Six

Resplendent in her dark ruby-red silk gown and her mother’s shining blue sapphires, Billie returned to her office by taxicab. Despite her mother’s diversion, she got there in plenty of time for Sam’s arrival and busied herself with paperwork, leaning back in her chair with her stockinged feet up on the desk, the split in her gown falling open to just above her knee. The prospect of an interesting evening ahead made the tedium of her least favorite part of the job bearable.

It was but twenty minutes later when she heard the outer door of the office open, and the little buzzer that alerted her to visitors sounded. Her eyes went to the Bakelite clock. He was very punctual, that Sam. Billie closed her file, pulled her feet down, and slipped them into her shoes. Soon the doorway filled with the outline of one Samuel Baker. He had the kind of shoulders that could plug a doorway handsomely. He was several ax handles across, as the saying went.

“Do I pass?” he asked and turned for her.

She looked him over. “Indeed you do pass muster, Sam. The jacket fits perfectly.”

Sam wore a ready smile and Billie sensed this was a part of his job he rather enjoyed. He had on his new white double-breasted shawl-collar dinner jacket, worn over a button-down shirt, black bow tie, and satin-stripe black tuxedo pants. His shoes shone. Yes, he looked the part in his summer whites, and that was precisely why Billie had had the jacket made for him early in his employment with her. A keen amateur seamstress herself, she had good connections with tailors, some of whom owed her favors. She’d had one good day suit and one formal wardrobe made for Sam. This was the first outing for the black-tie ensemble. Far from a luxury, Sam’s wardrobe was as vital to his work for Billie as a wrench was to a plumber. They needed to be able to fit in anywhere without raising eyebrows; tonight they had to slide into the top end of town. With freshly combed hair and a sparkling white jacket, Sam looked every bit the leading man, though his gloved hand gave him a slightly dark edge, which was not entirely unwelcome considering where the trade sometimes took them. She pushed back her chair and stood, and he looked her over briefly, keeping his appraisal polite and professional. “Ms. Walker, I must say you look as pretty as a diamond.”

“You do have a way with words, Sam.” Billie smoothed down her silk dress and caught a glimpse of the shining sapphires at her throat. She dearly hoped her mother would never need to sell them, though she knew her jewelry collection was dwindling as fast as her furniture. “It’s balmy out,” she said. “Shall we walk?”

“You can walk in that?”

“Watch me.” She grabbed her stole and tossed it elegantly around her shoulders.

Billie never sacrificed mobility for style, just as she wouldn’t sacrifice style for much of anything. These were practical considerations, after all. If she didn’t look the part, she wouldn’t get far at their destination, and if she couldn’t get far in her shoes, she might miss some vital clues. She shared her mother’s belief that attractive shoes needn’t be ankle breaking. In fact, the baroness still wore the low 1920s style, which was a bit out of date for Billie’s taste. She didn’t need to do the Charleston all night; she just needed to walk four level city blocks, and who knew how much farther later on. Her shoes had a two-inch heel, a little satin bow above the toe, and fabric soles. Leather was still quite dear, having been needed for men’s boots. But equally, fabric was quiet. Billie liked quiet shoes. Not for her those clanging leather soles that announced your arrival like a marching band.

“What’s this about tonight?” Sam asked as they stepped onto the street. It would take little more than ten minutes to hit the theater district.

“Our boy was hanging around The Dancers, apparently, and spoke with a doorman. I’d like to know what he was doing there and what was said,” Billie explained.

“Really? Was he looking for a job as a dishwasher?”

“Precisely my first thought, but no. He was trying to get in as a customer, it seems.”

Sam’s eyebrows went up. “Now, I haven’t met the kid, but I reckon he’d have more success tattooing a soap bubble than getting served at The Dancers.”

Billie grinned. Sam was absolutely right, but that didn’t always stop young men from trying things, particularly if there was a girl involved.

In no time they were upon the George Street theater district, which was in full swing, most of the theaters having just let out. As they crossed Liverpool Street, Billie pushed out the crook of her elbow and Sam linked his arm with hers. A couple of actors on a mission, they walked arm in arm to the narrow Art Deco street entrance of The Dancers on Victory Lane, as the passage off George Street was colloquially known, smiling and looking for all the world like any other couple coming from the shows. A Rolls-Royce was pulling in as they neared the entry, and a uniformed doorman who was as thin as a shadow opened the door to greet a gray-haired gentleman and his somewhat younger platinum-haired female companion. “That might be our doorman,” Billie remarked under her breath, and they waited for him to turn but missed the opportunity to talk to him as he escorted the couple inside.

Sam nodded and Billie held on to his arm with imitation intimacy.

They made their way through the portal to a plush emerald-colored carpeted staircase that led to the next level. Sam stayed close at Billie’s side as they made their way past the wordless doormen guarding the entry to the main floor. The doormen bowed slightly and white-gloved hands pushed open the white-and-gold doors in well-trained unison, the ballroom opening up before them, almost blindingly white for a moment compared to the darkness of the stairway.

Billie sensed Sam’s awe as they entered.

The Dancers was one of those joints that aimed to feel international, and mostly succeeded. The walls were covered with illuminated murals of glamorous cities—Paris, Cairo, Athens—and everything from the waiters’ crisp white bow ties and dinner jackets to the palm motifs of the carpet, crockery, and napery conspired to give patrons the impression they were on an expensive holiday.

There was a slightly American feel about the place, Billie thought, not for the first time. It had probably been designed to please the US troops who’d come here with their money after ’41. It wasn’t a place a lot of Aussie diggers could afford, and the clientele these days seemed mostly to be the types who were too well connected to have seen a front line—judges, barristers, men and women of leisure, and anyone they wanted to impress. The Dancers had a reputation for catering to wealthy gentlemen on the other side of the law, too, including those who claimed to be “legitimate businessmen” despite notorious reputations. The club gave the impression of being exclusive, though as far as Billie could tell that meant they’d let in anyone with enough cash, fame, or glamour to make the place look good. If you dressed well you could get in, but if you behaved badly or didn’t like buying drinks, you wouldn’t stay long. Little wonder Adin and Maurice never made it past the second set of doors. If she could find out just why this place was of such interest to the missing boy, and imbibe a good champagne cocktail in the process, it would be an evening well spent.

They made their way past the circular dance floor, which was dotted with extravagantly adorned patrons, and came to the long bar on the other side. It seemed The Dancers, despite the name, was not really the place to carve up the dance floor. This was a place for expensive swaying, Billie decided. Or at least it was now that the war had done its work and trimmed down the customer base. She turned her back on the crowd and slid onto a stool at the gleaming bar, her silk dress settling smoothly around her hips and long legs. A crisply uniformed bartender with one of those curiously old-young faces looked to Sam for their order.

“Champagne cocktail, please,” Billie cut in before Sam could speak. The bartender tilted his head, taken by surprise, though not at all put out by her ordering her own drink.

“Whatever the lady wants, the lady shall have. And for the gentleman?”

“I’ll have a planter’s punch,” Sam said.

“Oooh, getting adventurous,” Billie teased her assistant quietly as the bartender moved away to get the ingredients he’d need.

“I have had a cocktail or two, you should know,” Sam said, slightly defensive.

She grinned mischievously. Sam was more of a beer kind of guy, but he was acting the part well enough tonight. Swiveling around on their stools, they turned their backs to the bar for a moment to take in the room from their new vantage point. The Dancers had the round dance floor as its focus, with white-clothed circular tables all around it, the majority of them taken. There was a raised stage for live bands along part of one wall to their right, which might be two musicians deep, but the focus was that floor, and when an act came on they walked out there, lit by a spotlight to captivate the room. Billie had seen a show here at the start of the year. It was top-shelf.

Billie surveyed the tables. The ones closer to the middle were especially exclusive. She recognized two judges at one such table. Gray-haired and sitting in that puffed-up way older gentlemen sometimes did, they were very familiar, but she couldn’t quite get their names to surface. Not connected with any of her recent cases, thankfully, though her mother would likely know them.

The maître d’ was fussing over another central table and drew Billie’s eye. Champagne flowed there. The real French drop, no pretenders. A well-fed and smooth customer in tails—the only tails Billie had seen so far in the joint—was brandishing a small, velvet-covered box. On one side of him a lean man wore summer whites, like Sam, but would look more at home in denim and an Akubra, astride a horse. His face was deeply lined, tanned, and weathered, as if being indoors was a habit he avoided. He seemed relaxed, and he appraised the box with faint interest, holding his coupe glass in a rough hand that almost engulfed it. Beside him was a blond woman with a somewhat fussy veil-and-flower combination on her head, reminiscent of the top of a wedding cake. She wore a glass-eyed fox fur over an apricot gown and looked positively taken with whatever was in the rotund man’s box. Gems, Billie guessed. The blonde leaned over to the grazier type and said something in his ear. He smiled languidly. A large, glittering ring flashed on her finger. A well-to-do country couple come to town for some solid spending, Billie decided.

Across from the assumed grazier, and on the other side of the tails-wearing, rosy-cheeked gentleman, was his absolute opposite: a tall, slender, pale man with almost iridescent skin and a snow-white head of hair that his body and neck looked a touch too young for. Billie caught the side of his face, and it looked strange, pulled. An honorable war wound, no doubt. A skin graft for airman’s burn, she speculated, thinking of the lift operator, John Wilson. Those damned planes had a habit of catching fire on a whim. Perhaps he was one of the lucky, unlucky ones who’d made up Dr. Archibald McIndoe’s Guinea Pig Club in Sussex? Maybe it was a plastic job. She’d seen many of those since 1945. Wars provided surgeons with an influx of test subjects and much had changed since the Great War. What a man could survive these days was remarkable. The pale man sat stiffly and sipped from his glass, holding it gently at the base in the French way, so the champagne would not warm in his hand. Beside him a fifth figure padded out the small table but seemed not to belong. It was a young brunette woman in a violet couture number. Though beautiful, the clothing had the effect of a dress-up. Had that ravishing dress been made for someone else? Billie wondered what her story was. She sat among this interesting circle of characters but looked at none of them, appearing almost bored and wishing she was elsewhere.

“If you were trying to blend in, you shouldn’t have worn that dress,” Sam commented quietly, pulling Billie’s attention back to him.

She turned swiftly, eyebrow arched. “I say, you can be an impudent young man,” she scolded playfully. “Except that you may be right. Ella said the same.” A few heads at the closer tables were craning their way, possibly drawn to that ruby red. It was better than the beaded option, though. She still felt sure about that.

“I didn’t mean—” Sam began sheepishly, and Billie waved her hand as if to change the subject, their drinks arriving just in time to close the conversation. They were still figuring each other out, she and her secretary-cum-assistant. He couldn’t always tell when she was teasing.

“Cheers,” she said to the barman, and swiveled back to her partner. “Here’s to a successful case.”

She and Sam clinked glasses, her coupe making a dainty tinkle against his larger, heavier glass. She took a delicate sip of her cocktail, which went down a treat, and soon most of it was gone, before Sam was halfway through his beverage. He raised an eyebrow at her.

“Where’d you learn to drink like that?”

Billie ignored the question, pushing her empty glass aside. “I’m going back downstairs. You hold up the bar, Sam. If I don’t come back in fifteen minutes, come and save me, hey?”

He gave her a look, as if to say, “You? Need saving?” and stayed put as she slipped away through the ballroom and down the staircase, a wisp of satiny red drawing the eyes of staff and patrons. In moments she emerged on Victory Lane and took a deep breath of the humid night air, the cocktail providing a pleasant buzz. Here the doormen were helping people out of their cars and letting them in through the beautiful Art Deco doors. She leaned against a brick wall and observed the new arrivals. Yes, everyone let into the place looked extremely well-heeled. What had Adin and Maurice been thinking?

“Miss? May I help you?”

“I just need some air,” Billie said and pulled her slim cigarette case from her handbag. The doorman stepped forward with a lighter. Sure enough, he was as lean as a greyhound, with a face almost as long, just as Maurice had described. She removed a fag, tapped the case shut, and placed the cigarette between her red lips. He lit it in a polished move.

“Thank you,” Billie said, looking up to make eye contact, sure she had found the right man and the right moment for her purposes. There was a lull in the arrivals.

“Pleasure,” he said, locking his deep brown eyes with her green-blue ones.

She reached out with her gloved hand and slid a few shillings into his. He seemed to appreciate the gesture. Tips would be generous at The Dancers, and she seemed to have picked the right amount. In seconds the tip was secreted in his coat, another well-practiced move. He’d barely broken eye contact. “You were here last weekend?” she asked casually, smiling that professional, disarming smile.

“Always am, miss. Six nights a week,” he responded cheerfully.

“Isn’t that every night they’re open here?”

“Indeed it is,” he confirmed. His smile made deep lines in his lean young face. “I didn’t see you here.”

“Do you remember a young man, curly hair, perhaps out of his depth, about seventeen?” Billie asked. “He spoke with you, as I understand it. His name is Adin.”

At this the doorman stiffened. The smile dropped. “I couldn’t say. I meet a lot of people,” he replied cautiously.

“Oh, I think you could say. You’d remember this one. He couldn’t get in.” She smiled some more and took a drag of her cigarette.

The doorman shifted uneasily. “We don’t allow minors in the club, miss.”

“Precisely.” She took another puff and let the smoke drift in the night air. The lane was still quiet, the comings and goings of patrons conveniently halted for the moment. “He spoke with you. I’d be interested in what was said,” she pressed and handed him a card. He read it over. It could be that he flushed a little, though it was hard to tell under the lighting of the entryway. She wondered why he was so cagey. If there was nothing to it, he wouldn’t respond like this. Could it be that Maurice had given her a good lead?

A shilling was in her hand, but he hesitated this time. “I’d like to help you, miss, but I don’t recall,” he said in a flat tone, looking away. But he was agitated. He could be swayed.

Sure you don’t, she thought. It wasn’t the right moment to show him the photograph. This wasn’t about that. He recalled. He recalled the boy well. “I can perhaps . . .” she began, but then his focus shifted suddenly. Billie followed his eyes. A man stepped through the front doors and looked at him; it was the round-faced man from the table she’d been watching, and though he only appeared for a moment, the doorman’s back went as straight as a board. He moved away from Billie and walked into the club, but not before their eyes met again.

He knew something. And she could get it, but not tonight.

Recognizing temporary defeat, Billie stubbed out her cigarette and sashayed up the staircase to the small ballroom, feeling eyes on her once more. The staff opened the doors for her again with their white gloves, and she spotted Sam still at the bar, surveying the room over a fresh, hefty glass. Three shillings for, on the face of it, a whole lot of nothing. She’d have to do better than that if she hoped to stay afloat. Still, there was something to it, the little woman in her gut told her. The doorman had looked scared when the round-faced man emerged. He must have been afraid of losing his job, Billie thought. She’d make another pass at it, when things cooled down a little. He’d tell her something, she felt sure.

“Sam, are you all right to come into the office at ten tomorrow?” Billie asked, sliding in next to her assistant once more. She looked at her thin gold watch with the tiny mother-of-pearl face. It was not quite eleven thirty, not so late by her standards, but she had to get to the morgue soon if she wanted to get any sleep at all. “I’ll have a chore for you,” she told him. It wouldn’t make for the most pleasant Saturday morning, but it wouldn’t be difficult or dangerous.

He nodded. “Of course. Ten it is. You don’t need me earlier? But let me drive you home. It’s late.” She paused, deliberating. “Ah, the death house,” he added, remembering. “Let me drive you there, at least.”

She considered his proposal. She had a small gift set aside for Mr. Benny, who would be working at the morgue, but it was back at the office. She didn’t mind being overdressed, but her silk gown, not to mention the sapphires, was perhaps not best for a visit to Circular Quay West, where the city morgue was located. Or maybe it was the thought of her fabric-soled shoes on those less-than-clean floors that put her off. She’d need to walk back to the office for the gift and then go home to change before heading out again, or else ask Sam to drive her. It was all less than ideal, she had to admit.

She screwed up her even features. “We won’t get much further tonight, but I want to come back here. Maybe our fellow will have calmed down a touch by then. I spoke with him, but he’s a bit . . . nervous. How about we hit this place a touch earlier tomorrow, and I’ll bring what I need for the death house.” She swiveled back toward the main floor. “I don’t think that’s where we’ll find this kid, anyway,” she murmured under her breath.

It was the little woman in her gut again. Adin Brown was not on a slab somewhere. It was going to be a lot more complicated than that.