THERE’S AN address over the door, but no sign, and you might have just passed by except for the bouncer sitting out front. He’s got a couple of battered crates piled in front of him, and he’s playing solitaire on them; you can hear the slap of the cards as you cross the street. It’s Cerberus at the gate; he looks like a pair of extra heads would fit fine on that thick neck. In deference to the heat, he’s wearing just an undershirt with his dark trousers and a straw boater. He doesn’t look up when you pause in front of him.

You flatten out the crumpled piece of paper in your hand and read the penciled address. It’s the same as the one over the door, but the bouncer doesn’t move, doesn’t even acknowledge your presence. You don’t blame him; you look just like all the other derelicts in town, and probably smell just as bad. Washing up in a public restroom sink doesn’t do much for the problem, and you’re wearing the same clothes you’ve had on for three days.

“Help you?” he finally asks, not looking up from his game.

You look down at the spread. He’s already fanning out the three cards for the next draw, but you say, “Black five on red six.”

Now he glances up. “Say what?”

“Five of spades. Six of hearts. Then you can open up the stack with the four of diamonds.”

“Huh,” he says, and turns back to the spread. The move opens up what looks like a nice run, but he’s polite enough to hold off on it to ask you again, “Can I help you?” The voice is less begrudging this time.

“I’m here about the job.”

He frowns, shakes his head. “No jobs here, pal. They aren’t hiring.”

Your stomach wrenches and you say, falteringly, “But Harry said….”

This time he blinks before talking. “Harry sent you? Why dincha say so?” He frowns now, seeing you for the first time, seeing the battered brogans, the worn wool of the trousers, the jacket with the patched elbow. Slowly, he says, “Go on in, I guess. If Harry sent you. Rick’s the one you gotta talk to.” He shifts just far enough out of the way for you to squeeze through; you see his nostrils flare as he catches a whiff of you, but he says nothing, just turns back to his game.

Inside the first door is a small vestibule, hot and stuffy and probably why the bouncer’s sitting outside. The door on the opposite side is dark blue velvet, padded and tufted, and in each little tuft is a rhinestone, so the door sparkles like a night sky. It’s pretty and lush and everything you don’t have anymore. But there’s a handle, and it opens, and you go inside the club.

The lights are on, and the mystique of the nightclub is by day just tables and chairs and an empty bar. Ceiling fans circle slowly overhead, putting the ghost of a breeze in the air to cool it down. But the place isn’t quite abandoned; over on the low dais of a stage is a piano, gleaming black and sleek, and a man is sitting slouched on the bench, noodling around on the keys. He’s long and lanky and, like the bouncer, is wearing a tank-style undershirt, but it’s over pinstriped slacks, and he’s got a striped tie looped and knotted loosely around his neck. He’s wearing a fedora and has an unlit cigarette stuck to his bottom lip. As you watch, he leans forward and makes a notation on the sheet music in front of him, then goes back to his noodling. Another moment, another notation, and he leans back and tilts the fedora back from his face, and you get a good look at him. He’s young, you think, and handsome; clean-shaven, the way you like, and with a face that looks like it enjoys smiling.

You make some movement, some reaction, and he notices you. One dark eyebrow lifts, and a grin spreads across the wide, mobile mouth. He takes the cigarette out and drops it in an ashtray on the piano, then says, “Didn’t see you come in.”

“I’m here about the job,” you say again. You’re feeling even less confident than you were before you stepped through the door.

The eyebrow lifts again, and he says, “The singer?”

You flush, and mutter, “Harry sent me. He said you’d give a listen. That’s all I want, is someone to listen.”

“Baby, that’s all any of us want,” the man says. He rises and slouches over toward you. You wonder if he’s capable of standing upright, then realize that he’s very tall, probably six-four or six-five—he probably slumps so he’s at eye level for normal people. You don’t think you’ve met anyone that tall before. “I’m Rick Bellevue. I own this place.”

“Nathan Pederowski,” you say. He holds out a hand for you to shake; conscious of the embedded grime in your skin, you do so gingerly. He doesn’t seem to notice, just keeps hold of your hand and tugs you toward the stage. “Let’s hear what you got. What kind of stuff you like to sing?”

“What kind of stuff do you like to hear?” you shoot back. You immediately kick yourself mentally; smartass shit isn’t going to feed you when the guy tosses you out.

But he’s laughing and saying, “Practically everything, but for now let’s stick to recent stuff. You know ‘Night and Day’?”

“Who doesn’t?” you retort. He grins again and plops down on the bench, running through the opening bars of the Cole Porter song. You listen a moment. It’s in the right key, and you close your eyes, letting the music roll you like a street kid rolling a drunk. The intro comes out like a Gregorian chant, mystical and religious, and when you swing into the first chorus it’s like bells chiming on Christmas. The song is smooth and rich as wine, and thick with hopeless longing.

Once you’re in the music, you can open your eyes, but you don’t see anything; you’re blind with love and passion. It’s as pure as a homecoming, as hot as sex; it’s everything you need and have lost and found again. You let the passion burn through you until there’s nothing left, and the notes of the song drain from you whatever has been keeping you on your feet for the last three days.

You fall back against the piano, but there’s so little left of you it doesn’t even shift; instead it holds you while you slide down the polished leg onto the floor. You sit, numb, blank, empty.

“Zeus fuck!” Rick says as he drops from the bench to kneel beside you.

“Richard,” a woman’s voice says reprovingly, and then, “when was the last time you ate, Nathan?”

“I don’t remember,” you admit. “I ate at a soup kitchen a day or two ago, but it made me sick, so I didn’t go back.” You look up but can’t see faces; things are gray around the edges and there’s a buzzing noise in your head.

Something presses against your lip, and you open obediently, like a baby bird. Sweet warmth flows in; you swallow and recognize coffee, loaded with milk and sugar. Too much sugar, it makes you gag. “Sweet,” you manage to say.

“You need sugar, and probably salt,” the woman’s voice says practically. “Richard, go have Mario make up a bowl of soup for Nathan.”

The coffee is foul, but it works; the buzzing goes away, and your vision clears. The woman is holding the cup to your mouth again, and you swallow. She puts the cup on the floor beside you and straightens, looking down on you. “Better?”

“Yes,” you respond, wiping your palms nervously on the thighs of your filthy trousers. She makes you too aware of your unwashed state. Women like her don’t need to be in the company of bums like you. You wonder why she hasn’t thrown you out already.

She brushes an invisible lock of hair back behind her ear. It’s blonde, paler than blonde, almost white, and is tucked up in a neat chignon. She’s wearing a navy suit, silk stockings, and heels, and the jewels sparkling in her ears are probably real diamonds. A class act. Beautiful, too, as you understand those things. Her face wouldn’t be out of place in a painting, and not those weird ones you saw in Paris twelve years ago. “Your singing is spectacular,” she says, her voice still that practical, matter-of-fact tone. “Why haven’t we heard of you before now?”

“I haven’t sung professionally before,” you say stiffly, knowing that it doesn’t matter how good you sing. There are other elements to performance, and both stage presence and name mean a lot. The stage presence you think you can remember from the conservatory and your lessons, but both were a long time ago. The name means nothing.

“Here, Coco,” Rick says, and sets the tray on a nearby table. He reaches down and pulls you to your feet. You stagger a little, and he slips his arm around your waist to support you. It feels so good, just the touch of a hand, an arm, an embrace, no matter how impersonal. He leads you to the table and sits you down in one of the chairs, then pulls one out for the woman. Only after she is settled does he sit down and push the tray in your direction. “Eat up.”

You glance uncertainly at the woman, not sure if it’s rude to eat in front of her.

She smiles back. “Go ahead. I’m Corinna Bellevue, by the way, Richard’s sister. I co-own this club. I’m used to people eating in my presence, believe me. Besides, Richard and I have both had lunch, and you haven’t. Richard, I would like something to drink, though.”

“Coffee?”

“That would be fine.”

He disappears, but you’re too deep in the bowl of soup to notice where. The soup is chicken, rich and thick with cream and vegetables, almost more of a stew. You try to keep from gobbling it, but the spoon doesn’t hold enough, and you can’t move fast enough to get it all down.

A basket of bread and a dish of butter pats appears beside your plate, and you pause in the soup-slurping to butter a piece of the still-warm bread. It melts in your mouth, and you let out an involuntary groan of pleasure.

“Beautiful,” Rick says behind you, and sets a coffee service on the table before pouring himself and his sister each a cup. He sets a tall glass of ice water next to you. “Mario’s a good cook.”

He could be the world’s worst cook for all you care, but he isn’t. The soup is delicious, the bread equally so. When you can breathe and think and talk again, you say so, and Rick grins in pleasure. “I’ll tell him,” he says. “Especially about the orgasmic groan.”

“Nathan,” Corinna says, ignoring his rude comment, “there are a few things we need to go over before we sign any sort of contract.”

You’ve just put a piece of chicken in your mouth; you freeze a moment, then chew it carefully, letting her words sink in. A “contract”? Does that mean you’re hired? Or is she just talking generalities? You swallow and nod.

“First of all, the Starlight Lounge is a private club. This means that no one comes through the door unless they’re a member or are an approved guest of a member. We’re careful to maintain good relations with the public and the police, but there is no advertising, no publicity. We don’t need it. Membership is carefully vetted, and potential members must be recommended by an existing member. Therefore, the club is a safe place for all kinds of people—and you will see all kinds of people here. Some of them may surprise you, but we don’t ever want our members to feel uncomfortable, so if you can’t accept people as they are, you may want to reconsider employment here.”

“I’m not in a position to judge people,” you say bitterly.

“Secondly,” she continues, nodding, “do you drink?”

You look down at your hands. The nails are filthy. “No,” you say, “not anymore.”

“Will working around alcohol present a problem?”

“No. I’m not a drunk. I don’t even like the taste of booze. I used to drink because everyone did, but I don’t miss it.” It’s true enough, as it is. You don’t tell them about drinking in Paris bars with Bertie. It doesn’t matter anyway. That was a long time ago.

“Very good. Coffee and tea are always available at the bar. This time of year we also stock lemonade, and there’s a fountain for soft drinks. The club serves food until 11:00 p.m., and is open until two. You’ll do two sets a night, from nine to ten and eleven to midnight. From twelve to two the regular band does instrumental work. You’re at liberty to continue with the band, of course, if you and they agree. Any tips outside your regular sets will be split with them. Tips during your sets are yours in their entirety. You’re entitled to dinner here, and if for any reason we need you in during the day, lunch then as well.”

“During the day?” You frown. What if you got a day job? Then you wonder: Why are you so concerned about a day job when you haven’t had one for months? All you need is enough to pay that rat bastard of a landlord so you can get your room and your traps back. The pay for two hours a night probably wouldn’t be much, but there was that promise of tips too.

“Yes. We sometimes have private parties during the day that involve entertainment, usually things like wedding showers and business luncheons. Those occasionally will involve outsiders. After six, it’s members only. But on those occasions you’ll receive overtime pay, plus your lunch. We may also occasionally require your presence at meetings or to work out some new element of the entertainment.”

“I’m a little confused,” you admit. “You’ve only heard one song. All the other auditions I’ve gone on, they’ve asked for three or four at the very least.”

“We only needed one,” Rick says. He’s been quiet during his sister’s commentary, leaning back in his chair and watching you. You’ve known that, although your surface attention has been on Corinna. His watchfulness has been a bug on the back of your neck. “The Starlight needs certain people. She knew you when you came in the door. The rest is just window dressing.”

“Ignore him,” Corinna says. “He’s fanciful. If you’d like to do a few more songs, be my guest. We’re both relatively sure that you’re what we’re looking for, but if you’d be more comfortable with our decision after you’ve shown us a little more of what you can do, then by all means. Finish your lunch first.”

A thought occurs to you. “You said ‘all kinds of people.’ Are you talking about, what—politicians? Gangsters?”

Corinna laughs. “Oh, a few of each, but not too many. We’re not connected, and it’s not worth their while for anyone to shake us down. No, the kind of people who come here are just not the kind you’ll see at other clubs around the city. Not all of them are rich, for one thing. For another thing—” She leans forward, her hands on the table. “—we don’t separate people based on their skin color or ancestry. You’ll see Negroes and Orientals and Mexicans here.”

“And queers,” Rick says with a grin. “We have queers too.”

There’s a rushing sound in your ears, and you put your head down on the table. A cool hand lights gently on the back of your neck. “It’s all right, Nathan. No one will judge you here.”

“How the hell did I end up here?” you murmur.

“Because you belong here,” Rick says.

Corinna’s fingers are slim but strong, and they knead the tension out of your neck. “Harry sent you,” she says, “because he knew we were looking for a male singer who would fit in with our clientele. Who are not the usual run of people but are still people, and who still deserve a place where they can enjoy themselves and feel safe. You’ll see mixed-race couples, and yes, homosexuals, and occasionally cripples who love the music even if they can’t dance, or can only dance awkwardly. Other places would turn them away, or only let them in to laugh at them. Starlight’s not like that.”

You don’t lift your head until you hear Rick at the piano again. He’s playing “I Surrender, Dear” and it makes you laugh even when you really want to cry. “I keep waiting for the punch line,” you say, and stand up.

And the roaring sound is back, and then, nothing.

 

 

WHEN YOU finally open your eyes, you’re someplace else. You’re not sure where—it’s not the dingy little one-room apartment you were locked out of three days ago, but it’s not the airy room you’d once had at your folks’ house, either. It’s small but clean, and there’s a window fan purring along happily. There are no watermarks in the ceiling, it doesn’t smell like mildew, and the bed is comfortable.

“It wakes,” Rick says, and you look over to see him in a chair, tilted back against the wall on its back legs, his fedora over his eyes.

“How did you know?” you ask curiously.

“Shift of the bed springs, change in your breathing. I’m a musician. I notice sounds.” His voice is low and lazy, an odd contrast to his sister’s crisp, businesslike tones. “Coco deals with the business end, I deal with the artists. We both deal with the drunks. Dealing with the collapsible is a new one, but I’m the one with the muscles, so Butch and I won the draw. We’re upstairs of the club.”

You sit up and swing your legs over the side of the bed. You’re in stocking feet; your battered shoes are set on the floor beside the wooden dresser. Your head aches, but you feel more stable than you have for twenty-four hours. “Thanks,” you say, feeling it’s inadequate.

Then you notice the tan suitcase by the door. “That’s my suitcase,” you say stupidly.

“Yeah. There was a late-payment notice in your coat pocket, and Butch went down to deal with it. He said the place was a dump, so he packed up all your stuff and brought it back with him. You can stay here until you find a better place. Unless you liked that one?” Rick’s voice turns suddenly uncertain.

“Hell, no,” you assure him. “But I can’t stay here. It’s not right.” You go to stand up, but you lose your balance and sit down hard.

“Easy, baby,” Rick says. He drops the legs of the chair onto the floor and comes over to sit down beside you. “You’re pretty messed up, Coco says. Been too long without food.”

You put your face in your hands. Your elbows feel like blades on your knees: sharp and mean. “It was either eat or pay rent,” you say wearily, “and so rent it was, until there wasn’t anything left. I tried to find work, but there’s nothing. I didn’t know what to do. One of the guys where I applied for work saw that I had voice training and gave me Harry’s address.” You look up then, and you know your expression is fierce, and so is your voice. “I can’t stay here,” you say. “I don’t take charity.”

Rick isn’t offended. He snorts in amusement. “This ain’t charity, baby. This is an investment.”

It’s your turn to snort. “Investment in what? Yeah, I have a voice, and I’ll work hard to entertain your guests. But unless you do professional management on the side and have an in with some record company, that’s all I’ll do for you. It’s not like you seem to even want to bring in more business, what with your ‘nobody but members and vetted guests of members’ baloney.”

“And if we did want to manage your career?”

“What career? Harry’s a manager, and he sent me to you. So I guess he doesn’t think I have much to offer him, anyway.”

Rick drapes an arm over your shoulder. He means it comradely; he can’t know what it means for you to be touched like that, like a human being. It’s weight and warmth and comfort all at once. Something you’ve been missing far too long. “He knows you need experience, Nate. You could be the next what’s-his-name, the Crosby kid, but Detroit Conservatory or not, you don’t have the background in performance you need to get anywhere in this business. You’ll get that experience here. And it’ll be experience like anywhere else—just ’cause we’re a private club doesn’t mean we don’t have problems with drunks and hecklers and asses. We get the occasional fight here, even. And melodrama—God, do we get melodrama. You’ll see.”

He gives a gentle squeeze to your shoulders and stands up. “In the meantime, Coco wants you to come down and see what you’re up against. You won’t perform tonight. Tomorrow, if you’re feeling up to it. Tonight, though, you come down for dinner, you schmooze with the clientele, you get introduced around. If you feel like it—and only if you feel like it—you can sing a song or two with the band, just to get the sense of it.”

“I don’t have anything to wear….” You’re starting to feel panicked. Too much, too soon.

“God, you sound like a woman.” Rick is laughing. “There’s a monkey suit in the closet. It’s mine, so it’ll be a bit big on you, but if you come downstairs early enough, we’ll have one of the girls stitch up the pants hems. I’m a giraffe.” He points at a door you didn’t notice before. “That’s the bathroom. There’re towels and that sort of thing in there for you to use. I’ll bet a dollar to a doughnut you’ll feel better after a shower.”

“Oh, my God,” you say with feeling. “A shower…!”

He laughs again, then bends down and gives you a quick kiss. His lips are warm and firm on yours, but gone too quickly; he’s halfway across the room before you even realize what’s happened. “Come down in an hour or so,” he calls as he leaves. “For dinner.”

And he’s gone, and you’re left in the empty room, your mouth tingling from the kiss and the shower waiting. A shower. You feel the grin spreading on your face and get up, slowly this time, so you don’t go all dizzy again, and find your way into the bathroom. It’s beautiful: white and clean and equipped with fluffy white towels and soap and a razor. The water is hot and, despite the heat of the day, feels wonderful. You stand under the stream, scrubbing, until the water that sluices down your body isn’t brown anymore, and then you do it again, just for the luxury of it. You wash your hair twice for the same reason, and when you step out to shave, you’re wrapped in a towel so thick you’re dry almost before you get your face soaped up. The razor is sharp and cleans your whiskers so well you can’t even feel the stubble, and when you’re done, the face that stares back at you from the mirror is ten years younger. It’s thin, with cheekbones like knife blades, and the eyes are too large and too deep set, but it’s your face again. You run your hand over your smooth cheek and smile.

The “monkey suit” is a tuxedo, with a black cummerbund and a pleated shirt. The shirt’s too big, but the cummerbund’s adjustable, so you fix it so they both lie neatly before shrugging into the jacket. Not much you can do about the fit of that. There are black silk socks and garters folded on top of a pair of black dress shoes, so you put those on too, and then the tuxedo trousers. The pants are long, so you turn up the cuffs until you meet the girl who’s supposed to fix them and slide your feet into the shoes. They fit. When you look at the man in the mirror over the dresser, you almost don’t recognize him. Then you run your hand through your hair in your habitual gesture, and the locks fall into place, and it’s you again. You need a haircut.

 

 

DOWNSTAIRS THE place is no longer empty and cavernous. Instead, a half a dozen waiters in black and white scurry around, setting tables; another half-dozen waitresses are folding napkins that the waiters snatch up as soon as they are finished. Three bartenders are sorting through the bottles and glasses, and a trio is setting up on the dais, drums and a bass joining the piano. You had wondered if Rick ever stood straight; now you see he does. He’s tall and elegant as he gives directions to a pair of cigarette girls. He’s wearing white tie and tails; his dark hair is brushed back from his forehead and brilliantined, making him look like a film star, but a stray curl dips over his brow, giving him a rakish look. He’s beautiful as he laughs at something one of the girls says, and you know you’re in trouble. You know from bitter experience that just because a man kisses you, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re queer. Some men are just ebullient. But Rick doesn’t strike you that way; he’s too laconic and deliberate.

Corinna comes in, and she’s beautiful too, but where Rick is earth and fire, she’s all air and ice. Her gown is white and glitters faintly in the light; she’s so pale the white should wash her out, but it doesn’t; it only makes her look like a snow princess. The hair is up again, but more softly, and a spray of more of those diamonds is clipped to the side of her head. The men in the room all look at her as she enters; you can almost hear their sighs.

She’s beautiful, but not your kind of beauty. Your eyes go again to Rick, in his black cutaway and white waistcoat, sleek and elegant and powerful, so different from when you first saw him this afternoon. Only to find that he is looking back at you, his dark eyes unreadable.

Then he smiles, and the moment’s gone, and he’s walking across the club to the stairs you’ve just come down, holding out his hand for you to shake. “You look great,” he says. “The jacket’s a bit big, but only if you know to look.”

“The pants need hemming,” you say. He doesn’t release your hand right away but stands smiling at you just a moment too long. Then he’s taking your elbow and steering you toward a table. He pushes you gently into a chair and gestures; a young woman in a waitress uniform comes over with a sewing kit in her hand. “This is Billie,” Rick says, “our costumer.”

She snorts inelegantly and pulls out another chair, setting it between the two of you. “Here,” she says, patting the seat, “put your tootsies up here, and I’ll fix those hems.”

You obey, and while she’s tacking up the hem, she’s talking a blue streak to Rick about her boyfriend, the weather, the state of the Union, her landlord, her landlord’s Pomeranian, and an argument overheard on the streetcar. After a while you tune her out; her voice is just background music to the hum and clatter of the club getting ready to open.

“… think he’s asleep,” she says, and you open your eyes and look at her.

“Who, me?” you ask, and she and Rick laugh. You hadn’t even registered when she’d had you switch legs, but now you do remember it, vaguely, and she picks up her sewing kit and trots off toward what Rick informs you is the employee lounge.

“Ready for introductions?” Then he pauses and asks, “You crazy about your name?”

“Nathan?” you ask in puzzlement.

“No. The Pederowski part.”

“You want to change it to something like ‘Peters’?” That would be okay; you went by “Peters” for a while when you were trying to make it in New York.

“Nah, nothing so banal. I’m thinking something like ‘Petroff,’ something a little more exotic. You got cheekbones sharp enough to slice, and those dark eyes. You look Russian.”

“I probably am, somewhere back a ways,” you admit. “Polish, Lithuanian, Scottish… a regular Heinz 57, me.”

“So Petroff or Pedrov or something? Coco?”

She comes across the room, gliding.

“What do you think about Nathan Petroff?”

Oddly enough, she seems to know what he’s talking about. You get the feeling he’s like this all the time, and she’s just used to translating. “I like it,” she says decisively. “It suits him, and it’s more marketable than plain Nathan Pederowski. It won’t bother your family?”

“Ma’am,” you say bitterly, “I haven’t got any family to be bothered.”

“You do now,” she says matter-of-factly and glides away.

You’re breathless with shock, staring after her. Her casual words are a blow, but not painful; it’s like a blast of cool air from a fan on a hot day. Then there’s a hand on your back and Rick’s voice in your ear. “It’ll be okay, Nate. Now, let’s get you some supper.”

Over her shoulder, Corinna calls, “I had them set your meal in the office. Go over the details and have him sign the contract, Richard. We’re too busy out here.”

“Oh, right,” Rick says, and he moves his hand down to the small of your back, not quite pushing, but guiding you back to the stairs and up to the first landing. There’s a door there marked Office, and he edges you in. It’s like Corinna, all white and polished and elegant, with silvery metal and white leather. The desk is silver metal and glass. Even the phone is white.

But the food that sits on the glass table in the corner is steak and red boiled potatoes with parsley and fresh green beans, and the smell is overwhelming. You close your eyes a moment, just inhaling.

Rick says, “God, will you stop that?”

You blink. “I’m sorry,” you say, confused. “Stop what?”

“Stop lusting like that. You look like you’re about to come.”

You flush, embarrassed. “Oh, Jesus,” you swear. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean….”

“It’s okay. No, well, it’s not okay, but it’s not your fault. Sorry.” For the first time since you’ve met him, Rick seems at a loss. He shakes his head and then says, “Siddown. Eat. I’ll talk, then when we’re done eating, we’ll sign the papers.”

“What papers?”

“The contract. It’s standard boilerplate for performers.” Rick gestures for you to sit down, and you do. The meals are already plated, with sprigs of parsley for decoration, a far cry from the unidentifiable gray mass you’d tried to eat at the soup kitchen. And it’s delicious—the steak rare, the beans crisp, and the potatoes buttery and just soft enough. “With the exception of a privacy clause. You have to agree not to talk about the club to anyone. All interviews, questions, inquiries, anything like that comes directly to me or Coco. For convenience, we also ask that you don’t take any job outside the club without clearing it with me or Coco.” He gives a quick grin as he takes a bite of steak. “We’d prefer that you don’t take any job outside the club, but some people have extra expenses.”

“I’d thought to get a day job,” you admit, “for security, you know. I mean, I’m not stupid. I know that these gigs don’t always work out, and I want to find someplace, I mean, someplace nice to live, and two hours a night, even with tips, won’t cover that, and….”

He reaches out with his fork and touches the tines gently to the back of your hand. You stop talking. “If what we’re paying you doesn’t pay for a nice apartment,” he says levelly, “then your standards of ‘nice’ are a helluva lot higher than mine. And as for the security—this is a contract, Nate. We’re asking you to commit to us for three years. At the end of that time, we expect you to move up in life, not down. You’ll leave here with a recording contract, a nice nest egg, or not at all.”

“Why?” Your cry is heartfelt and confused. This can’t be right. This can’t be happening, not after everything you’ve been through. You’re too used to being on the bottom for this to even make sense. “What do you get out of this?”

“Are you kidding? Baby, when you sing, you make magic.” He takes the fork from your hand and drags you to your feet. “Leave this a minute. We’ll come back when we’re done. Come on.” And he drags you out the door by the hand, down the stairs, and up onto the dais.

The musicians look up curiously. “Remmy, Jake, Rob, this is Nate. He’s the singer. He’s gonna sing right now.” He looks into your eyes. “Nate, I need you to sing for these guys. For us. Before the customers come in, just us, right now. Can you do this?”

You blink, dazed, and nod.

“What do you want to sing?”

The words come out of your mouth without you thinking them. “But Not for Me,” you say.

Rick snorts and then says, “Okay. Guys, you know that one?”

“Gershwin, right?” The guy at the piano plunks out a few notes. You nod. He starts playing the intro, and you start.

The song is harsh and cynical, and it’s what you’ve thought and felt over and over again throughout the last years, as your life spiraled further and further south. This, this dream of a job, this beautiful man, this… hope. It hurts.

You’re angry now, at Rick’s high-handedness, at this lovely dream of a possibility that can’t possibly be real, at this vision of what life could be like, and the venom comes out in your voice. When you sing about love songs and lucky stars and how they aren’t yours, you’re not just singing lyrics. You’re singing your life.

Your gaze is basilisk-like, locked on Rick’s startled dark eyes, holding him paralyzed with your anger, your voice, your music.

You’re vaguely aware that the others in the room have stopped moving too, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but the beautiful man standing in front of you that you know you can’t have, no matter how kind he is; he’s so far out of your orbit he might as well be that film star he looks like. Or a real star, somewhere up in the night sky, scintillating and lovely and untouchable. Even if there were a chance he might want you, you know he’d grow bored and move on—you have nothing to offer such a bright being. And having once had him, to lose him would be unbearable.

Anger diminished by realized loss, you try to make him understand the ending words of the song, make him understand you.

When you finish, there’s silence in the room, and you’re as drained and exhausted as if you’d never had the lunch or the nap or the half-eaten steak dinner upstairs. The applause and whistles come as a surprise, and you look up, confused.

Only Rick is still, unmoving, his expression shattered. You stare at him until your eyes get blurry, then you step off the dais, push past him, heading for the stairs and your suitcase, desperate to get out of your borrowed finery, your borrowed life, into your own filthy clothes, away from here, away from him.

He catches you up halfway to the stairs, his fingers hard on your upper arm. He jerks you around, and his other hand grabs your other arm so that he’s holding you still. “Where are you going?” he snaps.

You can’t answer. You don’t know. His face is dark with rage, flushed and angry and hurt. You didn’t mean to hurt him; you only wanted to push him away, to save yourself the grief you knew was coming.

The tears spill over then, and you curse yourself, and you curse him, and you curse God for making you like this, and for taking everything away from you so that you have nothing to offer this man, nothing. But the only thing that comes out of your mouth is his name.

“Rick….”

And then his mouth is on yours, and it’s not the friendly peck he’d given you earlier. No, this is a kiss, hot and hard and hungry, and hands dragging you into an embrace that’s less about affection or comfort and more about need. This is lust. This is heat. This is desire.

And God save you, you reach for him with both hands, digging into his brilliantined hair, yanking him down and kissing him back just as hard as he kissed you.

In front of a room full of witnesses. In front of his sister.

Who, when you come up for breath, dazed and lost and aching, says, “Now that you’ve gotten that out of your systems, will you sign the damn contract so I can put you on the payroll?”

And Rick throws his head back and bellows with laughter. “It’s not just me,” he tells you. “It’s her. And she gets what she wants.” He turns you around so that you’re facing the room, the waitstaff and the cigarette girls and the bartenders and the band. His body is solid and warm behind you. “Look at them,” he whispers in your ear.

White flutters all around the room as people wipe their eyes or blow their noses. A waitress sobs into the breast of one of the waiters. Two other waitresses are weeping on each other’s shoulders. “One little song,” Rick murmurs. “One little song—not even a long one—and they’re yours. You made them cry. You made them feel. I haven’t seen magic like that since, since Orpheus.”

You know who Orpheus is, but the classical reference confuses you. “I thought he played the lute,” you say.

“The lyre.”

“Right. He wasn’t a singer, was he?”

He snorts. “Yeah, he was, but what’s the difference? He made magic. So do you. Zeus fuck, baby, why the hell hasn’t anyone seen that before?” His hands are on your shoulders, squeezing. “Now do you see why we want you? Why all it took was one song for us to know you belonged here?”

You shake your head. When he turns you toward the stairs and takes you back up to the office, you obey blindly, too tired to argue.

He sits you back down at the table and makes you finish eating before taking out the papers to look over. You think maybe you should have a lawyer look at them, but you can’t afford one, and don’t know any anyway. Still, they seem pretty straightforward, no small print, no confusing lawyerly language. No more complex than a lease or the application forms you filled out at Harry’s. A thought occurs to you. “How did you know about the Detroit Conservatory?” you ask. It’s the first thing out of your mouth since the scene downstairs.

“What?”

“The Detroit Conservatory. You mentioned it.”

“Oh, yeah. While you were napping, I rang Harry and asked him to send over the stuff you gave him. Your education was in there.” He was quiet a moment, then said, “You’re older than you look.”

“Is that a problem?” You give him a level look.

“No, not at all.” He shrugs. “I’d have pegged you at late twenties, but thirty-five isn’t exactly old.” He folds some papers back into an envelope before going on. “I was surprised to see your war record.”

“Why?” you ask. You can’t quite keep the bitterness out of your voice. “You figure because I’m queer I’m a coward as well?”

His laugh is low and humorless. “No. Not that you were a soldier. But that you served for over two years, won half a dozen medals and commendations, and still got a dishonorable discharge.”

“That’s what they do with queers,” you say shortly. “I went in with the Brits in ’16, but when the Yanks got in the next year, I transferred over to an American battalion. Should have stayed with the Brits.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Long story.” You don’t want to tell it, don’t want to even think about it. So instead you grab the fancy fountain pen and scrawl your signature recklessly across the bottom of the contract. “There. You’ve got me—I’m yours for three years.” You cap the pen carefully before tossing it back across the table to him; even angry, you can’t bring yourself to mar the virginal whiteness of the room. “What next?”

“Well, you get the grand tour. Since Roosevelt signed the Cullen-Harrison Act this spring, we can officially sell 3.2 beer and what Coco refers to as ‘the ghosts of grapes.’ Of course, that’s only officially.” He stands, and you follow suit. “Leave the dishes—someone will clean up in here.”

You follow him downstairs. Corinna comes up and regards the two of you with a raised brow, eerily like her brother despite the difference in coloring. “Contract is signed, Coco,” Rick says, “and Orpheus is ours.”

“Orpheus,” she echoes thoughtfully. “The lamenter, he of the darkness, the orphan. The singer of magic. Acolyte to Dionysus and Apollo. Dionysus, in jealousy, had him murdered by maenads.” She muses a moment, then adds, “I’m not sure if he was jealous of Orpheus’s talent or his love for Apollo.”

“I know which I’d wish for,” Rick says.

She gives him that raised-eyebrow look and retorts, “Murdered is murdered, whatever the cause. And afterward there is only vengeance left.”

She’s sweet, and delicate, and fairylike, and the words in her angelic voice freeze you to your bones.

“He’s here, and he’s ours,” Rick says, “and nobody’s going to murder him for whatever reason. Unless you have enemies we don’t know about?”

This question is directed to you, and you shake your head. “No one,” you say, “only….” Bertie “… one, and he’s not an enemy, just… no longer a friend. No enemies, no friends, no family. I got plenty of nothing.”

“Not anymore,” Rick says. “You have a contract, and we’ve got you. Come on.”

He shows you the rest of the place: where they hide the good booze if they get raided (the place used to be a speakeasy, until the spring; then they turned it into a legal supper club to take advantage of the easing of the Volstead Act. Rick tells you Prohibition will be repealed by the end of the year. He’s so certain you almost believe him); the room in the back where the games are (all straight, even the roulette wheel; Rick tells you Corinna has an obsession with justice, and while she’s not above breaking the law, she won’t cheat an honest man); the fiery kitchen with the dark-browed Mario in command (he has a clubfoot, but that doesn’t slow him down; his knife flashes in the dim, steamy heat, the fires under his pots giving the place the reddish glow of a furnace. Or maybe Hell. But it’s a well-organized Hell; his assistants are quick and sure and seem to almost read his mind. It could just be fear of his knife. You don’t think you’ve ever seen one as long that wasn’t stuck on the end of a rifle).

Rick takes you through the kitchen out to the alley, where he lights up a cigarette and stares at the sky. It’s coming on dusk now; you can hear the sound of automobiles out front as they disgorge the early arrivals. He stares at the west, where the sun is already out of sight, the clouds gone purple and rose and gold against a sky going indigo. “And so it ends, and begins,” he says softly, and turns his back on the sunset. “There’s the moon. She’s almost full tonight.”

You don’t look. How many nights did you and Bertie gaze up at her beautiful, serene face from the filth of the trenches, lying close in mud, watching the moon rise behind the forward emplacements? There were moments then when you didn’t mind the mud, didn’t mind the sound of the guns, didn’t mind the stench or the cold or the wet. Moments when Bertie’s hand would touch yours, trailing a finger across your wrist; or when he’d shift so his hip brushed yours, or his shoulder. And you knew that later, you and he would be crawling into an abandoned side trench, trying to find a dry spot where you could fuck each other in hurried silence under that same moon, sometimes not even unbuttoning your damp wool uniforms, just rubbing up against each other, the only skin that touched being your hands and your mouths.

“Oh, well,” Rick says quietly, “I like the daylight better myself.” And he opens the door, and you go back inside.

 

 

WHEN YOU wake it’s still dark, and you lie in silence and confusion, not sure where you are. Then you remember, and stretch luxuriously in the clean sheets, in the clean if threadbare nightshirt you’d pulled from your suitcase. You couldn’t have gotten more than a couple of hours of sleep, but you’re as rested as if you’d slept for days; it’s not a challenge to rise and go to look out the open window. It faces east, and while it’s not quite dawn, there’s a lightening of the sky that matches the lightening of your mood.

You’re staring at the dark sky when you hear the footsteps in the hall, going past your door: quick, but not running. Curious, you go to the door and open it and look out into the corridor, but all you see is a flash of dark cloth in the dim light of the wall sconce by the stairs. Dark brown, maybe, or purple; you’d bet purple because you have a suspicion of who it is, and he’s just the sort to wear a purple silk dressing gown. Not a robe. A dressing gown.

And it’s not quite a suspicion, but more of an instinct. Your body thrums like a sympathetic tuning fork when he’s near, just as it did with Bertie.

You let the door close quietly behind you and follow him, up the stairs instead of down, to a door that stands open against a sky still spattered with stars. Silently you creep up the stairs and stand looking out the door at him. He has his back to you, his face turned toward the paler sky in the east, his feet bare on the tarpaper of the flat roof. There is nothing else here, just the furnace chimney and the low, dingy brick walls that frame the roof. Just him and you and the dawn sky.

The first edge of sunlight creeps over the horizon, and he drops the dressing gown, letting it slither down his body to lay in a tumble at his feet. Your breath goes still in your chest.

He stretches his arms out as if he is basking in the watery light. His shoulders are taut with muscle, his arms long and strong, his lean back leading down into a dimpled, firm bottom and long, powerful thighs and legs. He is completely nude, standing with his arms spread like a king, like a sacrifice, his head thrown back. In the dark of the club, his hair looks black, but now you see that it’s brown and bronze, and the sunlight as it moves across the roof raises sparks of red and copper. And it’s long, down to his shoulder blades—it hadn’t been that long last night, certainly not. It fits him, somehow. Not Rick the club owner, lazy and laughing, but this creature, this king, this worshipper.

And then he begins to glow. First a soft, subtle gilding of his skin that makes no sense; he should be dark and silhouetted against the sun, but he is golden, glowing. Brighter and brighter he shines until the sun has cleared the city horizon, and by then he is incandescent. And finally, light explodes around him, white and painful and glorious.

When you open your eyes again, you are back in your bed, and it’s only the ceiling that you see, this time in the pale light of very early morning. You blink, confused, and then realize you must have dreamed going up on the roof, dreamed seeing Rick shining like an arc light, taking in the sun as if it were sustenance.

There’s a light knock on the door, and Rick himself sticks his head into the room. “You’re up,” he says in surprise. “Thought you’d still be asleep. You were dead on your feet when you came up last night.”

“I’m awake,” you acknowledge. “And I feel fine. Hungry.”

“Throw some clothes on, and I’ll meet you downstairs in ten minutes. Mario doesn’t come in until noon, but I know a place not too far away that makes an excellent breakfast. Coco’s still asleep; she loathes mornings, so I don’t often have company.” Then he’s gone, the door closing with a quiet click.

You get up and go to the closet to find that some kind brownie has cleaned and pressed your shabby clothes and hung them up on the rod beside a handful of Arrow shirts in your size, and fine wool trousers folded over pants hangers. There is a white linen suit hooked on the back of the closet door with a note pinned to the lapel that reads, “Wear Me.” It makes you laugh, but it would look stupid with your battered black lace-up shoes, so you reach instead for your second-best trousers, your first-best having been the wool ones you wore for three straight days and never want to wear again. But then you see a pair of white-and-cream shoes on the floor of the closet beside your brogans, and you crumble to the silent pressure of the Bellevues’ generosity and your own desperate need to look good for Rick. A five-minute shower and shave and a brush of your teeth with the new toothbrush in the glass, a quick process of dressing in new clothes from the skin out, and you’re only a minute late meeting Rick.

He’s waiting by the front door of the club, a straw fedora on his head and another in his hand. He tosses it to you and you put it on. “Ready?” he says.

“Yes. Thank you. For the clothes and things. And the bed. And….”

He laughs and opens the door. “Consider it—”

“An investment,” you finish for him. “Yes. But I’m still grateful.”

There’s a car waiting at the curb, a beautiful golden Lincoln Model K, with its low, sweeping lines. The interior is white leather, and it occurs to you that the Bellevues must have their fingers in more pots than just a little supper club that caters to oddball types. And the people you met last night were oddballs, all right, not just in their social or racial or physical characteristics, but something much deeper, much less clear. You’re not quite sure what it is, but you push it to the back of your skull to cogitate on later, when you have the inclination.

For now, you want to enjoy this moment, the ride in a sleek high-powered car beside a sleek high-powered man, on a cool, clear morning with empty streets. You shoot him a quick sidelong look and are oddly comforted to see that his hair, while definitely brown, is not electric with copper sparks and no longer than it was last night.

“It’s not far, and at this hour, before the traffic, it should only take about twenty minutes. If you’re desperate, there’s a Thermos flask full of coffee under the seat. I made it earlier. But that’s the extent of my cooking ability.”

“I can wait,” you say.

The car is open, so you both are quiet, silenced by the wind of your passing as he speeds through the city streets. It is only a matter of minutes before you have left the city behind and are tooling along rougher country roads. There aren’t any mountains within a hundred miles of the city, but the river cuts through bluffs to the west, so the road climbs in switchbacks up to the higher ground. You arrive at your destination, a small restaurant on top of the bluff, and Rick pulls into the gravel lot. The sign says Delphie’s. As you climb out of the car, the front door opens, and a small woman comes running out to leap into Rick’s arms. He laughs and hugs her. She plants a loud kiss on his cheek before dropping to her feet in the gravel and giving him a good, solid punch to the upper arm. “Four weeks!” she yells at him. “Four weeks!”

“I’ve been busy,” he says weakly. “She’s been good?”

“She’s fine,” the woman says, and then turns to you. “Hullo. I’m Delphie. You’re…?”

“Nate Petroff,” Rick says. “Our new headliner.”

She doesn’t say “Never heard of you,” but the phrase is loud in her skeptical look. But she shakes your hand anyway. “Meetcha,” she says, then to Rick, “Come on in. You can visit her while I’m fixin’ up your breakfast. Coffee’s ready, on the sideboard.”

The restaurant is tiny but clean, and the coffee is hot and black and perfect. Rick takes the cup you pour him and leads the way through a door at the back and up a short path to an even tinier cottage. He raps on the door once and then pushes it open.

The little living room is redolent with the sweet smoke of marijuana, but it’s not a jazz musician or flapper holding the joint. It’s a little old lady in a rocking chair, her eyes vague and filmy. “Hey, Auntie,” Rick says softly.

“Don’t you call me ‘Auntie,’ boy,” the woman says. “When you don’t hardly come to see me no more.”

“I’m sorry, Auntie. I brought you a present.” Rick reaches into his jacket pocket and takes out a brown-paper-wrapped package.

“Better be the weed,” “Auntie” says.

Rick laughs. “Of course.”

“I suppose you want me to look at him?”

“If you like.” Rick is noncommittal, but he glances at me.

The woman is crotchety, but little and frail. She doesn’t scare you until you sit on the hassock in front of her rocker and she leans forward. She smells of lavender, soft and powdery, and of pot, sickly sweet. Your empty stomach roils and you clench your coffee mug.

She says nothing, but stares at you a long moment. Then she turns to Rick and starts speaking very fast in a language that sounds Greek or Turkish or something Middle Eastern. He listens, going still, and then finally nods, slowly, as if unwilling to hear what she says. She winds down eventually and turns back to you. “It’s as well,” she says to you, as if you have a clue what she’s talking about, then sits back in her rocker and raises the joint to her lips again.

“Come on,” Rick says, and leads you back out of the smoky cottage.

“She has severe rheumatism.” His voice is apologetic as you walk back down the short path to the restaurant. “I bring her the marijuana because it eases the pain. She’s very old.”

“She’s very strange,” you counter. “What did she say? And what language was that?”

“It’s a Greek dialect. She’s from the same little village my family’s from. Of course, we’ve been in America for a long time.”

Delphie is waiting at the door with a big basket, which she hands to Rick. “Too nice a day to sit indoors. You go on up to the picnic spot.”

Rick gives her a buss on the cheek, and you follow him across the gravel lot to a stand of trees. Just past the trees is a wooden table and benches on a place near the edge of the bluff, overlooking the river. Rick sets the basket on the table, then turns to you. His face is serious, but the hand he reaches out to brush your jaw is gentle. “It wasn’t anything important. Just a crazy old woman’s ramblings. I shouldn’t have subjected you to that, but she has so few amusements. Ready for breakfast?”

There are rolls, and omelets in steaming bowls, and crisp bacon and spicy sausage. And more coffee, in a vacuum flask. And slices of melon in multiple colors. You and Rick eat silently, but when you’ve finished and set down your fork, he says, “What happened after the war?”

You blink. “After the war?”

“After you were discharged. What did you do?”

“I went home to Michigan for a while. I’d gotten a scholarship to the Detroit Conservatory, which they’d deferred for anyone who was fighting in the war, so when I left home, I went there.”

“They didn’t look at your war record?”

“Of course they did.” Your voice is sarcastic but you can’t help it. It hurts. “They asked me why I was dishonorably discharged.”

“What did you do?”

“What would you do? I lied. I told them that someone else had made advances to me, but that when I rebuffed them, he went to his officers and said I was the one. I had no proof, but neither did he, and so I told them that the officers chose to believe him.”

“Is that what you told your family?”

“No. I told them the truth. Which is why I left Detroit.” Your voice is shaking, so you take a moment to bite into a danish. The thick, sweet raspberry goo drips on your chin, and you wipe it off, licking your finger. When you look up, Rick is staring at your mouth.

Angrily, you say, “And then when I failed there, I went to New York and tried to get work there, and failed, and Philadelphia, and failed, and Boston, and failed, and took a job as a longshoreman, and then lost my job when the market crashed, and now I’ve come here, and you think I’m not going to fail again, and you’re crazy, you know that? I don’t know what you want of me, but I suspect, and I don’t like it. I’m not a charity case. I won’t be.” You drop the rest of the danish onto the plate and say, “So if that’s what it is, we can just say forget it. Drive me back to the club, and I’ll get my stuff, and get out of your hair.”

“You give up too easily,” Rick says, and eats a piece of bacon. It’s his turn to lick his fingers, and you stare just as helplessly at him as he did at you. “You think—” slurp “—that just because—” slurp “—I want you—” slurp “—that I don’t think you can sing? You saw the staff yesterday. You know you can sing, but you’re afraid, and I won’t tolerate fear of failure. Fear of me, that’s okay.” He wipes his fingers on his napkin and cocks his head at me. “Who’s Bertie?”

There’s only the sound of the breeze in the little clearing and the faraway rush of the river below. “He was my lover,” you say numbly. “In France.”

“Auntie says you left your heart on the battlefield, and what came back to the States was only your shell.”

And just like that, you’re back there, crawling over the mud and bodies and scraping your hands on stones and fallen barbed wire, the night sky exploding with lightning and rockets, the air red and misted. He is out there, wounded, not dead; you would know if he were dead, but they wouldn’t let you go until after night fell, not that night is any cover, any comfort, with the bright shells falling. But at last they send the corpsmen out with their wood-and-canvas stretchers, crawling over the ground like so many red-crossed ants, trying to find the merely wounded among the newly dead, and you go with them. For Bertie.

You find him, by luck or God’s grace or maybe by the humming recognition in your soul. He is torn and battered but alive, and you get him on a stretcher and, crouching, drag it like a travois back to the trench. It is hours, and you are terrified the whole time that he will die out there under the red and exploding sky. You don’t dare look back at him, just reaching behind you to touch his shoulder to make sure he’s still on the stretcher. You ignore the ache in your back and the ache in your thighs from half crawling. You ignore the rain and the rockets and the shriek of tracer bullets and the crunching thump of the guns.

One last stretch of barbed wire, and it tears your shirt—it will leave a scar on your back —but Bertie is in the hands of the British corpsmen, and they are carrying him back away from the lines. You can’t follow; you’re not hurt, much, and they shove your Winfield back into your hands and put you back on the line.

“He was injured. I brought him back to the trench.” You are quiet a moment, then say, “I met him again in New York. I was working as a waiter in a fancy restaurant. He came in with his wife. He didn’t know me.” The words are flat, meaningless.

“Do you still love him?”

Do you? You think of him as you saw him in that restaurant: polished, urbane, with that stupid little mustache; fawning over the narrow-faced bitch who wore his ring like a trophy. He looked at you blankly when you said his name and was merely polite. Coldly, uninterestedly polite.

Then when you’d gone out in the alley for a cigarette, he’d come out and offered you money not to say anything to his wife. Even offered “favors” if you’d agree. He was drunk, stinking, his breath reeking of gin, and he’d tried to kiss you. The smell of the gin made you sick.

You’d left him in the alley with a bloody nose, his money fluttering in the evening breeze, and gone back in and quit.

“No,” you say now. “I did once, but now—no.” Not that Bertie. The sad, lonely little Bertie of the trenches who adored you and needed you and loved you. That one. That one you’d loved.

“Like Orpheus and Eurydice,” Rick says. “My analogy was closer than I thought.” He gets up and moves around the table, reaching down to take your hand and draw you to your feet. You stand there a moment, and then he takes you into his arms, kissing you.

You’re tired of pushing him away when you want him like fire, and so you go with him, lying with him on the tablecloth he’s thrown down there on the grass, in the sunlight. There’s the usual awkward scramble to get out of your clothes, but he’s never awkward and seems to imbue you with some of his grace. You lose yourself in his hands and mouth and warm strong body. He coaxes you up and over, and in the glory of it you see him again as he was in your dream, golden and incandescent and godly.

Something about that, about this, makes you laugh, and he stops what he’s doing and stares at you again. “What?” you ask.

“Do that again.”

“Do what?”

“Smile like that.”

So you do, and he literally lights up with his own laughter and amazingly, impossibly, you go over again, and this time he follows.

When you open your eyes and sit up, the tablecloth is ash except for the outline of your body. The grass is scorched. Rick is lying on his side, watching you with careful eyes.

“Well,” you say, “that’s interesting.”

“It’s a side effect of lying with someone like me,” Rick says.

“It wasn’t a dream this morning, was it?”

After a moment he shakes his head. “No.”

You sit up, wrapping your arms around your bare knees. “So, what are you? Besides hard on sheets.”

“Long story. And not so much with the sheets; it’s the sunlight that does it,” he says with a faint smile. “You’re very calm.”

“Would you prefer me to run screaming?”

“No. Not you. You might clobber me, but not the screaming.” He sits up too. “We should probably go on back. Your first rehearsal with the band is at one.”

“Is that it, then? We’re done?”

“For now? Yes.” He gives me a quick grin. “I hope there will be an encore later, maestro.”

You throw a handful of ash at him. He laughs.

 

 

DRIVING BACK into the city, he’s quiet again, as he was this morning, concentrating on weaving through the increased traffic, of both the foot and automotive kind. You’re stopped, waiting for a streetcar to pass, when he reaches over to touch the back of your wrist. “I hope I haven’t frightened you,” he says in a low voice.

You shake your head. You don’t know why you’re not frightened. You should be. But every time you think that, you see him as he was when you walked into that club, lazy at the piano, in that silly undershirt-and-tie combination, and somehow all the fire and heat and sun in the world can’t make you fear him.

But when you get back to the club, there’s a man standing outside with a pair of goons flanking him, and him you fear. He’s not very large, but there’s a presence about him that’s intimidating, more than can be accounted for by the goons. Dark unruly hair and eyes bright green and a little crazy stare at you as you get out of the car.

“So this is the new canary,” the man says.

“Dion,” Rick says warily. “What can I do for you?”

“Introduce us.” The guy has the accent of the streets, and his hands are gnarled like grapevines. He’s talking to Rick, but his bright crazy eyes never leave you.

“Nathan Petroff, meet Dion Winyard. He owns The Vinery over on Port Street.”

“Get it?” Dion chortles. “Vines? Winyard? Port?”

“Got it,” you say. “God of the grape, no doubt.”

The silence is loud. Then the man says in a different voice, “Smart boy. Did you figure this all out yourself or did Golden Boy here let you in on the secret?”

You shrug.

“It’s not that simple,” Rick says, and his voice is irritated.

“It’s always that simple,” Dion says. “Let’s go inside and talk about it.”

“I can’t stop you,” Rick says. “But the goons stay out.”

“The goons stay out,” Dion agrees.

Corinna is waiting when you get inside. Her suit today is black, pinstriped, and chilly, reflecting her expression, and there is no sign of the staff. “Hello, you drunken bastard,” she says, her voice uninflected.

“Hello, you frigid bitch,” Dion responds in the same tone. “Beat it. This don’t involve you.” He turns back to Rick and jerks his head at you. “What’s so special about this loser?”

“None of your business,” Corinna says.

“I said beat it, bitch.”

“The day I take orders from a drunken Johnny-come-lately like you, Dion,” Corinna says serenely, “is the day Zeus rises and kicks your filthy ass.”

Dion ignores her, his attention on Rick. “Another one of your hard-luck cases? Zeus fuck, Ricky, this place is full of them. What d’ya need one more for? I’ll take him off your hands. The Vinery could use a new warbler.”

Your blood runs cold, but Corinna says dismissively, “He’s too good a performer for a whorehouse, Dee.”

“He’s staying here,” Rick says. His voice is quiet, uninflected, but Dion grins.

“Is he? We’ll see.”

The place is still after he leaves, all of you standing frozen until after you hear the sound of the door closing. Then Rick whips off his hat and hurls it to the floor. “Son of a bitch!” he swears. “That’s all we need is that bastard trying to lure Nate away. Or worse.”

“It was bound to happen eventually,” Corinna says calmly. “He would have heard of him sooner or later, and you know he always wants what you have.”

Rick puts his hand on your neck, threading his fingers through your hair. “I’m sorry, Nate. Dee’s a pain in the ass, but don’t let him shake you.”

You just nod and close your eyes at the luxury of his hands on your skin. “It’s okay, Rick.”

Corinna says, “You two have about ninety minutes until the band gets here for rehearsals. Nathan, I’d like you to do at least one set tonight, if you feel up to it, so focus on working with the band on some standards you’re comfortable with. As time goes on, you can build up your repertoire. Rick, get him relaxed; he’s stiff as a board, and I want him ready to work when the band gets here. You too.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Rick says, and takes you upstairs again, where he proves conclusively that he’s no harder on sheets than any other man.

You open the set that night with “Embraceable You,” and you sing it to Rick.

 

 

HARRY SHOWS up the second night and congratulates you on your performance. He tells you you’re not the first singer he’s steered Rick and Corinna’s way, and he names two people you’ve actually heard of, one a big-band singer and the other a rising Broadway star. He says when your current employers think you’re ready, he’ll take over as your manager and steer you straight up the charts. He’s easy to believe, especially because he’s clearly fond of the Bellevues. You’re becoming pretty fond of them yourself.

So you keep singing, and keep loving Rick, and neither activity ever begins to pall. You open a bank account, but somehow it’s so much easier to keep living at the club, close to Rick. (Corinna apparently has a flat somewhere in the city; you never see her before noon.) On the nights when Rick sleeps with you, he’s gone in the early predawn dark, but you don’t follow him again. Instead you just wait for him to come back and roust you out for breakfast. After a few weeks, though, you discover in yourself a heretofore unexpected ability to cook, so the two of you dare to raid the irascible Mario’s kitchen and make your own breakfasts. That requires, however, making sure you replace the food you eat before Mario gets there at noon and comes after you with his machete, so a couple of times a week you visit the local market and do grocery shopping together. It’s positively domestic, and the kind of thing you dreamed about with Bertie.

Rick doesn’t seem to get bored with you, either. He’ll sometimes play when you’re on stage, but doesn’t sing himself unless you’re alone with him. Then it’s odd, minor-key songs in that Greek dialect you don’t know, and they usually put you to sleep. Other than that, you go on long drives in his gold Lincoln, and work on new arrangements of songs, and sometimes read the latest novel from Fannie Hurst or Edna Ferber. He is an enormous fan of Mary Roberts Rinehart’s supercriminal The Bat, which you tease him about mercilessly. And of course you go to the movies, usually matinees. He prefers Garbo to Crawford, but you both agree on Gable. And Harlow. Corinna rolls her eyes at your taste in melodrama, but the two of you just laugh at her. All three of you love the Marx Brothers.

Only one incident disturbs the halcyon days.

It is late on a Saturday evening, and you are nearly to the end of your set, when Dion Winyard walks into the club as if he owns it. With him are three goons, thick-necked and burly in expensive pinstriped suits, their broad faces blank. Rick intercepts them, and they have a low-voiced conversation before he escorts them to an empty table at the side of the dance floor.

Fortunately you are singing an old Gilbert and Sullivan standard, one you can sing in your sleep, and you can keep an eye on them as you perform. Slowly, the couples on the dance floor drift off, back to their tables. Billie goes over to take their order and gets goosed by Winyard. She only smiles grimly instead of smacking him with her tray as she would have anyone else, and heads over to the bar to place the orders.

Oddly, he doesn’t even look at her; his attention is focused on you.

By the time you finish your set, she has delivered the drinks, been pulled into Winyard’s lap and released, and has disappeared. Corinna comes up behind Winyard; she is wearing black tonight and appears like a ghost, her pale face and hair bodiless in the dim light. The goons visibly jump, but Winyard only turns and makes a face at her.

You finish singing, thank the band and the audience, and step off the stage to the usual applause. Some sense of gallantry—and rage—sends you over to the table to stand beside Corinna. “Anything I can help with?” you ask under your breath.

She glances at you approvingly, but says, “No, thank you, Nathan. Everything is under control.”

“Billie,” you start, and she holds up a slim beringed hand.

“Billie is fine. I’m going to have a chat with Dion about his treatment of my employees. You go ahead and get a drink.”

A touch on your elbow, and you look to see Rick standing there. “Get a drink, Nate,” he says softly, but his eyes are cold. You expect coldness from Corinna; from Rick, it is disturbing.

Then they warm, just a hint, as they meet yours, and you smile, and nod, and walk away.

This was your last set of the night, although most nights you go back on and keep going until your voice is tired. The normal schedule isn’t anything close to demanding. But tonight—no. Tonight, with Winyard in the audience, it doesn’t feel right.

You’re not alone in the feeling. People are finishing their drinks and stubbing out cigars and cigarettes, getting up from their seats and drifting toward the doors. Not all at once, not rushing as if there were a raid (you’d been through two of those and would be happy to never renew the experience), but gradually, in pairs and foursomes, calling good-nights to friends and nodding to you as they pass.

Rick and Corinna are still talking with Winyard when the band comes back from their break. They start to play again, but the music they choose is odd, in a minor key, plaintive and worrying. The hand Rick has at Corinna’s back is stiff with tension, as if resisting forming a fist. The air is palpably hostile, and the smirk on Winyard’s face does nothing to dispel it.

Mario comes out of the kitchen. Mario never comes out of the kitchen. He stumps across the floor, his clubfoot making an odd rhythm that somehow fits with the sad tones of the instruments. Rick pulls over a chair for him and looks at Corinna. She shakes her head and keeps standing, looming over the gangster. She looks fragile and dainty against him, but somehow you don’t think he would be wise to cross her.

Rick’s face, what you can see of it, is hard and expressionless. He speaks in a low voice, his lips thinned and barely moving, as if he’s talking through clenched teeth.

Almost everyone has left the club by now, and you see the staff heading for the kitchen. Even the bartenders leave their posts and follow. It’s only you and the odd group by the dance floor.

“Nate.” Your name is hissed, and you turn to see Billie gesturing for you to come away. You shake your head, and she waves more furiously. “Come on. This is not for you. It’s trouble.”

You glance up and meet Rick’s eyes. He nods, almost infinitesimally, and you start to turn away, but Winyard’s voice rises.

“Hey, you. Canary. Why’ncha join us? You too, sweetheart.”

“Leave them alone, Dion,” Rick snaps. “They’re not part of this.”

“But they are. On accounta I want them to be.” He eyes you, still smirking. “He’s your fairy prince, Ricky, ain’t he?”

“Shut up, Dion. Leave him alone. Nate, go with Billie.”

“I’m not a coward,” you say stiffly.

He softens and says, “I know, Nate. But this… this is family business.”

Family? Mario’s obviously a part of it. And where did Winyard fit in?

Your puzzlement must show, because Billie hisses, “Family in the sense of mob, Nate. Come on.”

She takes your hand and leads you across the floor to the swinging doors leading to the kitchen. As you’re about to go through, Winyard calls, “Hey, Canary!”

You turn and look, and he squashes his lips up in a mockery of a kiss.

When you come through the doors, you’re shaking and nauseous. Billie leads you to a little bistro set in the corner of the kitchen; the place is oddly quiet without Mario’s presence: no banging pots or boiling pasta or hollered orders. The waitstaff and kitchen help are gathered at the back, waiting. Billie turns from you and says to them, “Y’all go home now. You’re not needed ’til tomorrow.”

They seem to have been waiting for her words, because they’re suddenly in motion, abandoning the club like lemmings. Billie ignores them, bustling about making a pot of tea, which she sets down on the table and drops into the chair opposite. You get up silently and fetch two cups and saucers.

“Thanks, toots,” she says. Her voice, her face, her body are all tired. She’s always so upbeat it’s disturbing to see her like this. Suddenly you realize she needs the tea as much as you do.

“What’s going on, Billie?”

She shakes her head. “About once a month, Dion comes in here to harass them. He never does anything; he can’t intimidate them like he does the other businesses in the area, but he tries. There’s something that goes way back between them—between all of them.”

“Even Mario?”

“Even Mario. Harry, too, sometimes. But we don’t know what. Corinna says it doesn’t involve us. It’s something to do with the old country.”

“Oh. Like Auntie?”

“You’ve met Auntie?”

“Yes. Rick took me to Delphie’s for breakfast. We’ve been there a couple of times, but I only met Auntie the first time.”

“She scares the bejeebers out of me,” Billie said frankly.

“Me too,” you admit.

The two of you drink your tea in silence, and clean up afterward in the same silence. Finally Billie says, “I’m going to wait for Corinna, but you just go on upstairs. Nothing for us to do here. It’ll be okay. They won’t let anything happen to us.”

“I know.” You do know. You know that Dion is no match for Rick, and certainly no match for Corinna. But he bothers them, and that bothers you.

You decide to sit up and wait for Rick to come upstairs to bed, but the night catches up to you, and you fall asleep. When you wake in the morning, you’re alone, but he appears at the door a moment later, as if he was waiting for you. “Breakfast?” he says with a grin. “Mario’s still here, and he’s offering.”

“You didn’t come to bed,” you say, yawning.

“You looked so peaceful, I didn’t want to disturb you. So I slept in my own room.”

Where you’ve never been; he’s spent the nights since your arrival with you. It’s one of those things you just never think about. But breakfast sounds good, and Rick doesn’t seem at all disturbed about the events of the night before, and he’s giving you looks that make you think breakfast isn’t the only thing on his mind.

And after breakfast you go up to change out of your pajamas, and Rick follows and keeps you from getting dressed for an hour at least. And somehow you just forget about the night before, the worry and the curiosity vanishing beneath his warm hands and hot mouth. He keeps you on the edge for what seems like forever, until you are trembling with the strain and the sheer need, and then he lets you go, like a magician releasing one of his doves, and you soar and plummet in the white light of his love. You barely hear his soft “Sleep,” but your body obeys, and you drift again into slumber, worry and fear forgotten.

 

 

AND THEN one morning the police come to the club, and Rick has to go downtown and bail one of the waitresses out of jail for solicitation. It’s strange, because the waitress is Billie, and she’s the least likely person you know to wander from the straight and narrow like that. Well, excluding Corinna, of course. You offer to come with him, but he just tells you to go on to the grocer’s and replace the dozen eggs you’d used up in the monstrous—but delicious—omelet you’d made for him earlier.

So you do, and it only occurs to you halfway there that it’s the first time you’ve left the club without Rick in—is it six weeks already? The few blocks to the market retrace the same route you’d walked all those weeks ago on your way from Harry’s, but you’re not the same sad sack that came down that pike; you’ve money in your pocket, new clothes on your back, and a song in your heart.

So that when you see the shabbily dressed woman with the toddler in her arms, holding out a battered man’s hat for people to drop coins in and no one dropping coins, you have to stop. The woman isn’t pretty; she has the sad, drawn face of the hopeless, and the child has her own face buried in the woman’s shoulder. She’s thin and wasted under the worn pinafore.

You stop and pull your wallet from your pocket and take a five-dollar bill out and put it in the hat. “Buy the baby something to eat,” you say gently.

The “baby” turns to look at you, and you step back involuntarily. Those round black eyes have no whites, and instead of a nose, there’s a red vertical slash. When the creature grins, it flashes teeth that are sharp with ragged points. “Gotcha,” it says in a growly voice, and puffs a breath in your face. This time the step back is more of a stagger as the world goes fuzzy.

The woman isn’t shabbily dressed anymore; she’s not dressed much at all, just a bloody animal skin draped over her like an apron. She laughs—cackles, really—and drops the “baby,” who scampers off into the woods that have suddenly appeared around you. The woman, her knotted hair exploding from the neat bun she’d worn before, follows, laughing wildly.

The city is gone. You’re standing in a clearing, in the middle of a circle of stones surrounded by wild woods. Above the trees you see mountains. Your heart pounds in your chest and you spin around, blinking. “This can’t be right,” you say aloud, and the fright in your voice makes you all the more scared.

“It isn’t right,” another voice answers. You’ve heard that voice before, but you have to turn around to be sure.

Dion Winyard is sitting in a stone chair, almost a throne, just outside the circle of stones. He’s wearing the same kind of outfit the crazy woman had on: an animal skin draped over one shoulder and wrapped around his waist. A crown of vines circles his head, and a leather wineskin is in his lap. As you stare at him blankly, he takes a swig from it. “It’s not right,” he repeats, “but it is the way it is. Only here is the way it should be. Out there—it’s all wrong.”

“I don’t understand,” you say blankly. “Where am I? What is this place, and how did I get here?”

“See, that’s the problem,” he says, pointing the mouth of the wineskin at you. “You live with them, and you haven’t a clue who they are. They’re part of the problem! They just go along with the way things are. They don’t get it—if we don’t fight, we’re gonna end up just like the others. They think if they change, if they go along with how the world wants them to be, then that’ll be fine. They think just because they’ve lasted two thousand years this way that they’re the survivors. Them and their ‘music.’” His sarcasm puts the quote marks around the word. “Do you even have a clue who they are?”

You glare at him, but he just waits. “Yes, of course I do,” you say. “I’m not stupid. I went to school. I know about… them. I don’t know why, of course. Or how they survived… whatever it was they survived.”

“The death of the Great Pan,” Dion says. “The death of everything. I know what they teach you in schools, mortal. They cleaned it all up, organized it like they were damned Hesiod, for Zeus’s sake. Crammed us all into nice clean little niches. God of this, goddess of that. But that ain’t the way it was. Ain’t the way it is, or should be, for that matter. I’m the god of the vine, whoop-de-do. I ain’t the fucking god of the vine. I’m the god of madness, of drunkenness, of lewd behavior, of fucking, for Zeus’s sake, and they’ve got me emasculated as god of some gods-damned plant? And Ricky? They turned him into a faggoty sun god or crap like that. Twenty thousand years the god of the hunt and the chase and the scalding desert, and now he rides his little chariot across the sky and mentors mortal musicians. Jazz!” He says the word like a curse.

“What do you want from me?” You try to be brave, but it was easier facing the guns in a charge across the bloody plains of France than this man. Or god. Or whatever he is.

“They’re the only ones left, except the little godlings, the ones who are actually gods of plants and shit like that. And the leftover monsters. Those don’t matter. But they do. They’ve turned their back on who they are—who they were. They were once among the oldest and strongest of all of us, but they’ve forgotten. They’ve gone weak. I haven’t, but I can’t go on alone. The three of us can rule the world again, once I do this.”

“Do what?” You’ve backed as far away across the clearing as you can, but there’s an invisible wall or something you’re plastered up against. Behind you the trees rustle, as if inhabited by more of the crazy pelt-wearing females, but your hands touch only solidity.

“Bring them back into their godhead,” Dion says, his voice low and wicked. “Force them to take it up again. Then—when it’s three, and the best of us—then we change the world. Cast down their plaster gods, their pallid, bloodless saints of sacrifice, make them worship us again as they did before. And you, little man, are just the one to do it.”

“Me?” you squeak.

“You. You’re the closest thing to a worshiper Ricky has.”

The invisible wall dissipates behind you, and you stumble back, right into the arms of the wild women. Filthy hands with nails like thorns grab you, scratch you, clutching arms, legs, dragging you across the clearing to where Dion stands. He raises his arms, and there’s a rumble, and a stone slab appears in front of him, waist high. The wild women throw you up onto the slab; you try to scramble away, but they’ve got your arms again and haul you down onto your back, hanging on to you. Dion draws a long knife, curved like a scimitar, and slices open your new shirt, the tip sliding along your breast and belly and leaving a thin line of red.

At the sight of the blood, the wild women howl. Dion grins. “First blood,” he cackles. “This is how it will go, Nate.” The sound of your name on his lips is terrifying. “You are the worshiper, the devoted, the sacrifice. I dedicate you to the sun god Utu, the god Shamash, the god Nergal. To the god Inti, the god Istanu, to Agni and Ravi, to Helios, to Aten and Khepri and Ra, to Huitzilopochtli, to Malakbel, to Igbo, to Magec, to Ngai. To the gods of light and justice and punishment, of fire and war and the daylight hunt. To the eagle, to the lion, to the wolf. And through this sacrifice to the sister of the Sun, the Moon, Mayari, Astarte, Isis, Bendis, Selene, and all the other crap names of that crazy woman. By this sacrifice do I bring them to their godhead….”

Vines have sprung up all around you, binding you to the stone. The knife is poised above your breast, glittering in the dappled light of the clearing, a drop of blood quivering on the tip. The women are crouched around the makeshift altar. Your mouth moves as you whisper silent prayers—to whom you’re not sure, maybe the God of your childhood, the God of your parents who drove you out, begging for forgiveness, not rescue, because you know there’s no hope, not anymore. Your hope is down at the police station, bailing Billie out of a trumped-up charge—and you know now who it was that accused her, to get Rick out of the way while he pulls this crazy stunt. You take a breath and close your eyes, bracing yourself.

Someone screams, and it’s not you.

Your eyes shoot open, and you stare up at Dion, who’s got a feathered stick growing out of the center of his chest. He drops the knife, and it lands on the stone beside you with a clatter. “Zeus fuck,” a complaining, beautiful voice says, but the vines have twisted around your head and hold it immobile, so you can’t see.

“You shot me, you bitch!” Dion accuses angrily.

The wild women are screaming and, from the sound of it, running away. Rick comes closer and touches the vines; they shrivel up and fall away. He’s got a bow in his left hand, the arrow still nocked, but his right hand draws you up and against him. “Are you all right, baby?”

“I’m okay,” you say into his shoulder.

“Of course I shot you.” Corinna sounds mildly aggrieved, which, after a few weeks of acquaintance, you know means she is furious. “What the hell were you thinking, Dion? Nate is a mortal. You bring him here as a sacrifice? You’re breaking all the oaths we took when we were permitted to remain.”

“Of course he is,” Rick says. His voice is a comforting rumble in your ear. “He’s nutty.”

“He said he would bring you into your godhead,” you mumble.

“Like I said, nutty. We gave all that up, you moron.” You know he’s not talking to you. “We agreed. You agreed.”

“It isn’t enough!” Dion roars. “To have to live among those petty little minds, those little lives? To see them bow down to these new gods?”

“They are the gods they have chosen, Dion,” Corinna says. “They are the gods who fit what they are now, the gods of this age. Our time has come and gone. To them we are nothing more than the shadows of their ancient past, the gods of the field and the hunt and the physical world. We are not the Written Gods. We are the Dreamt Gods. Our time is done.”

“So I’m supposed to just give in, let myself die like Zeus and Hera and Osiris and Woden and all the others?”

“No,” you say, turning back to him. With Rick at your back you feel braver, strong enough to face this man, this god. “Go on the way Rick and Corinna have. Find your niche and your worshippers among the ones who are left.” You snort. “You know Rick says they’re about to repeal Prohibition….”

“Huh,” Dion says. “Prohibition has been a gold mine for me.”

“You’re a gangster, and a successful one, so you know how it is. People will always drink. They’ll always go crazy. They’ll always—” You glance at Corinna and modify what you’re going to say. “—have carnal relations. Find your worshippers there. Corinna’s right—this isn’t your time anymore. And your idea wouldn’t have worked, anyway. Rick’s not a god to me. He’s just a man. A man who sets things on fire occasionally, yeah, but still just a man.”

You feel Rick’s hand fall away, feel the coolness at your back where he had been standing. You glance back to see his face blank. And then you think… oh….

And you add, “The man I love.” But you say this to Rick, not to Dion. Dion doesn’t matter anymore. “I don’t care if you’re Apollo or Vishnu or Buddha….”

He’s laughing now. “I’m not Vishnu or Buddha!”

“It doesn’t matter. You’re Rick Bellevue, and I love you.”

“Finally,” Corinna says.

 

 

THEY LEAVE Dion there, trying to get up the nerve to yank the arrow out of his chest. “It won’t kill him,” Corinna says as she and Rick escort you to the gold chariot that waits in the trees. “It’ll just hurt like the very devil. We can’t be killed by ordinary means. We can die, we can kill ourselves, but a mere arrow is nothing.”

“She left the killing arrows at home,” Rick says to you in an aside.

“Of course I did. He’s an idiot, but he’s still family.”

Rick sets his bow down on the floor of the chariot at his feet and picks up the reins. Corinna somehow looks right with a bow in her hand, even in the filmy white dress she is wearing, but Rick looks plenty strange in his white seersucker suit, holding a bow. Of course, the suit looks plenty strange on a man standing in a gold chariot and driving a team of four white horses. Not even white, really; incandescent, like Rick the morning you’d seen him on the roof.

A road opens up through the trees, and as Rick drives the chariot, the air gets fuzzy again; something whacks you in the back of the knees, and you sit down hard on the backseat of the Lincoln, and Corinna pulls out a filmy white scarf and wraps it around her hair. “You lost your hat,” she says over the back of the front seat, and hands it to you. You put it on, but you feel ridiculous with your sliced-open shirt, the edges stained with blood.

“Are you all right?” Rick asks again.

“I’m fine,” you respond. And you are. The cut stings a little but not much. “Where are we?”

“I want to make a stop,” Rick says.

The road starts to look familiar—or rather, the switchbacks do—and you see up ahead the little restaurant on the bluffs. This time when he pulls into the parking lot, there’s no Delphie to come running out to meet him. “Come on,” he says, and opens the door for Corinna. “You can leave the bow—I’m not going to kill either of them.”

You follow them up the path to the little cottage. Delphie’s waiting outside on a bench, with Auntie in her rocker in the doorway. The restaurant owner’s face is set.

“You listened in, didn’t you?” Rick asks her. “When Auntie spoke about Nate.”

“Yeah,” she admits. “And told Dion. Sorry. It’s just hard to say no to him, y’know?”

“Yeah,” he agrees, “but you’re my employee, not his. Next time he asks you to do something like that, you tell me, okay?”

“You aren’t mad?”

“Oh, I’m plenty mad,” he says, “but where am I going to get someone to watch over Auntie?”

She lets out a breath of air in relief. He adds softly, “But that doesn’t mean you aren’t getting punished.”

“Oh, crap….” And suddenly it’s a baboon crouched on the bench. It howls pitifully.

“You get your real form back when I think you’ve been punished enough,” he tells it. “Plus this way you can eavesdrop all you want and not have to worry about anyone pressuring you to blab.”

“What did Auntie say?” you ask finally.

“That you were the perfect sacrifice if I wanted to get back what was lost to me,” Rick says distantly, his eyes on the roof of the house. “That you were the key. You were wrong, you know, back there, when you stood up to Dion. It would have worked.” He drops his eyes to mine. They’re dark and sad and human. “But I would have lost you. And, my Orpheus, I love you.”

“Finally,” Corinna says.