes back. “I’m still trying to find him. I need to save him.”
“No, no,” he says quickly. “Galahaut doesn’t need saving. Only Lancelot. He saves him.”
“Well, maybe he’s more like Arthur, then,” I try.
“No, Arthur never needed saving.” His voice drifts off, and he looks at the floor. “Who will rescue me now?”
“I’m still trying to find him,” I say, reassuring as I can. “He might still rescue you. Did you know Joe? Howard’s friend, the other mobster. Do you know where he is?”
Merle stares at me, but it’s like he’s looking through me. I’m not even sure he’s heard me until he shakes his head. “Never really knew him. Howard said he was nice, but we didn’t talk about him much.”
“You don’t think they were lovers?” I ask carefully.
His eyes focus immediately, bullets fired right at me. “No,” he hisses. “Howard would never.”
The door opens and Merle’s whole body shudders. Bridges walks in and looks between the two of us, confused. He’s holding a glass of ice water, which he brings to Merle.
“You all right?” he asks.
Merle is demure, his eyes fluttering closed again, then open. They’re not on fire anymore. His face is practically slack.
“I don’t know what happened,” he says to his uncle. “I didn’t feel well, and then I got dizzy, and…”
Bridges nods. “You’ve been working too hard. You sing all night, you practice all day. You gotta rest, kid.” He looks genuinely worried. His mask is gone, and he’s softer without it, older. He seems to remember I’m in the room and turns back to me, the mask slowly falling back into place, but uncomfortable now. He doesn’t like me seeing him like this. He doesn’t want me here. “Thanks, Andy,” he says, and nods.
I nod back. “Feel better, Merle,” I say, and turn to the door. There’s a dressing gown hanging on a hook there, and as I open it, I slip one of my cards into the pocket. The one with the address, but no name. Hopefully, he’ll know it was me—it doesn’t look like anyone else comes in here. It’s a risk, but this way at least he’ll know he can reach out. I have to help this kid—either to get out, or to get help somewhere far away from where he could hurt people, if that hardness I just saw drove him to kill. I’ve seen that kind of hardness. I think I was close to having it myself, back when I was a cop. So paranoid and scared that I would have done anything to protect whatever made me happy—if I’d had anything that did. Merle had his fairy tale with Howard. Without it, he’s collapsing inward, a tree hollowed out from the inside, eaten away by rot.
Outside in the casino, everything has gone back to normal. The band is playing over the clatter of dice and roulette, people are murmuring, shouting, pleading with Lady Luck to change just one thing. Just like Merle must be doing—just one thing. I wonder if the one thing is bringing Howard back from wherever he is, or making himself no longer interested in men. Bridges, too, if he knows, asking for just one thing—for his nephew not to be a fairy. Everyone is hoping for something. I push my way out amongst the gamblers, out into the street, where the rain has turned earnest, falling in fat drops on the brim of my hat, then sliding off in thin strands like a spiderweb.
At the Ruby, the rain hasn’t kept people away. Coming here after the Shore Club is like sitting down by the fire after a day in the snow. It’s warm and crowded, the place already smelling like gin, perfume, and that lipstick smell again. Lee is on stage, singing “Till I Waltz Again With You” as couples slow dance across the floor.
Both the Ruby and the Shore Club are illegal, for different reasons. People go to both these clubs because they’re desperate, though—all that changes is what they’re desperate for, and how the place gives it to them. The Shore Club doles out luck and winnings on whim, if ever, making people come back, but the Ruby is generous with what people need. Here, we’re all in it together. Lee is at the mic in a blue dress, looking out over the crowd like she’s their mother. She’s making them feel safe. Making them feel loved. And she loves doing it.
If Merle could sing at a place like this, I wonder if he’d be more like that. Or at least not so scared. He’s got a great voice, he’d be good here. I’m not sure he could ever break away, though. It would be too dangerous—if any mobster ever saw him again, and reported back to Bridges … like me and the cops. When I was working for the police, I broke myself in two, became two shadows instead of a person. Merle seems to have done the opposite, and gathered himself up like too much fabric, trying to wrap it around himself over and over, getting lost in it, feeling so much he faints.
I breathe it in as I sit at the bar. Gene isn’t here. Instead, Pat is behind the bar. He’s got a towel over one shoulder, and is wearing his butler’s outfit—black vest, white shirt—running around making drinks. He’s smiling, flirting a little, too. He’s always been good-looking, even though he’s close to sixty, with a lot of his dark hair streaked with silver, but it’s his smile that always made Pat most attractive. It’s welcoming, reassuring. It feels like the smile of an old friend, even when you first meet.
I take a seat by the bar, and wait for him to come over. He finishes a few other orders first, then sidles up with a smile. “What’ll it be, stranger?” he asks.
“The feds don’t have the list,” I tell him.
His face, already smiling, starts to melt, the slow melt of candle wax, from his professional smile to relief so intense he might cry. He puts his elbows up on the bar to cradle his face for a moment and I sling my hand around the crook of his arm.
“It’s okay,” I say. “It’s okay.”
He looks up, his eyes red. “So Rina is safe? I can go home?”
I take a deep breath. “Rina is safe. Yes. But … the mob may still have the list—or have Howard. They could reach out to blackmail you.”
He snorts a laugh. “How?”
“By threatening to tell your employers about you … and if your employers don’t seem to care…”
“So I’d have to pay, to protect them.”
“Yes. Which is why I think it makes sense for you to stay here, just a little longer, until I finish this up.”
He nods. “All right. Yes. That makes sense. We have to tell them, though. Elsie … she’s not back yet. Pearl found a book we missed cleaning up, one of her Sappho translations, and she called in a panic, so Elsie drove up there to take it. She should be back soon. We can tell her, and then we can tell the family.”
“Okay,” I say. “That sounds like a good plan.” I look around the bar, the red wallpaper like a warm fireplace. “You know where Gene is?”
“Elsie sent him home early, said he looked tired.”
“Oh.” I try not to sound too disappointed. He must have looked really tired for her to send him home. Maybe I should call him. I hate not telling him about my day, not hearing about his, and he seemed pretty upset about the delivery guy this morning. But if he was tired, and he’s sleeping now, I don’t want to wake him, either. “There was this delivery guy this morning … he seemed upset. Say anything about that to you?”
Pat shakes his head. “He was working most of the day. He had to show me the ropes, and then he was calling up liquor places … I didn’t understand why, to be honest. But he was also so helpful in getting a list together of places I can stay instead of Elsie’s—friendly YMCAs and the like. He knew a dozen of them. He’s clever, your boyfriend.”
“Yeah.” I realize I’m smiling. “So you got along?”
“He’s great,” Pat says. “Good boss, too. Wasn’t hovering or anything. And funny. He’s very funny. But he was also tired, I could tell. Especially after all those calls he was making.”
I hold my smile, but feel a little sad for a moment, knowing Pat got so much time with him, and I didn’t. It’s a silly thought, though, and I try to brush it away.
Lee finishes her song to a long round of applause, curtseys, and then walks offstage, over to me, where Pat sets a drink down in front of her.
“Thank you, sweetie,” Lee says to Pat. “I hope you stay for a while. Gene makes a great martini, but your gin fizz beats his.”
“The secret is extra gin,” Pat says. Someone down the bar calls out to him, and he dashes off to make another drink.
Lee turns to me and looks me up and down. “You live upstairs, you could go dry off before sitting down.”
“I didn’t want to miss a note,” I say.
She sips her drink, smiling. “Save some of that for Gene.”
“He went home. Apparently Elsie thought he looked tired.”
“He did,” Lee says.
“There was this delivery guy he was arguing with earlier,” I say. “I tried to help but … maybe it wasn’t enough.”
“Maybe.” She shrugs, her emerald earrings catching the light. “I know it’s been rough for him, taking over. People don’t take him seriously.”
I nod. “Because he’s not white. That was this asshole.”
“Exactly.”
“I just wish I could help more. I want to … I hated the way that guy was talking to him.”
“He can handle it. That’s part of the job for him, and he knows it. Same as for all of us.”
“I’m just even more upset he’s not here for me to try cheering him up.”
She tilts her head back and laughs loudly. “You can cheer him up, can you? Because you’re such a cheerful guy?”
I snicker. “I can be cheerful. When I’m with Gene, anyway.”
She rolls her eyes, but she’s grinning. “That’s almost adorable. But he should sleep. Cheer him up tomorrow. For now, tell me how the case is going.”
Part of my deal with Lee is that I tell her all about the cases I’m working on. She loves crime stories, and issues of Inside Detective aren’t nearly as exciting as knowing a real live PI. So, in soft whispers that others at the bar can’t hear, I tell her—about Merle, and the look in his eyes; Joe, the missing and possibly gay mobster; DeeDee, and her lying about where she’d been; and Bridges, who admired Joe, but doesn’t want to talk about him. And then I tell her about Howard, and his letters—his friends, readers, the family he built with just ink on paper. We drink as I tell her, and she asks questions, and around us the club dances, the red wallpaper barely visible from the people.
“Yeah, Howard loves to talk books,” Lee says, staring at her drink, now mostly empty.
“Reading all those letters, I sort of feel like I should read more.”
“You should.” She waves at Pat, who brings over a fresh drink. “Why don’t you?”
I shrug. “I was never the type, I guess.”
“Types change. You prove that more than most.”
I stare out at the room. Two women dance by, nearly right in front of us, both in long dresses, one throwing her head back in a laugh. In their clasped hands is a lit cigarette, I don’t know whose.
“Pat lent me this book, months ago, The Homosexual in America.”
“You still haven’t returned it,” Pat says. “But you can keep it. I bought another.”
Lee laughs. “Pat, you seem like a very nice man, and you are an excellent bartender, but look at him.” She points at me, still dripping wet. “Look at this man. Does this seem like a man who wants to read a harrowing autobiography about the injustices people like us face every day?”
“It’s an important book,” Pat says. “And when I gave it to him he … needed perspective.”
Lee tilts her head. “That may be. But he doesn’t read.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“We need to find him a more introductory book. Something compelling without being dense.”
“Something fun.” Pat nods in agreement. He turns to me, at least one of them remembering I’m right next to them. “Try The City and the Pillar, by Gore Vidal. It’s about a young man just sleeping his way around the country.”
I laugh. “You think that’s the sort of book I should start on?”
“Yes,” Lee says simply. “Perfect choice.” She smiles at Pat, then turns back to me. Pat spots another customer and goes to make another drink.
“I don’t know if that’s the right book…”
“What, you want a fairy tale, like Merle?” Lee asks. “You won’t buy in to those. Though it sounds like Merle does. Like he’s having a hard time separating truth from fiction, waiting to be rescued by his knight.”
“Yeah.” I shake my head and light a cigarette. “Sounds like Howard never read him this memoir.” The smoke from my cigarette tastes soft, grassy, and smells like a fireplace.
“Joe’s memoir,” Lee says. “I think you’re right about that. I’d love to read it. Sure, Bridges told you about Joe, but you never got an ending.”
I nod and tap my cigarette into the bar ashtray. “Yeah, I’m hoping I can figure out Howard’s story, too.”
“DeeDee told you plenty of those, right? She talks so much there’s too many stories, but she told you about who Howard was, about growing up with him.”
“We all tell stories,” I say, watching the dancing couple again. The cigarette was both of theirs, apparently. One woman takes a drag and then places it in the mouth of the other, both of them still dancing as she does so. “Tell them to ourselves, mostly. Those are always the easiest lies to pick out, the ones people keep telling themselves.”
Lee shrugs, slow, elegant, her shoulders like slow waves, and lays one hand flat on the bar. “I don’t think lies are the same thing. These are stories of who they want to be.” One finger of her hand on the bar curls up. “How they want people to see them.” Then another. “You write them all the time for our matchmaking clients.” Another finger curls. “And when you call your mother.” She arches an eyebrow and lifts the hand to her drink. Lee has heard me on the phone when my mother has called. She sips, watching me.
“Isn’t that just a fancy way of saying a lie?” I ask. The Ruby is packed with liars now, their energy steady, joyful. Because they’re not liars here. Here they tell the truth, or something closer. They laugh and dance and drink and tell the truth. I look out at all of them and think of the letters and the truths in those, too.
Lee shrugs again and sips her drink. “What’s the truth, then? What’s a true story?”
I think about what Rose had said before. “There’s a reporter,” I say, turning back to Lee. “She’s bumped into me at city hall and has been hounding me during this case—useful, because her ex-husband works at the post office, so she got me a little information, but…”
“A reporter?” She narrows her eyes. “That’s dangerous, Andy.”
“I know. I’m … handling it best I can. But I couldn’t shake her, so…”
“So you’re telling her a story.”
I nod. “One that protects everyone. Hopefully one too boring to print.”
“That’s quite a gamble.”
“I didn’t feel like I had any other choice. She was going to look into the bookshop even more if I didn’t help her.” I shake my head. “It’s like she was waiting for me in the DA’s office.”
“Reporters sniff out stories—and like I said, there are a bunch going around. Including yours.”
I laugh. “Mine?”
“I’d read that book,” Lee says, raising her glass in a toast.
“It would be pretty short and boring. And if my name were on it…” I sigh.
“Yeah. That’s why she’s dangerous. But she’s right to think there’s a story in you. You just have to make sure she never finds it out.”
“I think by working with her, I’ve got her under control. I’m going to tell her the case is cracked, I was just investigating a shakedown, and with her help, we know the threat was toothless, so I just…” I shrug. “I dunno, I told the blackmailer off.”
“Say you punched him, that’ll make it even more boring.” She nods at the idea.
“It will?”
“Former cop turned dirty detective?” She raises her hand like she’s printing out a headline in the air. “That’s an old story. No one cares about that.”
I frown, thinking of people seeing me that way. “I’ve been working hard not to be that guy…”
“I know. But it’s the safer thing to tell her. Be a dime-a-dozen PI and she’ll think there’s nothing there. Don’t let your pride get in the way. You know who you really are. And so does everyone who matters to you, right?”
“I hope so.” Especially Gene. I swallow, thinking of him seeing me as the kind of PI who beats people up and takes the kind of dirty photos that ruined his life. I wish he were here to weigh in on this. I sip my drink. “Right,” I say. “People who matter will know the real me.” I hope.
“They will. It’s the smart play. A boring story.”
I nod and take my notebook out of my pocket and flip to the page with the notes on Howard’s letters. “So, you know any of these names? They were the ones I noticed in the letters. Joes, and Js, and Arthur who mentioned a casino.”
Lee looks over the list, frowning.
“And do you know what a milliner is?”
She throws her head back and laughs. “Hats, Andy. Ladies’ hats. And if it’s a gay J milliner, it’s probably Joshua Cantor, he has a place on Eddy Street. Does a decent business, though he’s no Mr. John.”
“Okay … so not Joe.”
“No.” She laughs, looking over the rest of the list. “I know a lot of Arthurs, but none who I’ve heard of frequenting casinos, and these other Joes … you only have two last names.”
“A lot of the letters were on plain stationery, nothing personal, and the envelopes were all mixed up, I don’t even know if they’re all connected.”
She nods. “Well, of these two, I don’t know Joe Pucci. Maybe he’s not in San Francisco, or just doesn’t leave the house much. I do know Joseph Woolfrey, though—he’s definitely not a mobster.”
“What is he?”
“A bore.”
I laugh. “Sure that’s not just a front?”
“He works as a personal aide for an old woman just outside the city. Holds her purse when she goes shopping, cleans the house, that kind of thing. He talks about nothing else. If it’s a cover story for his secret mob life, it’s very convincing.”
“All right, I’ll put him low on the suspects-who-could-be-Joe list.”
“If he’s still alive,” Lee says.
“Yeah, if that.”
“I’ll ask around—if anyone dated a mobster, I’m sure people would be talking about it, even in whispers.”
“Thanks, Lee. If you can find him, that would be a big help.”
Lee grins. “What kind of girl Friday would I be if I weren’t a big help?”
“Still the best I got. But be careful, okay? There’s a chance Joe changed his mind about the book getting out there, and he would be upset to find out people are asking about it.”
Her face flickers for a moment, serious, and she nods. Then a fan comes up to Lee, and she smiles, and he asks to buy her a drink, which she allows, chatting with him for a little bit. I watch and try not to think about how the day has gone—the chief, Rose. I look across the bar and hope Gene will be there, reaching out for my hand with his cold fingers. But he’s sleeping, and he needs it. And I need to focus on what to do next for the case. Maybe DeeDee can help me find Joe—she must have known something about him, about the book, even if she doesn’t know it. I’ll try her again tomorrow, and see why she lied about when she got into town, too.
“You look almost as tired as your boyfriend,” says a voice behind me. I turn around, and it’s Elsie. She’s understated tonight, in a black suit, and if anyone looks tired around here, it’s her.
“It’s been a long day,” I say. “How is the family?”
“Worried. Any progress?”
“Yes.” I look back to the bar, and motion Pat over so he can be there when I say it to Elsie. “The feds don’t have the list. The only way Mrs. Purley gets it is if the Mafia sells it to her, and I’m pretty sure Mrs. Purley wouldn’t deign to do business with the mob. If they even have it.”
Elsie breaks out in a smile of relief that makes me feel lighter. “Oh, that’s good.” She turns to Pat, and reaches across the bar to hug him. “That’s really good.”
“Yeah, but the mob hasn’t been ruled out yet. And Howard is still missing. Which means they might try to blackmail Pat…”
“So I’m going to stay here a little while longer, if it’s okay with you,” Pat says to Elsie.
“Of course it is,” she says, smiling. “Pat, you’re family, too. I know it’s Pearl who says that all the time, tells you you’re family, and you, too, Andy. But … we all feel it. You working for us … that’s just so we can take care of you like you take care of us.”
I smile, and meet eyes with Pat. I know he’s thinking the same thing—that Elsie believes what she’s saying, even if she doesn’t quite understand that it’s not the same.
“Still,” I say, “I wish I had better news. Howard back safe and sound, the list in his pocket.”
“I wish you had that, too, but this will be good enough news that when I tell Margo and the rest of them they’ll feel relieved. In fact, let’s go call them together.”
“Isn’t it late?” I ask.
“Didn’t you hear me? None of them are sleeping. This will help.” She motions for me and Pat to follow.
Pat looks around. “Gene is off, so I’m the only…”
“Oh, right,” Elsie says. “Damn.”
“Go tell them without me,” Pat says. “Tell them … I’m sorry. I’m glad it’s better now, though. And … I’ll be home soon, if they’ll still have me.”
“Of course they will,” Elsie says. “Though honestly, you’re a great bartender. How much do they pay you? Think I can beat it?”
Pat laughs, waving us off. “Go tell them.”
Elsie gives the bar a quick survey before walking out, and I follow her upstairs to my office, where she calls the house. Margo picks up and Elsie puts her cheek next to mine, the phone on both our ears as she talks.
“Who is calling this late?” Margo asks, her voice iron. “It’s incredibly inappropriate and—”
“It’s me, baby.”
“Oh.” Margo’s tone immediately turns softer.
“I have Andy, he says it’s not the post office.”
There’s a long breath through the receiver, so soft I think it could just be static at first.
“Really?” Margo asks, finally.
“Really,” I say. “We haven’t ruled out the mob yet—I’m working on if they even know the list exists or something else is going on—but I talked to a guy at the post office. They don’t know anything about the book service.”
“Okay,” Margo says.
“That’s great, right?” Elsie asks.
“It is … let me … everyone is still wandering the house … I’m in the living room, smelling flowers—oh, here’s Pearl. It’s Andy and Elsie. They say the feds don’t have the list.”
“Oh, gracias a Dios,” I hear Pearl’s voice say in the background, and I can picture her face, the way she takes a deep breath of relief, bending over slightly. “I’ll go let everyone know.”
“Maybe we’ll actually get some sleep tonight,” Margo says. “Thanks, Andy. Now get your ear off the phone so I can say something private to Elsie.”
I step away and watch Elsie smile silently, listening for a moment.
“You too,” she says, before hanging up, and turning to me. “See? They needed that. I think she was falling asleep as she hung up.”
“I doubt that, based on your smile.”
She shrugs. “I’m going to sleep, too. And so should you.”
“I will. But one other thing first: the number for my office—the one on my cards—that’s unlisted, right? No one can find this place from it?”
“The phone company, maybe. Why? You give your card to someone you shouldn’t have?”
“Yep.”
She looks me up and down. “Well, I’m sure you had your reasons.”
“I did. But maybe, if you can, call the company up and see exactly what someone could find out if they wanted.”
She crosses her arms. “What kind of someone?”
“Ah … a reporter. And my old police chief.”
Her arms drop and she closes her eyes. “Andy.”
“The chief got it off someone he picked up, found it in his pocket. We knew that was possible.”
“That’s why we have the ones without your name.”
“I know, but some people get the ones with the name, some without. He says he won’t trace it as long as I don’t talk to the reporter.”
Her arms drop with her jaw. “The one you gave your card to?” Her voice is loud. She’s not wrong. I’m taking too many chances.
“Better she thinks we’re working together and I have nothing to hide. But you might want to call the phone company and find out what kind of privacy they have.”
She sighs, glaring at me for a while, but finally nods. “Fine. I’ll do it in the morning. But Andy—”
“I know. I don’t like it either. But it was the best of a lot of bad options. And everyone knows what kind of club this is—if she reports on it, it’ll be about me. Ex-cop, gay PI. And if that happens, I’ll leave. Go to LA or something.”
She sighs, suddenly looking very sad. “We’ll figure it out, if it comes to that.”
“Yeah.”
She sighs and turns around, leaving my office, but waiting in the hall. I follow, and lock up.
“Weren’t you going to bed?” I put the key in the lock of my own door.
“Just … phone company aside, good work today,” she says, wrapping her arms around me, tightly. “Thanks.”
I hug her back. “Just doing my job.”
She laughs, walking away, and calls over her shoulder, “No one is paying you.”
I smile, opening my door. Inside, I wash up and strip, then lie down in bed, and wish Gene were here again. Wish I could have at least talked to him. But then my eyes close and I’m asleep.
I’m woken by the phone ringing again. When I open my eyes I think I must have dreamed it—some nightmare about the chief again. I turn on the light and look at the clock—5:30 A.M., even earlier than yesterday.
I run across the hall half-naked again, and pick up the phone.
“Mills,” I say, my voice hoarse from lack of sleep.
“Is that how you sound when you wake up?” Rose Rainmeyer asks, sounding perky as ever—far too perky for how early it is. “You should smoke less.”
“Rose, why are you calling so early?”
“Early bird gets the worm, Andy. Or in this case, the corpse.”
“Corpse?”
“Got a call from a contact at the coroner’s—they just fished Howard Salzberger out of the bay.”