City of Dragons (19 page)

He pocketed the money faster than a magician with a card trick. “Be seeing you, Miranda.”

She watched him pull himself up the hill on the plywood, his back and shoulder muscles quivering with effort, the smell of bok choy pursuing him up Grant.

Twelve

T
he Moderne was at 555 Sutter, right around the corner from her apartment, irresistibly drenched in neon and glistening with a kind of cheap Hollywood glamour. Joe Merello, a short, dapper Italian with some of the best cooks and fastest hands for a floor show number in the city, ran the operation and owned the club, but not all by himself. His profits and showgirls both fell into more hands than his own.

No one ever knew who Joe’s partners were, and no one cared, so long as he fronted, because the drinks were fair and always had been—even before repeal. The club’s matchbooks and menus read A DINNER FOR EPICURES, and he always made sure that the slogan fit, regardless of whether you were sober enough to taste the French-Italian specialties.

His own specialties were about five-two and nineteen, and the “Sensational!” floor show changed as frequently as his appetite: a three-month stint or when she turned twenty-one, whichever came first. The club wasn’t as busy as Joe Vanessi’s, but Merello managed to pull in his share of the socialite/celebrity mix, who figured the “e” in Moderne stood for “elegant” instead of “easy.” Not that they would know the difference.

Miranda walked through the double chrome doors bathed in the spotlight, while a couple of women in furs and pomaded rich boys let the valet park the Duesenberg, and waited their turn on Sutter. The hat check girl raised her coiffed head from her palm, replacing the bored expression with a grin.

“Hiya, Miri, where’ve you been? No old ladies wantin’ the goods?”

“Hi, Marie—been busy, that’s all—different cases. Just dinner tonight. Joe on the floor?”

Marie rolled her eyes, her blonde eyebrows arching dramatically. “Probably on his office floor, and with the new chanteuse. Or in the room. Some high-rollers tonight—all that charity for the Rice Bowl Party—now they want it back.”

She motioned with her head toward Sutter, where a line had formed. Tailored specimens waited for admittance under the critical eye of Raphael, who considered himself the reincarnation of the artist. Joe ran a high-class gambling room behind the stage, as did many of the nightclubs in the city, and continued the regular donations to the Policemen’s Fund he’d started back during Prohibition.

“Marie—you see Betty Chow lately?”

“Betty … which Betty? Oh, the Chinese girl from Dianne’s? No, can’t say I have. She OK?”

Miranda frowned, checking her lipstick in the mirror behind Marie. “I wish I knew.” She opened her cocktail purse, and took out the photo of Phyllis. “How about this girl? She seem familiar at all?”

Marie craned her graceful neck to get a better look, studying the picture for a few seconds, before loud, self-conscious laughter signaled another party had been admitted. She whispered to Miranda: “Can’t say I have, sugar. But I’ll keep the eyes peeled.”

She winked at Miranda, and turned her attention to a slightly inebriated man about thirty, who was leaning on the counter and commanding her to take his hat off for him.

Miranda stepped through the faux marble columns, passed the empty, waiting tables for two, and took three steps down to the main floor. A thin, balding man in a tuxedo hurriedly approached with a smile on his face, while the band leader exhorted the trombone section to play “Wishing” just like Miller.

The thin man said: “Good evening, Miranda. Are we expecting someone?”

“Not tonight, Clark. Just dinner, though I’d like to show the boys—and you—a picture, when you’ve got a minute.”

He clicked his heels soundlessly, bowing low enough to muss his blond comb-over. “Of course.”

He snapped his fingers, and a good-looking young man about twenty-two, with a dancer’s build and a dark complexion, appeared at his side, his teeth gleaming appreciatively at Miranda until Clark threw him a jealous glance.

“Table Twelve, Jorge. And hurry it up.”

Jorge shrugged imperceptibly, his menu under his arm, and escorted Miranda to a small table near the stage. After he seated her, she took out the photo again.

“Look familiar? I know you like blondes, Jorge, even if Clark thinks they’re the wrong sex.”

The boy grinned again, smoothing down his long, slicked-back hair. He held the photo by a corner, studying it carefully, then shook his head.

“No, Miss Corbie. I have not seen this one. She is not a very good blonde—she is too pale. I would remember.”

“Thanks. Would you do me a favor and when the boys working tonight take a break, ask them to come over?”

His bow was lithe, sinuous. “Of course, Miss Corbie. Have you decided on your dinner?”

“The usual. And a Blue Fog, please. Thanks, Jorge.”

He nodded, and she watched his back as he retreated to the kitchen. The orchestra was still making a dirge out of “Wishing.”

So if you wish long enough, wish strong enough …

Maybe they’d take a break and her drink would arrive.

Another waiter approached with a cocktail glass full of blue gin and a cherry. She smiled.

They were used to seeing her, usually sat her next to one of the columns or sometimes where she was now, half-hidden by a palm frond. Even when it wasn’t the Moderne, most places had stopped giving her the kind looks, stopped the ever so slight big-eyed stutter when she told them she was by herself.

Musicians learned to ignore her the hard way, after she explained what “no” really meant with a string of epithets that would’ve made the men who built the bridges proud. Men sitting at the bar usually eyed her nervously, wondering what was wrong with her, not finding anything on the surface.

She was fair game if she was working the place, or even with another man, but on her own, her very aloneness made her off-limits. And if any of them asked the bartender about her, he’d shrug, and say, “Take your chances.”

Sometimes, in between the faster numbers, the courageous ones would ask her to dance, and sometimes she’d say yes, then despise the weakness of wanting a body against hers, warm and tight.

The women ignored her, their too-thin legs shimmering in pale silk, the too-white flesh soft from too many easy answers. Summers on the Cape, winters in Switzerland until the refugee problem, but at least there was still Sun Valley, thank God. Eyes mascared, nails painted, voices modulated, bodies sullied only by the drunk of their own class, they turned away, comforted with money, wrapped up in it until that was all they could smell. Untouched, unmoved, unwarmed by the Spanish sun, voices tinkling like the ice in the cocktail glass.

Sometimes Miranda would overhear fragments, snapshots of lives lived lightly—“Will Cal beat Stanford, do you think—I just adore that Jimmy Stewart—Sally Rand’s nude ranch—no, really, they only wear—New York’s is going bust, at least we’ll recoup this year, more rides, more girls—the bridges won’t last, wait and see. Next earthquake and boom! Ferries are the only safe way to cross the Bay …”

Once in a while she might catch a mention of Hitler or Mussolini or Japan, a “poor England” or “poor France” whispered in a guilty exchange, as if apologizing for not talking American. And about every three months, a man or woman in last year’s hat, self-conscious and with the evening’s special on the table, would murmur something about Nanking or Spain, and how the world knew it was coming.

Then, if she was working, Miranda wouldn’t come in for a time, move to Bal Tabarin or Vanessi’s, or to a hotel restaurant, or anyplace else where her prey could be found with a drink in one hand, a girl in the other, and a band and gaiety and where people talked about the Big Game.

The girl singer had assumed the stage, and was warbling “I Get Along Without You Very Well,” a sentiment Miranda agreed with. She was on her third cigarette, had finished the small appetizer plate of olives and peppers and mozzarella, the mixed salad with capers, tomatoes, and Italian dressing, and the rare-grilled steak smothered in mushrooms. Most of the pasta in red sauce was still on the table, along with two nearly empty Blue Fogs, a half-cup of coffee, and the piece of cheesecake.

No luck with four of the waitstaff and the bartender. No one saw Phyllis, or remembered her if they had. Finally Joe came out of the hidden door behind the stage, holding a blonde with one hand and a redhead with the other. He glanced over, recognized Miranda, smiled with all of his teeth in a genuinely happy grimace, whispered something to the girls, and approached her, picking up her hand out of her lap and leaving a lingeringly wet kiss on it. Joe was harmless as long as you were over twenty-five.

He was wearing his trademark white derby, a red rose in his lapel. His face shone like a cherub’s, no doubt from a brisk business in blackjack.

“Ah, Miranda,
bella
,
come stai
?” He rested the hand with the diamond pinkie ring on her shoulder, smiling paternally.

“
Sto bene
,
grazie
, Joe.” She sipped her coffee, and he slid into the seat beside her, his sharp eyes on the singer, who was still trying hard to put it over.

“The boys tell me you asking questions, want to see me. Not the usual, not looking for a man. You got something going on, something new?”

She removed the photograph. “A couple of things. This girl, for one. You recognize her?”

Joe stared at it long and hard, his tongue between his lips. She was about the right age. He handed it back regretfully. “I never see her before, Miranda. I send Vicenzo out, maybe he know. What else you got?”

She inhaled the last of the cigarette before rubbing it in the ashtray. “Have you seen Betty Chow? Chinese girl, worked at Dianne’s same time as I did?”

A soft expression settled on Joe’s round, creased face at the mention of Dianne’s name. Rumor was they’d been lovers. Joe carried a small torch, about the size of a match, easily extinguished by the soft moan of a nineteen-year-old. Dianne had drowned hers long ago, in gin bottles and a fat bank account. Neither of them ever let a good time stand in the way of money.

Joe shook his head. “No, you know we don’t get many Orientals. They stay in Chinatown.”

“All right. One more thing, Joe, this is kind of tricky.”

His hand gesture was expansive. “Whatever you want.”

“Couple of finger men at Gillio’s—Olympic Hotel—with a dark green sedan. Maybe the one they’re looking for that ran over that old man near Seventeenth, I don’t know. I think it’s an Olds. They broke into my apartment, tried to scare me off.”

Joe scratched his ear with his index finger, furry eyebrows raised. “Those boys, Gillio’s—they play rough. Me, I never do business with them. No class. But they do this to my friend, to you, I keep my ears open, OK?”

“Thanks, Joe.
Grazie mille
.”

“
Ti amo, bella, hai capito
?” He pushed himself out of the chair, his hand on her shoulder again, bent down to kiss her cheek. He whispered: “
Guardati
, Miranda. I can only help so much.”

He stood up, his knees creaking slightly, patted her on the shoulder, and added in a normal voice: “I send Vicenzo to see you. He remembers everything, got a memory like Caruso’s voice.
Ci vediamo, bella
.”

Miranda watched as Joe walked quickly back to the gambling room, snapping his fingers at the door for the girls to each take an arm. She lit another Chesterfield, and waited.

Vicenzo closed the door softly behind him, looking nervously toward the floor. He caught Miranda’s eye, but showed no sign of recognition, and took a circuitous route toward her table in case a customer was watching.

He was a tall, skinny Neapolitan with a hawklike nose that looked like it had been lifted from a Roman coin, and hands faster than his employer’s—at least with cards.

He stood behind Miranda, scanning the floor. “Signorina Corbie?”

“
Buona sera
, Vicenzo. You ever see this girl?”

He stooped over to see the photo where she’d set it on the table, flattening the immaculate crease on his black trousers. His reaction was immediate.

“
Sí
. Yes, yes, I have seen her. She was here with a man, losing money fast. Very excited,
frenetica
. They spend a thousand, fifteen hundred—poof!—then she get tired, want to go home.”

“When?
È molto importante
.”

He counted back on his fingers. “
Lunedì
,
martedì
…
sí
,
martedì
—Tuesday. Late, close to midnight. They stay, maybe, half an hour, no more.”

“What was the man like?”

He made a motion as if to spit on the floor. “
Bastardo
.
Bidonista
,
faccia di culo
. He got dirty fingers. Slap the girl, she cry, go home.”

“Italian?”

“
Sí
.
Siciliano
.”

“You ever see him before?”