Wallace simply covered his champagne glass as errant rings bounced onto their table. Julia reached shakily to do the same.
The stage lights faded into darkness, and thunderous applause broke out. Shouts pulsing Eva’s name brought her back through the curtains. She bowed her head twice and disappeared again as the house lights came up.
Timson sat back. Looking squarely at Max Clark, he said, “What’d I tell you? Hot show, in’t she? Only in Harlem, folks, only in Harlem.”
Dolly swallowed. “Oh my.” Dark spots on her cheeks mottled the rosier tints carefully laid on earlier that evening. “It’s so, so—” She struggled to find a bold word.
Taking her discomposure as a compliment, Timson brought his heavy forearm down on the table with satisfaction. He nodded as Duveen added exuberant praises. Goldsmith said nothing, but his color had deepened. But then no one could remain unaffected by what they’d just witnessed, so close they could see the trails of perspiration disappearing into the folds of performers’ costumes and smell the sweat that misted the air with each kick and spin.
“Pure jungle energy!” Duveen crowed, to no one in particular. “Primitive splendor, jam-packed in one spectacular show!”
Timson acknowledged this with a wave. “Hey, folks, want you to meet an old friend, Martin Wallace. Watch this fella. He’ll be Senator Wallace one of these days. It’s a real honor to have him join us.”
Wallace demurred at the praise and circled the table, shaking hands as Duveen introduced their party. Resettling beside Julia, he refilled her glass before his own and told Clark he’d done considerable business out West. This and that. Clark’s interest was reply enough, and the two men conversed across the table for a few minutes.
Leroy appeared at Timson’s elbow. Following his employer’s nod, he silently circled the table and slipped a folded bill beside Max Clark’s glass.
“I understand you folks intend to visit some of our more quaint neighborhood establishments tonight,” Timson said, standing. Around them other patrons milled about, greeting friends, placing orders, and seeking the lavatories. “But you’re welcome to stop by my private rooms upstairs, meet my little songbird. You too, Marty, if you got a minute. Let’s show Clark here some Harlem hospitality. I’ll tell Eva to come up.”
Duveen sent a furtive look of triumph toward Max Clark, who nodded to acknowledge that the rare privilege might cost him. Duveen thanked Timson and promised they’d be up shortly.
Timson grunted and walked away. Clark dismissed the hovering Leroy with a careless toss of bills onto the table.
CHAPTER 9
One didn’t simply stop by Timson’s rooms. A pair of guards, guns bulging visibly beneath their open jackets, barred the stairs. They slid rough paws over the men’s torsos and thighs, taking brusque inventory of seams and accessories. Just as coarsely they palpated Julia’s and Dolly’s small handbags.
Julia had never been so close to a gun. Duveen’s mention of Timson’s shady past had been offhand, as if warning them of a limp or tremor one mustn’t stare at. But there was nothing benign or simply awkward about the guns less than an arm’s length away. They were worn openly, not even buttoned inside a coat. In one swift motion these men could become killers. More importantly, those guns were the first (and only) thing you understood about them. They wanted you to be afraid. And she was—of anyone who wielded fear as a weapon more powerful than the gun itself.
When satisfied no one posed a threat, one of the guards escorted them up another long flight of stairs. A landing halfway up opened to a narrow, dim hallway, silent but for the flutter of costumes and scurrying heels. Another sentinel stood at this landing, arms crossed and feet planted. He too scanned them carefully before allowing them to climb the last dozen steps up to Timson’s private sanctum.
Baroque sconces bathed the room in the greenish light of a troll king’s grotto. Two sofas faced each other across a low table, and an oak bar festooned with sinewy carvings bracketed the far wall, an opulent altar promising refreshments as bottomless as those downstairs. Behind the bar hung a large painting of leering satyrs and taunting nymphs in the overwrought style of Böcklin or Rops, in a massive gilt frame. Julia fought not to smile. How Philip would yelp at the sight of it. Only yesterday he’d neglected his lunch—Christophine’s salmon terrine—for a spirited diatribe on such symbolist claptrap, whose emotional excesses he despised (though not more, he’d decided, than Boucher’s insipid cupids). His tastes in art were more modern than Julia’s—a bracing discovery, clarifying as a splash of ice water—yet even Philip would appreciate the sight of this voluptuous painting presiding over the lair of a Harlem gangster. She couldn’t wait to tell him.
Wallace stood near the bar, deftly pouring champagne into waiting glasses. He greeted them all by name with an expression that was cordial yet composed, neither guarded nor eager. He looked directly into Julia’s eyes as for the second time that evening he spoke her name. It was quiet, respectful. “Miss Kydd.” Did she imagine a resonance? In the next moment he greeted Austen, Duveen, and Goldsmith. She wished there had been time to talk with him earlier, downstairs before the show. What might they have said to each other, in that instant when their hands had met?
Timson scooped up the glasses, spilling what his friend had so skillfully poured, and distributed them to his guests. The second bottle had just been opened when Eva emerged from a door painted to blend into the adjacent wall, trailing Jerome Crockett behind her. Dressed in the blue uniform of the hall guards, he slipped behind the bar and took up a small white towel. Wiping the spotless counter in slow circles, he avoided Julia’s eye and gave
