Rogues

ROARING TWENTIES

Carrie Vaughn

The good thing about Blue Moon is that it’s invisible, so it never gets raided. Bad thing is, being invisible makes it hard to find for the rest of us. You have to have a little magic of your own, which Madame M does, and finding places that aren’t there is never much of a problem for her.

Madame M has the car drop us off at the corner of Fifth and Pine, and she sends the driver away. I follow her down a damp sidewalk along brick buildings. It’s early enough that the streets are crowded, cars and people jammed up on their way to somewhere else, no one much looking around. A few wheezing horns honk, and the orange from the streetlights make polished steel and frowning faces seem like they’re lit with embers. I shrug my mink more firmly over my shoulders. Madame M’s has slipped down to her elbows, showing off the smooth skin of her back. We look like sisters, walking side by side, in step.

The alley she turns down looks like any other alley, and that passage leads to another, until we’re alone with the trash cans and a yowling cat, under iron fire escapes and a sky threatening rain. She knocks on a solid brick wall, blocks from any door or window, and I’m not surprised when a slot opens at head height. She leans in to whisper a word, and the door opens. Either a door painted to look like bricks or the wall itself swinging out; I can’t tell and it doesn’t really matter.

The music of a three-piece combo playing jazz drifts in from down the hall, and it sounds like heaven.

The doorman, a gorilla of a guy in a brown suit that must be tailored to fit those shoulders, looks us over and nods his approval. He’s got a little something else, extra fur around the collar, on his hands and tufting off his ears. When he smiles, he shows fang, and his eyes glint golden. He’s some kind of thing, far be it from me to guess what. I walk on by without meeting his gaze. A coat check girl who seems normal enough, but who knows, takes our furs, and I tip her well. A clean-cut, scrubbed, and polished waiter guides us into the club proper. There’s a table just opened up, of course, a table always opens up for Madame M. I order soda water for us both, and the waiter looks at me funny because why come to a place like this if you’re not into booze? The booze here is good, top-shelf, smuggled in, not cooked up in some unsavory backwoods tub. Maybe later, I tell him, and he scurries off.

We’re near the dance floor, in the middle of everything, and the place is full. The band is a white guy on piano, and two black guys on bass and drums, and a microphone stand means someone might sing later, but for now they’re playing something with a bit of a kick, and couples are dancing on a tiny floor down front. At first glance it’s a normal crowd on a normal night, flappers and fine women in evening gowns, men in suits and even a few tuxes. Looking closer I see the odd fang and claw, the glimmer of a fae wing, a bit of horn under slicked-back hair, other bits and pieces I might guess at, but I’d likely be wrong. These folk aren’t drawing attention to themselves, so I won’t either, because then they might start looking too closely at me and Madame M.

Doorways lead to back rooms where you can find cards and craps and whatever else you might fancy. One doorway is covered by a shimmering beaded curtain, and through them and the cigarette-smoke haze beyond I can just make out a grand lady holding court at a sofa and coffee table, surrounded by men in suits and women dolled up like paintings. The scene is vague, as if I’m seeing it through etched glass.

Madame M wants to talk to Gigi, the woman behind the beaded curtain, who runs the place, and I think it’s a bad idea, but I’m not going to argue because M’s smarter about these things than I am. The back-and-forth and the deals, the secrets and the swindles. The things I’m smart about: watching her back and seeing trouble a minute before it happens.

It’s just the two of us in a den where the gamblers and bootleggers are the least of it. There are people here who’ll drink your blood dry if you let them, others who’ll tear out your throat, and a few who’ll buy your soul, even knowing how little some souls around here are worth. M and I do all right, her tricks and my eyes keeping us safe. A couple of molls out on the town, that’s what we look like, in our colored silk and fringe, bare shoulders and knees, dresses that swish and show off our hips when we kick our heels and shimmy our legs. Sequins and feathers over bobbed hair. They think we’re easy prey, and they’ll be wrong.

The drinks arrive more quickly than I expect because I think the waiter is on the other side of the room taking someone else’s order. But no, he’s right here, polished as ever, smiling as he transfers glasses from tray to table. The music plays on, and M sips.

“Something bad’s coming,” she murmurs.

I’m looking out. A card game’s going in the corner. Nearby, a gangster’s foot soldier is trying to impress his girl, both of them leaning over their tiny round table while he shows her the gold band on his watch. Her lips are smiling, but her eyes are hungry. She’s trying to get something out of him. A dozen small intrigues are brewing. Mostly, though, people are here to have a good time, to drink some good booze and revel in the feeling of getting away with something bad.

“Raid?” I answer. “A takeover? Is Rocco finally moving in on Margolis?” Anthony Margolis is the one presiding over the card game. He’s here playing to show he isn’t worried about Rocco or anyone else.

“No, this is bigger. Everything goes to hell.”

With her I can’t tell if that’s a metaphor. “This one of your dreams?”

“Visions,” she says. Takes a sip, leaves a print of red lipstick on the glass.

“The future?”

“It is.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Same as always: Keep your eyes open and invest in liquor.”

She’s thinking out loud, and it makes me nervous. More nervous. I nod to the beaded curtain. “She’s gotta know you’re here.”

“She’s going to make me ask,” M says.

“That’s what we’re here for, yeah?”

“Let’s just pretend like we’re here for a good time.” She leans back, stretching through her back, and puts one arm over the back of my chair. I draw a cigarette out of my clutch, light it, offer it to her. Her gloved and jeweled hand takes it, she draws a long breath from it and lets out a cloud of smoke, her mouth open and lazy. Her foot taps along with the music.

Her pretending to have a good time looks like the real thing. She could make a living doing anything she put her mind to, but she’s ended up in a place like this for a reason. So have I.

The place smells of alcohol and sawdust. Nothing is off in the rhythm, waiters and drinks flowing from bar to tables and back, a cigarette girl making the rounds. The card game in the corner is accompanied by a lot of nervous laughter, men pretending like the grand they just lost doesn’t matter while sweat drips onto their collars. If any trouble is going to happen, it’ll come from them, one of the jokers taking issue with another, then tipping over the table and starting a fistfight. The gorilla by the door would have made them leave their guns, so that’s one thing I don’t have to worry about. M and I can take cover easy enough from a fistfight. Bullets, not so much. Being invisible can’t always save you from getting shot in a cross fire.

Third song in, halfway through my drink, a guy stumbles in from outside, gaping like a fish out of water, which he is, and I wonder what he said to get past the gorilla. He must have something, a charm or an aura, first to find the place and another to make himself look like he belongs. Now he stands at the entrance, gazing around, eyes wide like he didn’t expect it to work, and now that it has, he doesn’t quite know what to do. He wears a nondescript brown suit, belatedly takes off his fedora. He’s clean-cut and square-jawed, and he has a gun in a shoulder holster under the jacket. He must have had a spell to hide that, too, because the gorilla should have spotted it.

Everything in Blue Moon pauses for a half a breath because some kind of balance has shifted and everyone feels it. The piano muffs a chord, and a string on the bass twangs. The guy looks back at all the eyes on him before straightening an extra inch and scowling.

Then it all goes back to what it had been a second ago as if nothing happened.

I watch the band, keep the new guy in view out of the corner of my eye, and lean into M like I’m telling a joke. “I think we’ve got ourselves a Fed.”

She’s too polite to turn and stare but does raise an eyebrow. “How’d he get in?”

“I don’t know. He’s armed.”

“Maybe he’s just here to have a good time, like everyone else.”

The Fed looks like a hunter who’s found himself a prize. Casual-like, he leans on the bar. Doesn’t flag the bartender, doesn’t ask for anything, just watches, staring hungrily at all that bootlegged liquor sitting on the shelf, wondering how big a raid this would really be if he could pull off a raid. The bartender ignores him, wiping down the counter cool as ice and pretending he doesn’t have a Fed breathing down his neck. A minute later, the Fed flags the waiter, who shows him to a table in back, and my neck itches because I can’t see him anymore but I feel him staring straight at me.

Guy knew enough to get in here, he’ll figure out soon enough who the people with the power are, and the problem of getting M out of here in one piece when trouble starts gets a lot more complicated.

M puts a hand on my arm, pats it once. A signal to calm down. I listen to the music, watch the dancers on the floor, and try to remember that we’re supposed to look like we’re having fun.

The cigarette girl walks past our table for the fourth time, eyeing me and M but not saying a word. Cute kid in satin shorts and a bustier, dark hair done up under a little hat. She’s one of those girls with legs up to here and too much makeup painted on, but that’s the style and she knows how to wear it. She slinks deftly between the tables, maneuvering her box in front of her, counting out change and never missing a beat, like she’s been doing this a while. Still manages to smile.

The fifth time she walks past, not offering cigarettes but still catching my eye, I raise my hand for her to stop. She seems grateful when she does, a bit of a sigh expanding the spangles of her neckline.

“Pack of cigarettes,” I say. “There’s something else you want to ask, isn’t there?”

She looks back and forth between us, which tells me she knows us by reputation but doesn’t know which of us is Madame M, and which of us is just that sidekick Pauline. I nod at M, indicating that she’s the one the girl ought to talk to.

“What’s the problem, dear?” M asks. “Quickly.”

I pretend to dig in my clutch for an elusive bill, making her wait, giving her as much time as she needs.

She screws up her expression and says, “I’m stuck. I mean, we’re both stuck. I mean—” She lowers her voice to the barest whisper. I can barely hear, but M doesn’t even have to lean forward. “—I mean, I gotta get out of here, and I gotta take my guy with me.”

“Your guy?”

“One of Anthony’s boys.” Her eyes dart to the card game in the corner, and I spot her guy right off, one of the heavies standing guard, medium-size and baby-faced, in a cheap suit. He’s got his hands deep in his trouser pockets and he’s sweating harder than any of them. He keeps glancing over here, lips trembling like he wants to say something.

“We’ve saved up the money to get to California, to go straight. But we don’t need Anthony or … or her coming after us.” She doesn’t have to gesture to the woman behind the beaded curtain. “I … we … we can pay you.” She looks worried, like she knows exactly what she’s really saying, what the price of M’s help might really be.

M regards her, a sly smile on her face. I’ve got my hand on a bill; I can only keep digging around in my clutch for so long.

“Your bosses don’t approve, I take it? Of you kids ditching your gainful employment—your families—to run off? Regular Romeo and Juliet story?”

The cigarette girl bites her lip. It shouldn’t be too tough a problem, not the kind of problem a person would usually bring to M. But she knows Anthony, and even more than that she knows Gigi, and the problem isn’t so simple as all that. I watch M; even I don’t know what she’s going to say.

She stubs out her last cigarette and takes another from the pack I just bought. “I think we can manage something. But pay attention—you won’t get a second chance.”

The girl nods quickly. “And how much—”

“I’ll ask for something, when I think of the right thing. But for now … Pauline?”

My hand already in the bag, I scrounge around a second and find the empty matchbox I know she’s asking for.

M says, “I need a hair from you and a hair from him. It’ll help me keep track of you. Can you do that?”

She already has, it turns out, reaching into the back of her white glove and drawing out the two thin strands, twined together. M seems impressed that she’s come prepared—she knows exactly what she’s asking for.

I offer the girl the dollar bill I’ve dug out of my clutch, which hides her slipping the hairs to me. I put the hair in the box and hand the box to M. Transaction complete, the girl dons her professional cherry-lipped smile again and bounces off.

“You going to ask for their firstborn?” I say to M, raising a brow.

She grimaces. “What would I do with a kid?”

So now I have to look out for the girl and her beau, and wonder what it is exactly M has planned for them. Should be fun to watch. M will decide when she makes a move, and all I can do is wait for her to give the sign.

The combo takes a break, comes back, and a singer, a beautiful round black woman in a rose-sequined gown, her hair twisted up and pinned with a silk magnolia, steps on stage and adjusts the microphone stand.

M pushes her tumbler away and stands from the table.

“I’m going to be brazen. I’m going to get a message to Gigi,” she says, nodding at the bartender.

I glance at the bartender, who hasn’t looked up, who’s been pouring drinks and sodas all night, shaking cocktails and dropping cherries into tumblers like clockwork. When no one’s around he just wipes down the surface, over and over.

“Think it’ll work?”

“Maybe if I look desperate, Gigi’ll talk to me.”

I don’t say that M already looks a little bit desperate. “I’ll hold down the fort.”

She tosses me a grin. I watch her slink to the bar, hips sashaying under her dress, causing the beads and sequins to flash. Her brown hair in a perfect bob, not a strand of hair out of place, her skin that perfect flawless ivory. People assume she keeps up her looks with magic, but she doesn’t. It’s all her, just her. She isn’t so vain that she’d waste her magic on something as trite as looking good.

The woman at the microphone sings, her voice as rich and sweet as I knew it would be, the kind of jazz too hot for the clubs you can just walk into off the street. I sit back in my chair, sip my soda water, and pay attention. Watch the people who are watching M, wondering what angle she’s working.

Behind the beaded curtain, the smoke and shadows haven’t changed. Gigi must know we’re here, but she must not care.

Back to the card game. The poor young goon keeps glancing toward the worried cigarette girl, who circulates and does good business, smiling enough that most people don’t notice the crease in her brow. She’s smarter than her beau because she doesn’t dare look back at him. The boy doesn’t give himself away because anyone can forgive him for staring at a long-legged girl all night. I try to think of how M will make good on her promise to help them out. She might just send them a couple of train tickets and a bit of a spell to make them invisible, or at least make it so no one sees them. That’d be the simple thing.

On the other hand, I bet there’s a way to do the whole thing without magic. If there is, that’s what M will do, just to show that it can be done, to show that she doesn’t rely too much on the tricks she’s known for. To keep people guessing. A distraction and a threat. That’s all she’d need to get those kids out of town. And I hope once they get where they’re going, they settle down for good and have kids and all the rest, and realize forever how lucky they are.

The back of my neck is still itching where the Fed’s been watching me this whole time. Me, not M, or he would have wandered over to the bar where she’s leaning in to talk to the bartender. I can’t see the Fed, but I’m not surprised when he arrives at our table, pulls out M’s chair, and sits. I don’t even flinch.

“Mind if I join you?”

I smirk at him. The pack of cigarettes we bought from the girl is still there, so I pick it up and hold it out. “Cigarette?”

The Fed takes one and keeps his gaze on me. I strike a match and offer a light because it’s only polite. Then I wait for him to say something. He seems content to watch, and my job is to let him. I can wait all night, as long as that beauty at the microphone keeps singing.

“I know who you are,” he says finally.

“Oh?”

“I think we can help each other.” He leans back, acting cool, and turns his gaze to the singer. “Say I wanted to move in, and I wanted a partner—”

“I give you the key to the place, you make sure I don’t get swept up in the raid, maybe slip me something under the table, especially if you keep me in your pocket?”

Right up till that moment, he thought he had me fooled. “Well. That’s putting it bluntly.”

“I thought I’d save time.”

“This place is going down one way or another, but having help will make it easier, and you look like a woman who knows what’s what.”

He’s talking to the wrong woman, he’s gotta know that. Maybe he thinks I want to move up, that I’m tired of being hired help. Which tells me something about how he sees the world.

“Flatterer,” I say, my eyes half-lidded.

“It’s a sweet little setup here, I have to admit,” the Fed says. He scans the room, the players and dancers, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t see the horns tucked under feathered headbands or the tails curled under trousers. He pauses a moment at the card game in the corner before landing back on the singer. He never seems to notice the beaded curtain. “To think it’s been slipping past us all this time.” He snubs out his cigarette.

“Can I ask you a question?” I say, studying him with honest curiosity. He waves a hand for me to continue. “How’d you get in here? Guy like you, with such a clean suit and clean hands, shouldn’t have been able to find the door, but here you are.”

“Give me a little credit. We’ve had our eye on this place for a long time.”

He’s bluffing. Half-lidded, he got himself a few tricks and trinkets, maybe strong-armed some low-level fortune-teller into helping him out. Or maybe, heaven help him, he found a book of spells and worked it out on his own. Like handing a guy a loaded gun without showing him how it works.

I can’t write him off because nothing in Blue Moon will keep the bullets in that gun from killing if he decides to shoot.

“What exactly are you looking for from me, Mr. Clean Suit?”

“How about you just keep quiet for now and not warn anyone I’m here?” he says. Like I’d have to warn anyone. “If you have anything else for me, we could work out a deal.”

“I’ll think it over, let you know.”

“Thanks for the cigarette,” he says, and leaves my table to return to his own, and I get the feeling he thinks I might really help him if he just sticks around long enough.

M leans on the bar for a respectable few minutes before returning, a sway in her hips, her smile wry. She’s brought a couple of fresh sodas.

“You made a friend,” she says.

“I believe we have ourselves a crusader with a stick of dynamite and no idea what to do with it,” I say. “We might think about being on our way. Take care of our Romeo and Juliet, then wander out while we can. Give the word, I can start a diversion—”

“No, I still have to talk to Gigi.”

I knew that’s what she’d say. “So what did the bartender say?”

“Not a damn thing. He’s a zombie.”

Gigi’s got herself a zombie bartender? I chuckle. “Cute. So a shot of whiskey’s a shot of whiskey, nothing skimmed off the top and nothing extra for the band.” I glance over, and sure enough, the bartender’s standing in the same place, wiping down the surface, back and forth, over and over. His skin is gray, his expression slack.

“She’ll talk to me, I just have to wait her out.”

“Not a thing you can do about it if she doesn’t want to talk to you.”

She’s got her chin in her hands and is looking hard at the beaded curtain. We wait, and I have to resist an urge to look over my shoulder at the Fed, who’s still sitting there, watching, waiting.

The singer’s finished her latest song, a slow sad piece about how he done her wrong, and she keeps coming back, like the girls always seem to do in these songs. People listen to the songs and think they’d never do that, they’d never go back to a guy who treated them bad. Then they do, because they’re different. Their love is different, like it is for everybody, and it’s hard to stay away when you’re in love, and you’re sure he’ll change, so you keep going back. Unless you have someone in your life who sits you down and says, “Don’t.” Like M did for me.

A rare thing, having someone like that in your life.

Gigi’s not going to talk to M, I’m sure of it, and we’re going to sit here all night, and I’m sure now the Fed’s going to do something stupid because if he’d been smart, he’d have cased the joint then left to make a plan to come back with more muscle. He’s painted a target on himself. I can get M out through a back door. You need a little magic to get into Blue Moon, and it helps to have a little magic to get out, but I’ll charge straight out if I have to. Lack of subtlety, that’s how you beat magic.

“He’s got you worked up,” M says.

My back is stiff, and I keep glancing over my shoulder out of the corner of my eye. Not doing a good job of pretending to have a good time.

She continues, “He’s harmless. He’s got no trap to spring, and he’s too proud to leave without a trophy.”

“I’m worried about what happens when he pulls out that gun.”

“Pauline, relax. I’m more worried about Gigi than I am about some guy in a government suit.”

The scene behind the beaded curtain hasn’t changed. Gigi is back there, holding court, not paying any attention to M at all. I ought to trust Madame M. She’s so rarely wrong. But she’s not seeing the big picture right now.

I think I have a plan for getting rid of the Fed.

“You trust me?” I say to M, who furrows her brow at me.

“Sure. What are you thinking of?”

“It’ll just take a minute.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

But I’m already gone. Looking around casual-like, dodging past that fast-moving waiter, my gaze falls on the Fed. I look thoughtful, interested. He’s been watching me like I’d hoped, and I give him a sweet smile. There’s a chair at the table, tilted out, just waiting for me. Let him think he made the invitation and planned the whole thing himself.

“Mind if I sit?”

He gestures to the chair and I fold myself into it, demurely crossing my ankles. I reach into my clutch for a pack of cigarettes, but not the pack we bought from the girl—another one that I save for emergencies.

“Another cigarette?” I offer, and he takes one, and I helpfully light a match for him.

He takes a long, slow drag, and what he blows out doesn’t smell quite like tobacco, but he doesn’t notice. “You look like you have something to say.”

“Just some advice,” I say. “The thing is, you’re talking to the wrong woman if you think you’ll get anything from me or my friend.”

His expression turns skeptical, his brow furrowed. He thought he had the place figured out. “I know who you two are. Madame M and Pauline, the two dames who aren’t what they seem. You think you’re under the radar, but you’ve left fingerprints on a lot of business in this town.”

“Fingerprints don’t mean we’re holding the bag. We leave that to the fancy people.” We don’t have a place like Blue Moon of our own, or a gang like Anthony’s, for a reason. We keep moving because it makes us a harder target to hit.

“Then what fancy people should I be talking to?”

“The deal still stands? I help you, you’ll let me know when I should get out, before anything happens?” I even bat my eyes at him.

He taps off the ash and takes another long drag. “Of course. I’ll keep you out of it for sure.”

Doesn’t even matter if I believe him. “You really want to know what’s going on here and who you need to deal with, you gotta talk to her.” I nod to the stage.

He frowns. “The singer?”

“That’s right. Quite a front, huh? She stands up there, keeps an eye on the whole place, and no one ever realizes she isn’t just working for tips.”

“That’s very interesting.”

“You bet it is.”

I’m about to stand and leave when he leans in close. His breath smells of what he’s been smoking, sweet and sour and just a bit wrong. “Can I get you a drink? Show my appreciation?”

“Thanks, but I’ve got my drink. Soda water. I’m a law-abiding citizen, just like you.”

“Well, then. You keep your nose clean, hear?”

I can’t punch him, not yet. If this works, I won’t have to.

Heading back to my table, I pause, because the scene has shifted. Not paying attention, I missed the moment the cigarette girl disappeared. The cigarette girl’s beau is sweating buckets, and his boss is going to notice, especially when the lunk can’t stop looking at the door and is fidgeting like he wants to run out. M is over by the door talking to the gorilla and trying to catch my eye. Her frown shows it’s serious, and I’ve missed her cue. She raises an annoyed eyebrow. Past time for that distraction. I understand her plan, the need for a long fuse and a slow burn. That means I probably still have time to get started.

I put on a smile and walk on over to the card game.

Anthony sees me. He’s likely been watching both M and me just as hard as we’ve been watching him. Maybe not just as hard. But I doubt he’ll have any idea what we’re up to. What we’re really up to, I mean. We’re those two crazy witches, and who knows what a broad’s looking for when she starts scheming, right?

I touch the shoulder of the player across from Anthony. The guy shivers and licks his lips, and he won’t be good for anything for the rest of the game. I focus on Anthony.

“Got room for one more, Mr. Margolis?” I ask, sweetly as I know how.

“Pauline. Doll,” Anthony says, opening his arms, a gesture of false generosity. “How much would it take to hire you away from that broad?”

He thinks he’s being clever. He thinks he’s putting me in my place, and M too, for all that. I know what he sees, what he thinks he sees.

“Oh, honey, you know you can’t afford me,” I say, as if I’m really sorry.

“But Madame over there can?”

“You gotta understand, we’re like sisters.”

He shakes his head like he thinks it’s a pity. “Harry, deal the lady in, why don’t you?” He makes a sign and the men at the table shift their places, and the cigarette girl’s beau brings over an extra chair. I know what the stake is, two grand, and I draw the bundle of bills out of my clutch and put it on the table. The players pretend not to be surprised.

The one called Harry, who’s got a thin moustache and a suit so blue it’s almost purple, deals me in, and we play cards. Harry’s a local guy who’s completely honest because if he weren’t, nobody would play in Anthony’s game. People play in Anthony’s games because they think they can get rich off him, but the secret is that Anthony’s actually a pretty good player. He doesn’t play with his pride is the thing and can fold when he has to.

The dealer deals, I sweep up my hand and play. I’ve done this enough it’s reflex, habit. The cards are going to do what they do, I just have to keep up the rhythm.

First order of business is to break even, because two G’s is worth something no matter what you have. And it’s a matter of saving face, and making sure the boys don’t think they pulled one over on the doll. So we play poker, and I earn back what I put in, and after that I’m not playing to lose, but I’m not exactly playing to win, either. I’m playing to bide time, watching Anthony watch me because he thinks I’m up to something, while I’m also watching the kid, M, and the Fed. And the beaded curtain, just in case. M’s about to mess up her pretty club, surely Gigi will notice and put her foot down.

M is by the bar again, looking more relaxed than she did a minute ago, so maybe I’m not too late with this. Maybe it’ll all work out and we won’t have to run out in a rain of bullets. People might wonder why M’s not surrounded by men hoping to make time with the beautiful doll who’s all on her own. I think maybe she’s decided not to let them see her.

Two of the guys at the card game know about M and know, therefore, that they can’t discount me. But two of the guys figure I’m the rube. They have a very bad time of it but stick it out because of pride. Who’s the rube, then?

I lose a hand, win a hand, and the players chalk it up to luck because it’s easier than admitting a woman can actually play. I don’t win too much, so they don’t get angry. They start bantering again, not forgetting I’m there so much as not taking me seriously.

“Tommy, you okay there?” Anthony studies his young heavy, who’s been tugging at his collar. He’s going to blow the whole thing if he’s not careful, and I realize why the girl needed help to pull this off. All I can do at the moment is glance at him with a bit of sympathy, then study my cards.

Tommy looks back, rabbit-eyed. “It’s a little warm in here, sir.”

“You’re not feeling faint, are you? Tell me you’re not feeling faint.”

“No, no sir!”

“Good.”

And now Anthony’s on edge, and this could all fall to pieces. It isn’t too late to walk away, if I can warn M …

The Fed, still smoking the cigarette I gave him, is looking green around the gills, and in a fit of agitation pushes away from the table and squares his gaze on the card game. On me. Like he knows I lied, or that the cigarette I gave him isn’t really tobacco. He starts toward the table, and he’s got to know better than to approach Anthony. Or maybe he doesn’t, after all that smoking …

I have to stay cool and not jump up in a panic, which isn’t easy. I just have to look like I don’t have a clue.

“What’s this clown want?” Anthony grumbles, and all his boys go stiff, perking up like hunting dogs at a duck pond.

And just then the singer hits a high note, crazy high, rattling the glasses on the tables and setting my heart pounding. We all can’t help but look on in admiration as she holds that note with full lungs, arms wide, eyes closed, and head tipped back, like she’s singing the world into being.

The Fed stops, listens, drifts to a table close to the stage, sinks into the chair like he’s caught in quicksand. The singer’s voice falls back into the chorus and she smiles sweetly at her brand-new greatest admirer.

I catch M winking at the singer. Yeah, M always knows what she’s doing.

The game continues. Anthony’s boys relax a notch, except for the cigarette girl’s guy, who’s still watching the door, and Anthony just shakes his head. Not too much longer after that, M touches her earring, adjusts her headband, and strokes the plume across her hair. Time to light the fuse. So I slip a couple of extra aces into my hand. Which I fold. When the hand ends, the dealer sweeps up the cards, shuffles, and deals them out again.

No one ever thinks to accuse me of palming cards, because where the hell would I hide them in this outfit, with all this bare skin?

“Boys,” I say, gathering the rest of my winnings, arranging them neatly, fastidiously, “I want to thank you for a lovely time of it, but I’ve got to go. I hope you’re not offended.” I blush and bat my eyes, and they can’t argue because I haven’t done anything to offend them. I haven’t cleaned them out. I haven’t damaged their pride too terribly much.

“Pauline. Darling. You are welcome at my table anytime.” Anthony spreads his arms like he always does. I lean in and kiss his cheek, and his compatriots at the table glare bullets at him. Smiling sweetly over my shoulder, I return to Madame M.

“Well, I was starting to wonder if we could pull this off,” she says.

I scowl. “Whatever do you mean?”

“Doesn’t matter, we’re both on the same page now.”

“You’ll thank me for putting the whammy on the Fed, just wait.”

She nods at the card game. “About five minutes, before they figure it out?”

“About.”

“I’m going to go powder my nose. Hold down the fort?”

“I always do.”

In about five minutes, right when we called it, the first of the players shouts, “Hey, what are you trying to pull?” Loud enough that everyone in Blue Moon looks over.

“What do you mean, what am I trying to pull, what are you trying to pull?”

“You can’t have three aces, because I have three aces!”

“Boys, boys!” Anthony hollers, but it’s too late. Anthony follows the rules, so they’ve left their guns outside, but that doesn’t stop one of the players from tipping over the table when another guy takes a swing at him. Cards and chips and bills go flying, then skitter across the floor. The bodyguards and hangers-on rush in, trying to protect Anthony, who’s already taken one on the jaw.

All except Tommy, who’s smarter than he looks because he’s gotten out of the way. M moves to his side and whispers in his ear. He follows her to the front of the club, and I might have been the only one to see them go.

I move to the back of the club and try to be invisible, but I’m not as good at it as M is. A dancer screams as the fight spills onto the floor, and the band is back, playing in an only partially effective distraction. A couple of guys look on eagerly, crack their knuckles, and smile wide enough to show inhuman fangs. They’d enjoy a fight, and they’d win, oh yes.

I know better than to ask for trouble, so I sit on the bar, out of the way. But I have to move when the zombie bartender starts wiping down the surface around me.

M joins me, and we’re watching the proceedings, along with a few other creatures of the night. I’ve got a bottle in hand, an empty that the zombie bartender missed, just in case.

“Everything cool?” I ask M, and she smiles, and I imagine the cigarette girl and Tommy are on a bus for the coast. Good luck to them.

“Nice bit of entertainment,” she observes, and I beam.

The Fed only has eyes for the singer and doesn’t seem to notice the whole place falling into an uproar around him. The singer has moved to sit at the edge of his table, still crooning, and twining a strand of his hair around her finger. She’s somehow gotten a drink in her hand and offers it to the Fed, who takes a grateful, enamored sip. We won’t have to worry about him for the rest of the evening.

“You know she’s a siren, yeah?” M says, watching this play out.

“I sure do,” I say.

She grins. “And that I wouldn’t trust that drink as far as I could spit it?”

“Oh, I know.” The Fed’s sipping down his bootleg whiskey like he’s in heaven and thinking the siren’s singing just for him.

“He wasn’t going to cause any trouble, you know,” she says. “Not tonight, anyway.”

“No, I didn’t know.” She just shakes her head.

One of the heavies slams up against the bar, and I crack the bottle over his head because it’s a classic move and I can’t resist. The bottle breaks, pieces of glass rain down like bells, and the lunk of a guy slides to the floor, unconscious. Very satisfying.

There’s a wrestling mob in the middle of Blue Moon now, accompanied by otherworldly growls, and a few more people seem to be sporting fur than did before, and some of those fangs might be dripping blood now, and it’s a bit more than I’d anticipated, and I’m thinking it’s time to get M out of here.

Then, a glass chiming like the sound of icicles rings over it all. The sound should be subtle, but it’s rattling, and the whole place pauses, time stopping. The fistfights cease, the punches stop landing, chairs are raised over heads but don’t come down, and everyone turns to the beaded curtain. A woman stands there, pushing back the strings of beads with an ebony cigarette holder, studying the place through long lashes. She’s wearing a red silk dress like a second skin, her hip cocked out, arms crossed, and she’s got a thing about her, like once you see her you can’t look past her. And once she sees you, you’re trapped because she knows everything about you and there’s nothing you can do about it.

And everyone, even the singer, even Anthony, even me, looks away, chagrined, knowing we’ve stepped out of bounds. Everyone looks away but the Fed, who’s put his face down on the table and seems to be weeping, and M, who looks right back at her.

It’s all over. At some signal, the gorilla bouncer and a couple of his buddies wade in and start throwing people out, including Anthony and his boys. The gangster is shouting that he doesn’t know what happened and he had nothing to do with it, but it doesn’t matter. He never even notices that his kid Tommy is gone. When he does notice, he might even figure out that me and M had something to do with it. But he won’t be able to do a thing about it. Besides, there’s a hundred kids where Tommy came from and revenge isn’t good for business.

Once the trouble is gone, the waiters rush in to sweep up glass and set tables upright, and I realize why I’ve had such a hard time keeping track—there are three, identical triplets or something else. They move in a coordinated routine without speaking, like they can read one another’s minds, zipping through the place, so efficient because they can do triple the work. How do you like that?

Across the tables and past the waiters cleaning up broken glasses and spilled drinks, the woman in red meets M’s gaze, and a long moment passes. I hold my breath and wait, heart thudding, because I don’t know what’s going to happen, how this is going to play out, who’s going to look away first and what it’ll mean. All M wants to know: Will Gigi talk to her? Gigi isn’t giving anything away.

Gigi looks behind her, to a handful of people who troop out of the back room as she holds the curtain aside. Men in suits, but none of them are goons, they’re all fine businessmen in tailored jackets, expensive handkerchiefs peeping out of front pockets, rosebuds nestled on lapels. On their arms walk beautiful women with perfectly painted faces, flappers in short dresses and ropes of pearls, walking on high heels, looking bored and superior. Kept, I think, not hired, because they cling a little too desperately to their beaus’ arms, as if they might fall off if they’re not careful. And this, I think, is why M is self-employed.

We’re not kept. We work for our place, and we do not have to cling.

Then the woman in red, Gigi, nods, and M nods back, and at the same time they turn away, the one retreating back behind the curtain, M looking around for her chair. Right around us, the chairs and tables are knocked over, and we stand there like a couple of rowboats gone adrift. I wave to a waiter, who runs over and sets a table and a couple of chairs upright, wipes them down, and even finds a little vase of silk flowers to put in the middle of it.

We sink down into the chairs at our table and lean close to talk.

“What’s it mean?” I say.

“I don’t know.”

“She going to talk to you or not?”

“I don’t know.” She says it calmly, like it doesn’t matter, and maybe it doesn’t. This was a long shot to start with.

“She’s playing with you, making you wait. She thinks she’s better than you, and this is how she proves it.”

“If she has to prove it, she knows she ain’t.”

“How long are we waiting?” I’m impatient. We’ve been here too long already, and I have this vision of Anthony and his boys, or his remaining boys rather, waiting outside for us, to give us one of those little talks. M’s got her tricks and we’ll walk away, but Anthony’s got his tricks too, and I worry that one of these days M’s won’t be enough. I have to see that day before it comes, and I worry that I won’t.

“A little while longer,” she says. “I thought you liked her.” She nods at the singer, who’s back, and M is right, the woman is beautiful and her voice is ringing, and couples are back to dancing on the floor like nothing’s wrong because fights break out all the time in a place like this, it’s part of the reason people come here. I also notice: The Fed is gone, probably thrown out with the rest of the mob. I hope he’s too trashed to remember Blue Moon or any of the rest of us.

We’ve been here too long.

“It’s just one beautiful girl on one night,” I say. “I’m worried about you.”

“I’m fine.” She frowns, and I raise my brow at her. “I thought I was looking after you,” she says.

“That’s right, you are.”

A waiter comes over. Either the first or one of his brothers, I can’t guess. I don’t know if it’s a trick, if there’s a reason for it, some con Gigi runs where she needs a set of identical triplets waiting tables, but it wouldn’t surprise me. I spend a few minutes thinking about it and what I would do with identical triplets working for me. M would have some ideas if I ask her about it.

But the waiter is talking to M, and I cock my ear to listen.

“She’ll see you now, in the back, if you’ll come with me.”

M turns to give me a look like “I told you so” and moves to push back from the table. I pick up my clutch and do likewise, when the waiter says, wincing apologetically, “I am sorry, it’s only Madame who may come with me.”

How do you like that? I try to plan out the next few moments because there’s no way I’m letting M walk into that room without me.

“Pauline is my best friend in the world,” M says, clearly shocked and offended. “We don’t go anywhere apart. We’re like sisters!”

Not much like, I think, but that’s too long a story to tell. But M doesn’t have to tell the story because she’s batting her eyes at the guy, who’s clearly ready to fold. “Please, it won’t hurt a thing, I just know it.”

The poor kid sighs. He knows he’s being duped but what can he do? “All right, all right. Both of you, come with me.”

We pass through the beaded curtain, bits of glass chiming around us, bending the soft light into colors. The music outside is suddenly distant, like we’re in a whole other building or a whole other world.

Gigi lies back on a red velvet sofa, her smooth legs tucked up next to her. She frowns. “I only wish to speak to Madame.” Her tone is light, observational, but the waiter wilts.

M launches in, “Oh, let Pauline stay. I promise you she won’t hurt a fly.” And butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, I swear to God.

Arching a skeptical brow, Gigi taps ash off the cigarette in the end of the holder. “Peas in a pod, you are. Fine. Let them both in.”

She has no bodyguards, no goons to watch for hidden guns or break up fights before they start. Rather, she doesn’t have the usual kind, apart from the gorilla at the door. Here in her sanctum, she doesn’t need the men in suits with shoulder holsters tucked under their jackets. She’s got other eyes looking out for her. I don’t know what exactly would happen to someone who tried something back here, but I’m not going to be the one who tests it.

Gigi turns the cigarette holder to a straight-backed padded chair across from a little round table in front of her, an arrangement designed for serious meetings, for two people staring at each other, reading each other while they make deals. M folds into this chair like a pro, crossing her ankles, leaning forward like she’s about to tell a secret. I put myself in a sofa tucked off to the side and pretend to study my nails.

The room is set up like a parlor, with the chairs and sofas collected around the table, cabinets against the walls holding cut-crystal decanters sparkling with amber liquids. Tiffany lamps give off soft yellow light, so that the dark brocade wallpaper seems painted with shadows. Looking into this room from outside, the place is shrouded, the beaded curtain and cigarette smoke fogging the view. Looking out, though, the bar, tables, dance floor, and band are all clear. I can see straight back to the entryway and the main door and the gorilla standing guard. Doesn’t seem like I should be able to, it doesn’t seem quite right, but there it is and I try not to question it too much. The mist in the air might be as exotic as opium, but I’m pretty sure it’s only tobacco. She might try to dope her associates, but never herself.

The woman in red starts, which is only right because it’s her place. “Well, my dear, how are we going to do this little dance?”

“You know what’s coming,” M says, to the point, not playing the game or doing the dance, and I can’t tell if Gigi is surprised by this. She doesn’t twitch a muscle, not even to blink, and the cigarette holder never trembles. Smoke flows straight up from its end to the ceiling.

A moment passes; we wait for Gigi to agree or disagree. She doesn’t. “And?”

“I’m aiming to circle the wagons. Safety in numbers. We’re stronger together than we are apart. We always have been.”

“What’s in it for me?” she asks. The cliché is beneath her. I can’t help but think she’s gone soft. Not soft, not in the way she treats people or runs her business. But soft in that she’s comfortable. She knows what she’s got and she’s keeping hold of it. She’s not thinking ahead because she thinks that she’s got it as good as it can get. M isn’t going to get the answer she wants at the end of the meeting.

“Safety,” M says without hesitation. “Longevity. Peace.”

“Those are very abstract words.”

M says, “We can pool resources, double protections around us and ours, and the vultures—like Anthony Margolis and that Fed—won’t be able to touch us. How’d that Fed even get in here tonight, hmm? It isn’t like you, Gigi, to let a crack open up in your armor.”

Gigi tries not to fidget, but her legs straighten and recross, and she looks at M with such contempt. “He’s nothing. Didn’t take much to take care of him, did it?” She looks at me, her smile cruel.

How hard it is to keep quiet. I bite my tongue and try to watch every square inch of the room for the thing that will leap out and bite us.

There’s a phonograph in the corner, sitting on a little mahogany table. Its scalloped bell is turned out to the room, like it should be, but there’s no record on the platter, and no needle on the arm, which means it’s doing something else other than playing records. The skin on my neck crawls a bit, thinking of what else it might be doing.

“This thing that’s coming,” M says, trying one more time. “It’s not magical. It’s not the vampires or the sirens or anything. It’s economic. It’s the businessmen, the bankers and stockbrokers and money people who’ll bring it all down. People like you, who think you’re safe, and that nothing’s ever going to change. What’ll you do, Gigi, when everything changes?”

“Why are you so worried about me?” Gigi says, as if amazed.

“Why not?”

“I can take care of myself. You should take care of yourself, instead of worrying about people who don’t need your help.” She takes another drag on the cigarette, lets it out in a cloud through her round mouth. Just like M might do. M studies the woman in red for a long moment, and Gigi won’t notice the sadness there because she isn’t looking. She leans over to tap off her ashes into a glass dish.

Then suddenly she looks up, concerned for no reason that I can see. M hasn’t done anything different, and I haven’t moved an inch. But she’s looking over M’s shoulder, through the beaded curtain to the dining room, which is silent. The band’s stopped playing, voices have stopped humming, not even glasses clink against each other, and now I’m worried too. I don’t need any extra sense to tell that the whole pattern of the place has changed, and it’s got to be worse than I think for Gigi to be looking like that.

There’s a gunshot, a body falling to the floor with a thud.

M rushes to the curtain to see, and I follow, ready to push her back into safety. It should be me walking first into the trouble, and why does she always have to see what’s happening? Gigi pauses a moment to pull back the slit panel of her skirt and retrieve the pistol held in a garter, and that’s when I know it’s bad, worse than bad.

M pushes back the curtains and we all see the tableau as it happens, the five or ten guys in suits and fedoras pulled low over their heads storming into the place, all armed and ready for battle like soldiers in the Great War. Some with tommy guns, some with shotguns, one guy with a revolver. All led by him, the arrogant Fed who’s got his raid, just like he promised. Must have sobered up after he got thrown out—and he remembered, too bad. Must have stuck wax in his ears to get past the siren, and sure enough, I see them all with cotton sticking out of their ears. Had to hand it to the guy, he might not have held all the cards but he was figuring out the game all the same. But he should have waited until he had the whole thing figured out, and not just part of it. Footsteps pound, a woman screams.

The gorilla manning the door is lying dead on the floor, and the Fed must be using silver bullets to be able to kill him. That’s why no one’s taken him out.

“Everybody freeze!” the Fed hollers.

It’s like some scene out of a moving picture, and I imagine everyone’s getting shot and dying, reaching up, trembling dramatically as the bullets hit them, collapsing in ways that no one ever does in life but people in the pictures must think looks good. Can’t see the blood splatter in the pictures, or maybe they just haven’t figured out how to fake that yet.

I grab M’s arm to pull her out of the way, just as Gigi pushes past us, maybe to get a better look. I don’t care if she gets shot, but I have to get M out of here.

Everyone’s staring, frozen just like the Fed asked. Gigi and all her people all stare, the band and singer, and even the zombie bartender, because this isn’t supposed to happen. Blue Moon is supposed to be safe, and if Feds can raid the place that’s supposed to be invisible, then what else can they do? It’s like a little bit of magic going out of the world.

M puts her hand over mine, smiles at me, with an unspoken command: Wait. She’s crazy, or she’s got a plan, and because it’s M, it’s got to be a plan, so I wait.

“Everybody, down on the floor! Flat on the floor! This is a raid!” He sounds so pleased, like he’s won a battle. His men spread out through the room.

From across the room, the Fed looks right at me like I’ve done him some specific wrong. He’s too far away for me to reach, for me to do anything but frown at him. I’ve got all kinds of thoughts, though, about snatching that gun right out of his hand and maybe kicking in his kneecaps. I clench my hands and glare, for all the good it does.

M leans close to Gigi and says, “Didn’t see this coming, did you?”

“Did you?” Gigi spits back.

M looks at me, and I smile.

She walks past Gigi onto the dance floor. Now all gazes fall on her. She has drawn every last bit of attention just by moving, and I want to scream, because here and now attention isn’t a good thing—every Fed in the place turns his gun to her, and fingers move to triggers. But she knows what she’s doing, she always knows.

Raising her arm, she makes a gesture, fingers bent in a pattern that looks simple but no one could ever replicate. Looking right at the Fed, she waves her other arm to encompass them all, and it’s like the air goes thin and sound fails. There’s a pop in my ears, like sinuses clearing after a bad cold, and the Fed’s rage-filled snarl freezes. Trigger fingers are still, the gunmen stand still, and no one even blinks. They are more still than stone because the stillness of stone is natural, and this is something else.

The others in the room, the band and singer, the waiters and patrons and gangsters look at one another as if confirming this is a dream, and brush themselves off like they’ve been in a storm. They start moving around, studying the gunmen, who are nothing more than obliging statues.

“I’m just doing what the guy asked.” M brushes her hands like she’s wiping off dust, but I know they’re spotless. The Fed can’t do a damn thing now, when she walks up to him and starts patting down his jacket and trouser pockets. I can almost see the protest in his watering eyes, though.

It’s the jacket’s inside pocket where she finds the spell book, a drab little thing with a red cover, worn edges, and a broken spine, like it’s been sitting in some attic for a century or two, just like you’d expect an old lost spell book to look. M scans the first couple of pages, smirks.

“That’s what I thought,” she says. “You had talent, to get this far. You could have made something of yourself. But you thought you could pick this up and aim it like a gun. Well, it doesn’t work like that. Pauline?”

I step forward at her call. She hands me the book, and I put it in my clutch. We’ll get rid of it later.

“You can clean this up?” Madame M asks Gigi.

Gigi purses her lips. She might be thinking a million things and won’t say any of them. She might be shocked at what M could do on Gigi’s own territory, but she won’t show it. Even after this, Gigi still doesn’t know how much power M really has. She so rarely shows off.

“Yeah. Sure. I’ll clean ’em up and throw ’em out.” She nods, and the triplet waiters go around to all the goons, depriving them of their weapons. However much we all might want to make the whole crowd of them disappear, most likely Gigi will just obfuscate their memories and throw them in some far-off alley where they can’t bother her anymore. She’ll find a new guard for the door.

“Remember what I said,” M adds. “Call me if you change your mind.”

Gigi wears her sneer like a mask. “I’ll do that.”

M’s got on a sad look and might stand there all night, but I touch her arm and point her to the door. I don’t know what to think about Gigi except maybe to feel sorry for her. To have someone like M around wanting to help and to snub her like that.

Gigi calls after us one last time. “M. Don’t get in too much trouble.”

“You too, Gigi.”

And that’s that. I take one last look over my shoulder to the beautiful singer, who’s singing again, trying to get back to normal, crooning about how wonderful it is to dance in the arms of your man. It’s got to be near dawn, closing time. She’s singing to a near-empty room, the only ones still around are the waiters and the zombie bartender, who’s still got that rag in his hand, wiping.

We retrieve our furs from the coat check girl, a new guard—also thick as a barrel, with odd fur around his ears—opens the door to let us outside, and we’re back on the street, next to a dirty brick wall, and the glow from a distant streetlight makes our shadows long. She keeps walking. The car ought to be around here somewhere. It’ll find us when she wants it to find us. Meanwhile, she’s in a mood to walk, and I stay at her side.

“You got a bottle of whiskey in that thing?” M asks, nodding at my clutch.

“Probably. Might have to go digging around for it.” The clutch is no bigger than my two hands put together, but it’s got everything in it because that’s what it’s designed for. Cigarettes, cash and poker chips, a pretty little Derringer for emergencies that no one will ever find unless I want them to, a handful of bus tokens, an extra pair of stockings, a spool of thread, and a lipstick. And now an odd little book of spells. Maybe I can find a bottle of whiskey.

“Never mind.” She gives a deep sigh. “I knew it was a long shot. Oh well.”

“She doesn’t know what she’s doing,” I say.

“Not our problem. Not anymore.”

We walk for maybe half a mile, and I might be tough and M might be magic, but my shoes aren’t built for this and I’m getting sore. But I’ll stay right with her. The sky is gray, the sun’s coming up.

We pause when we hear singing, gruff and out of tune. It’s around the next corner, and I can’t help it, I have to go look. And there he is: The Fed’s lying in the gutter, no jacket, his shirt torn open. His shoulder holster is hanging lopsided, and he’s got a revolver in his hand, waving it around in what might be despair. Gigi took their guns—but he must have had one hidden, under a trouser leg maybe. So the Fed’s standing here, gun in his hand, lost as a puppy and trying to figure out where his life went, and who to blame.

I put myself in front of M like I always do in my imagination in this scenario. This isn’t too rough. We can get away, get out of his sight before he even knows we’re here, and I press back against M, urging her to turn around.

Too late, though, because the Fed sees us, and his arm suddenly becomes steady, and scrambling to his feet, he levels the weapon.

He’s got us in his sights and the gun is real. No back door to escape out of. I can hear M breathing hard behind me, and I don’t know if she has any tricks for this.

“What—what happened in there?” He’s gesturing with the gun, like it’s an extension of his arm.

I can feel sweat freezing on my skin under the silk of my dress. “I don’t even know what you think you saw.”

“Yes, you do, you saw everything, you saw it all! I don’t even remember! What am I supposed to tell the director?”

He can shoot me and say it was my fault. Sure he can. Can’t come back from his raid empty-handed, and I think how silly, that it all comes down to this, getting held up in a back alley by some drunk-ass Fed.

I step forward and grab the gun out of his hand, all in one smooth movement that he doesn’t see coming. The weapon comes loose from his hand like a plucked flower, and he collapses into a sob, leaking tears and snot, hands over his face. He slumps to the sidewalk.

We stand looking down at him. I’m holding this weapon that I don’t want. But I’m relieved, M is safe, and all is well. Sprawled on the concrete, he starts singing his mashed-up song again, and this time I can hear what it is, or what it’s supposed to be: the one the siren at Blue Moon sang, about the guy who done her wrong.

I empty the bullets from the chamber into my clutch and drop the gun on the sidewalk. I say, “You think we should help him? Call the cops or something?”

“He’s not going anywhere. They’ll find him soon enough. Come on, Pauline.”

She loops her arm around mine and we walk away. The car pulls up to the curb ahead of us, right on schedule, and the driver gets out to open the door for us. Time to go home, wash the paint off my face and roll into bed.

“I wonder sometimes how it all could have come out different,” M says. “With Gigi, I mean.”

“I don’t think you could have said anything—”

“Not here, not now,” she says, turning inward, thoughtful, and I can’t guess what webs she’s spinning, what plans she’s making, or past plans she’s picking apart for the flaws. “I’m talking ten, twenty years ago. Did all this happen because I took her doll, or because she stole my licorice? Or because Mama loved her best, or me best? I don’t know who Mama loved best, or if she loved either of us at all. Probably doesn’t matter one little bit.”

I don’t say anything because what can I say? I’ve never gotten the whole story about M and Gigi’s mama, probably because I haven’t asked. And I won’t. I don’t want or need to know because it wouldn’t change a thing.

“I imagine it doesn’t,” I say. “You and your sister have done most of this your own damn selves.”

M smiles, squeezes my arm. “I’m a lucky woman to have you walking by my side.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. I thought I was lucky that you put up with me at all.”

“The two of us make the best damn gang in this city, you know that? No matter what comes, we’ll be okay.” She doesn’t sound certain.

“Yes, ma’am,” I say firmly. “We will.”