announced.
Karl spent a few moments running an appreciative eye over Ella’s long, slinky, cream-coloured gown, and, of necessity, the long, slinky, caramel-coloured body the gown was so desperately striving to contain. This done, he checked the guest list. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Baker, but I don’t have you on my list.’
‘That’s because I only decided to take up my big sister’s kind invitation to see the show an hour ago.’
‘Your sister?’
Ella tapped a finger on the poster that decorated the entrance to the nightclub. ‘My big sister, Josie.’
‘I didn’t know Miss Baker had a sister… er… Miss Baker.’
‘Well, you do now.’ If anyone could pull off the trick of playing Josephine Baker’s sister, Ella knew it was her: she had the colour, she had the same slim figure, she was wearing a suitably elegant and quite risque gown and she had put a decidedly arrogant lilt in her voice. She had spent so much time trying to sing like Josephine Baker that she was pretty confident she would be able to talk like her.
Ella could tell from Karl’s expression that he was faced with something of a dilemma. Probably his manager had told him very forcibly that under no circumstances was he to allow entry to the club to anyone not on the guest list but the scene he could imagine ensuing if he turned Josephine Baker’s sister away was really too horrible to contemplate. In the end he capitulated.
He unhooked the red rope guarding the club’s entrance. ‘Monsieur Louverture has table number sixty-seven, Madem -oiselle. It is on the far side of the club. I trust you and Colonel Maykov will have an enjoyable evening.’
Together they swept regally into the club, Ella doing her best, as she sashayed through the foyer, to restrain herself from laughing out loud at her triumph. Even the tawdriness of the interior didn’t dampen her exuberance.
The Resi’s reputation was that it had been the epitome of decadence; instead it seemed decidedly low-rent. The club was built around a large rectangular dance floor surrounded by packed tables themselves bordered by more intimate booths set on two low balconies. It was garishly decorated – to Ella’s mind it resembled an old- fashioned cinema that had been tricked out in pink and gilt – and lit by dozens of candelabras. There was nothing subtle about the Resi; it looked just what it was: a huge, brash pick-up joint.
Yet when Ella entered the room with Vanka, there was only one couple who grabbed the attention of the crowd. That Vanka was, without a doubt, the best-looking and best-dressed man in the room – with his figure, he was born to wear black tie and tails – contributed to this, but it was probably that he was accompanied by a Shade that ensured they would be the centre of attention. And Ella, knowing that she looked devastating in her gown and her fur wrap, found being the focus of so much whispered gossip really quite exciting. This, she decided, was what it must be like to be famous, to be a celebrity.
Putting an outrageous sway in her bottom, throwing back her shoulders so her figure was shown to its best advantage, Ella led Vanka in what PINC told her was the direction of Table 67, smiling and nodding to the other patrons as she undulated past their tables, acting out every fantasy she’d ever had about being a film star.
There was only one man sitting at the table, a tiny Shade – Ella guessed that when standing he would be a good head shorter than she was – aged about forty, sporting an Imperial beard, oddly scarred cheeks – Rite of Passage scars, so PINC told her – and nursing a glass of champagne. Small and ugly he might have been but he was immaculately dressed and his jewellery – his over-large cravat stud and cuff links – twinkled with diamonds.
‘Good evening, Louffie,’ said Vanka.
Louverture pulled his gaze away from a very appreciative examination of Ella’s bosom. A rather unpleasant smile split his face: he didn’t seem pleased to see Vanka. ‘As I live and breathe… Vanka Maykov. I heard you were dead, Vanka, I heard they deep-sixed you back in Rodina.’
‘I decided to stay alive until you had paid me the two thousand guineas you owe me.’
Louverture studied Vanka in cold silence for several seconds. ‘I don’t remember any debt…’
‘I doubt that, Louffie, I doubt that.’
‘I really hope you haven’t come here tonight to cause a disturbance, Vanka, as I’m not in the mood to be leant on.’ Louverture made a signal to a large, bearded Shade with a bald head and similarly scarred cheeks who was lurking nearby. ‘I think Gaston will show you out, Vanka. I think it’s time you hit the bricks.’
Seizing the moment, Ella leant across the table, making sure that as she did so she displayed a quite reckless amount of cleavage for Louverture’s enjoyment. ‘Vanka and I aren’t here to create waves, Monsieur Louverture. My name is Ella Thomas and I’ve come here tonight to make you a rich man.’
‘I am already a rich man, Mademoiselle Thomas,’ said Louverture in a distracted voice, Ella having no doubt what was distracting him.
‘An obscenely rich man,’ she countered.
‘This frail of yours shooting straight dice, Vanka?’
He nodded.
‘Then you and Vanka may join me, Mademoiselle, but not because you promise me riches but because you are a Shade with the courage to disport yourself in such a dissolute manner in this den of racism. In the ForthRight such moxie – such foolhardiness – is to be encouraged.’
Ella needed no second bidding: she slid into Louverture’s booth closely followed by Vanka.
‘May I offer you a drink, Mademoiselle… Vanka? The champagne provided by the management is quite palatable.’
Both Ella and Vanka nodded their agreement and Louverture signalled Gaston to serve his two guests.
‘Monsieur Louverture…’ began Ella, but her host held up a hand to silence her in mid-sentence.
‘I am afraid I must forgo the immediate satisfaction of my curiosity, Mademoiselle, and the enjoyment of the no doubt enthralling explanation of your intended philanthropy. The entertainment is about to begin and I have a managerial responsibility to ensure that the Revue performs seamlessly.’
Barely were the words out of Louverture’s mouth than a line of seven musicians, all painted in blackface and wearing tuxe-does and bowler hats, trooped onto the dance floor playing their instruments as they marched. Ella shuddered in disgust: it was the first time that she had seen real black people sporting this sort of make-up. With their huge white lips and their goofy eyes there was something grotesque about them, something almost golliwog- esque. Ella had to stifle the urge to leap to her feet and harangue them for having no self-respect, for somehow demeaning their race. But then she remembered that she wasn’t back in twenty-first-century New York, she was in a pastiche of a time-lost Berlin dropped seemingly at random in the middle of the most racist Sector of a make- believe world.
And as she listened to the band, Ella realised that the combo’s one saving grace was that even if their make-up and costuming were comical and degrading, then at least the same couldn’t be said of their playing. Each and every one of them seemed to be a master musician and the driving jazz – or rather, jad – they conjured soon had the whole audience swaying.
Happy that his musicians were playing to his satisfaction, Louverture seemed to become bored. He turned back to Ella. ‘So, Mademoiselle, you were about to tell me how you would make me fabulously wealthy.’
There was, Ella decided, no point in beating around the bush. ‘I understand that you are able to secure large quantities of blood.’
Louverture leant back in his seat and gave a doleful shake of his head. ‘You are a beautiful young woman, Mademoiselle, and as such I would recommend that you limit your interests to gowns and to other feminine frivolities. As Vanka has no doubt told you, the trade in blood is a robust occupation, suitable only for men.’
Ella smiled. ‘I take my inspiration from Miss Baker: I do not let the opinion of others deter me from doing what I feel I need to do. And what I need, Monsieur Louverture, is to secure the supply of sixty thousand litres of blood, more if I can get it.’
Louverture gawped. ‘I think you, Mademoiselle, are as much the comedienne as Josephine herself. Such a quantity of blood is enormous, simply incredible. The cost…’
‘I understand that the black-market rate is one hundred guineas a litre, which makes it a transaction worth six million guineas.’
Louverture covered his discomfiture by taking a long gulp of his champagne. ‘Six million guineas? You got pockets that deep?’
A simple nod from Ella. ‘
Where would you wish this outrageous quantity of blood to be delivered?’
