to shake his hand, and he greeted them both as old friends, enthusiastically asking how Detective Garvey was these days, and where he’d found this beautiful girl to grace them all with her presence. Samantha blushed hugely at that. The maitre d’ hustled them inside and the other patrons waiting in line shouted their objections, but he and Garvey seemed totally unaware of it.
Samantha almost gasped as they were led in. The interior of the club was almost entirely done in white-white marble floors and walls, white pillars, and a wooden center stage painted a gleaming white. It seemed wintry and fragile and impossibly beautiful, as though the arches and pillars might melt at any moment and it would all collapse. Tables were crowded around the center stage, and waiters in white dress coats threaded through the narrow lanes, delivering plates and drinks with demure smiles as though they were used to treating customers far more reputable than these, but were kind enough to bear the ignominy without mention. Behind the corner of the stage a full brass band played an unobtrusive jazz number while a sharp man in a three-piece suit stood beside them, sucking on a cigar and watching the crowds. When Garvey walked in a light went on in the man’s eyes, and he smiled slightly and pointed at Garvey and then to one of the choice corner tables, where they were immediately ushered to sit.
“ This is a place you know?” asked Samantha in awe once they were seated.
“Sure,” said Garvey. “They know me here.”
“I can see that. How on Earth did you ever manage this?”
He shrugged and smiled mysteriously. “I did a favor once or twice.”
“A favor?”
“Yeah. The owner’s daughter was in trouble once. Nothing serious, but it could’ve been. I kept it quiet and sorted it out.” He nodded at the man with the cigar, who just barely nodded back. “They’ve been kind to me ever since. I come here every couple of months or so. What do you think?”
“I must admit, I’m shocked by it. For a moment I thought you were going to threaten them with your gun to get us in.”
He smiled. “No. I don’t have it on me, anyway.”
“You don’t? Why not?”
“I forgot it,” he said. “It happens all the time, actually. Today was one of those times.”
“I thought all policemen carried their trusty revolvers with them.”
“Not murder police. We don’t do the shooting. We just clean it up. The gun has nothing to do with the job.”
They ordered martinis and calamari, and laughed and spoke quietly as the band played. Samantha was astonished to learn that Garvey’s previous job had been as a librarian, but the more he talked about police work the more that seemed perfectly apt, as it seemed to be nothing but filing and papers. She soon noticed he had a curious way of conversation, however-where before he’d seemed a very quiet man, now he was so enthusiastically candid about his life that Samantha couldn’t help but volunteer some of her own history, telling him things she’d almost never tell any other acquaintance. It was an almost invasive sort of sympathy, this big, lanky boy of a man bounding forward to make himself utterly vulnerable at your feet. You soon found you were giving yourself up to him, telling him everything you ever thought he’d want to hear, just to match how exposed he’d made himself. She wondered if it was a tactic and if he handled his suspects the same way, or if it was just his nature. She figured it probably was a bit of both, and then she couldn’t help but compare him to Hayes, who was so evasive, forever changing names and accents and stories until you didn’t know what was sitting on the other side of the table from you.
At ten o’clock the club host announced that the show would soon be starting, and Garvey excused himself and slipped off to the restroom. Samantha drank the rest of her martini, and soon the lighting in the club changed, the tables growing dimmer while the spots on the stage grew bright. As the patrons began standing Samantha followed suit, and found herself with one of the best views. The band started playing, picking up a soft, waltzy tune, and then there was a whir overhead. She looked up and then laughed in surprise as the ceiling above the stage seemed to be snowing, the flakes drifting down from some machinery hidden above. She caught a few and found they were real ice that melted on her fingertips. Soon the stage was almost hidden by a veil of soft white snow, yet through some cunning nature of the machinery it snowed in bursts that lined up with the beat of the song. Then two dancers came swooping out from the side of the stage, and the crowd gasped in surprise. One was a man in a black-and-white tuxedo with tails, the other was a long, slender-limbed woman in a glittering white dress that seemed to be made of snow as well. Once they came to the center of the stage, they began to dance and sing together.
Later Samantha never could recall what the song was about. It felt as if it was partially in French, with only snatches of meaning scattered throughout the words. But the words were a mere excuse for the performance. The dancers’ clothing was adapted so that at times it blended in with the flakes of ice, and as they swung one another in and out of the light they would flash bright and then seem to vanish, flitting across the stage in each other’s arms. It was powerfully mesmerizing, these faint white-and-black figures slipping among the bursts of the falling snow. She had never seen anything like it. She doubted if it could have been done anywhere else in the world.
It was never clear when the dance was done. Between the lighting and the camouflaged outfits, it was difficult to tell if the dancers were really there or not. But then the song came to an end, and everyone suddenly remembered themselves and started clapping furiously.
“It’s a seasonal thing,” said Garvey’s voice over her shoulder.
She turned and saw him standing beside her, watching the snow end. “Pardon?” she said.
“It’s a seasonal thing. They have different shows for winter, summer, spring. The fall one’s my favorite, they do some interesting stuff with leaves. But we missed that.”
“Unless we stick around for a while,” she said.
“Well, there’s that.”
She looked back at him again, and noticed there was something different about him now. He carried the faint smell of violets and lavender about him, and it looked like his hair had been carefully combed. Although she could have been mistaken, she felt sure he’d paid the bathroom attendants to tidy him up as best they could. She was suddenly reminded of a boy headed off to church, frantically trying to arrange himself. She smiled at him and laughed, then clapped one hand over her mouth to stifle it.
“What?” he said, and nervously stroked one side of his hair.
“Nothing,” she said, still fighting a smile. “I simply enjoyed the show, that’s all.” She looked back up at the machinery hidden in the ceiling. “How did they produce the snow?”
“You tell me,” said Garvey. “You work for the people who made it.”
“Ah,” she said. “Aren’t we popular.”
“Something like that,” he said. “Say, you still hungry?”
“Why? Do you know another place?”
He smiled that wide grin of his again. “I know a lot of places.”
This time they went down, descending through a trolley tunnel outside and then taking a hard right away from the lines, toward the middle of Newton. The tunnels themselves seemed almost deserted, as almost all had been since the murders.
“Is this safe?” she asked, but Garvey only shrugged.
As they walked through the tunnels she heard the sound of music and gabbling, and then they emerged into what looked like the heart of an Oriental market of some kind. Little wooden booths and tables were set up against the walls, and paper lanterns hung from the piping overhead. There was hardly any room to move, and considering that the market had to be emptier than usual, like most of the underground, she could hardly imagine it during peak hours.
Since there were so few visitors the vendors and the shopkeepers descended upon them immediately and began hounding them for their custom. She saw that though most booths had an Eastern look about them, more than a few of the vendors were as white as she. Garvey took out his wallet to pay, fumbling with his badge as he did so, and as soon as the light found the glint of his shield the vendors all calmed somewhat, and some disappeared entirely. He sneaked Samantha a sly grin, and then purchased some sweet, crackly honey cakes and strange, spiced meats on wooden skewers, and paper cups of soup with vegetables and fruits of many colors. They drank spiced wine as they walked through the subterranean marketplace, Garvey ducking through the lanterns as they moved, and he showed her many strange goods and services that could only be found here, or possibly at the shore, he said.
