“I’m going to leave in a few minutes,” Julia said. “With Martin Wallace.”
Philip rose half out of his chair, but before he could implode with objections, Duveen and Sweeney returned, stirring commotion with every cackle. Jay and Edwin embraced them with all the affection of a six-hour acquaintance. Duveen poured gin straight from his flask into his throat, burbling what he couldn’t swallow.
“We’re off to worship Gladys Bentley.” He reached across Philip to tug at Jack’s sleeve. “Van Dyne, you virtuous daisy. Come with us. You too, Kydd.”
So they’d become acquainted while she was away.
Sweeney giggled. “She’s the queen of the life. Biggest bulldagger in Harlem.”
“Two hundred pounds of sugar!” Duveen’s arms swarmed to find the sleeves of his jacket. His shirt still hung open, and his pale breasts sagged like an old woman’s. “You haven’t seen Harlem till you’ve seen Gladys stir her vat. Come on, daisy. You’ll love her.”
Julia eased away to the ladies’ room to freshen her wilted countenance. Which terror would Philip choose, she wondered: Gladys Bentley, or contemplation of her departure with Wallace?
The Duesenberg rolled through the streets of Harlem like a great stalking cat. Julia watched scores of people, mostly colored but some white, walking, dancing, arguing, singing, weeping, laughing, and being sick on the sidewalks as they glided by. It must be three or four in the morning, yet no one was sleeping. A breeze stirred her hair and chilled her scalp. It brought fleeting smells of garbage and gasoline.
As they headed south, the streets grew darker and quieter. Soon Central Park loomed black on their left, and slumbering apartment buildings towered on their right. They crossed the park and headed north again on Fifth Avenue. Edgar turned the motorcar smoothly onto one of the residential side streets, then right again into a small narrow lane along the rear east side of a handsome brick building. He eased to a stop in front of a sidewalk that led to a recessed private entrance framed by two conical shrubs in urns. A red-jacketed doorman held aside the door, then pushed the button to summon the elevator. After relocking the entrance behind him, he turned to join them, but Wallace waved him off.
“I can manage, Archie,” he said, maneuvering the iron gate closed. He eased up the controls, and the machine lifted them into the building. Its only stop was at the top. They rode in silence. Wallace kept his eyes down, his thoughts veiled. If he was feeling half as chastened as he ought, Julia wanted to see it. A subdued spirit was not enough. She still seethed. She’d been played for a fool. She had hoped they’d become allies in Eva’s cause, but if he intended simply to lie to her, he was only another obstacle to be overcome. A formidable obstacle, made more so by her smarting heart.
Julia stepped into a marble foyer. A Venetian chandelier shimmered overhead. On facing walls stood identical polished mahogany harp tables, topped with vases of fresh white roses, each beneath a similar but not matching large gilt-framed mirror. She saw her reflection in the nearest one and observed her back reflected in the opposite glass: an infinity of Julias. As many Wallaces lifted the Spanish shawl from her shoulders.
The foyer intersected a long hall lit by sconces. When she stepped onto its plush carpet, patterned with elaborate Celtic knots, she smelled a faint aroma of lemons. It swept through Julia like a flame. Eva. Wallace had told Kessler he’d brought her here at least once, when the police had released her into his care. Was she still here? Every nerve strained for some clue: a sound, another whiff of that sweet citrus lotion. Nothing. She smelled only the roses from the foyer behind them.
Ahead lay the living room, one step down. Tall windows spanned the opposite wall, each draped with burgundy velvet. It was a grand room, some thirty feet or more in length. Several lamps provided ghostly pumpkins of golden light.
“This place was built for Andrew Millbank,” he said, glancing to see if Julia recognized the name. She did not.
“Are these family things?” Julia asked, amazed at the room’s abundance of paintings and sculptures and bibelots.
Wallace laughed. “No, no. This is what fortunes are for. My father kept books for a button-making firm in Queens. But anything can be bought these days, including family heirlooms. I merely hired someone to put it all together. But I like it. It’s mine now.”
To their left the wide corridor led to several closed doors, but Wallace showed Julia to the first door on their right. It was a beautifully appointed bathroom. Fresh towels lay on an ebony sideboard. “You can freshen up in here.”
She opened the taps to run water into the basin, then peeked into the hall. With Wallace moving about in the living room, she could only explore to her right. She slipped out. Directly opposite was a spacious room swathed in shadows. Silver candelabra glimmered in the dark, ghostly reflections across a long polished dining table. It was huge, easily seating two dozen. An enormous silver samovar stood like a proud flagship on a walnut sideboard.
The hall jogged right and narrowed, the carpet changing to maroon linoleum to mark the service end of the apartment. The first door opened to a large kitchen. Julia counted five closed doors along the long wall opposite and three on the kitchen side, plus an opening to another corridor. As she crept forward, she heard someone grunt and punch a pillow with a low epithet. She froze to listen but heard nothing more than the trickling water. No scent of lemons, no further sounds, but at least one person was awake behind these doors.
She hurried back to the bathroom. No sign of Eva’s lotion, no earring escaped behind a vase or jar
