Swan Song (12 page)
Authors: Tracey Ward
When I come back to work, Tommy is gone. He’s off somewhere dealing with a delivery or drop off or pick up, I don’t care. Wherever he is, whatever he’s doing, he’s safer there than he is anywhere near me. I could talk to Ralph about what he did, but Ralph has no interest in seeing me leave any more than Tommy does and just because his motives are monetary instead of territorial, it won’t change the outcome. I’d still be stuck.
And that’s what I realized New Year’s night. I’m stuck. Trapped. Held hostage and stagnant by these walls, the men, and the music. I’ll never make it out. I’m no closer to my dream here than I was in that dive years ago when Ralph heard me sing, saw my pretty feathers, and knew he wanted to cage me. I thought I was climbing a ladder, but I never stopped to see the ceiling they built above me. Not until it was too late. Now the sun is gone, the lights are bright in my eyes, and I’ve been blind to so many things that I should have seen coming. I’ll never get to New York, not playing by their rules because the house is always going to win. The deck is stacked against me, it always was, and if I want a shot at the sky, I have to stop hoping I’ll earn my wings. I have to make it happen myself.
I have to teach myself to fly.
“Adrian?” Elisha calls quietly.
I snap to, looking up at the stage where the girls wait for my direction. I don’t have any. I don’t even know what number they just did. “Yeah, it’s great. Take a break, alright?”
They all look at each other unsure for a moment, but they disperse. I rub my hands over my face and groan, trying to pull myself together. When I take my hands down, Elisha is there, silently waiting.
“Do you need something?” I ask, my voice sharper than I intended, pulled tight and strained by the stress.
“I was wondering if you’re okay? You seem distracted.”
I look up into her pretty young face and remember when I was that age. That pretty. That sweet, eager, and naïve.
“Aces,” I say with a whiskey grin. “A little tired, but all aces. How about you? How are you doing? Do you still like it here?”
Her face falls, a frown creasing her forehead. “It’s fine. The money is good. It really helps out at home.”
“Are the boys being good to you?”
“Yeah, they’re fine.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Not
too
good? They aren’t being overly friendly?”
She chuckles lightly, shaking her head. “No, ma’am. Especially not with my daddy back.”
I grin. “I imagine he keeps a close eye on you.”
“He does. When he can.” She shuffles on her feet, glancing at the bar where some of the boys are sitting and drinking. “Mickey’s been real nice,” she mutters.
“Has he?”
Elisha looks at me suddenly, realizing what she’s said. “Not like that. He’s been very proper.”
“In what way then?”
“Well, he…” She purses her lips, thinking. “He hel—“
“You gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’ me!”
Elisha jumps as Hal comes bursting into the room, his words bouncing off the walls and closing in on us. On reflex I stand up, putting her a little behind me, my body between her and the men.
“What’s the matter with you?” Mickey asks from his place at the bar.
“Reggie, pull out all the bottles. All the gin,” Hal calls out to the bartender. He turns to Mickey. “Damn Canadians pulled one over on us.”
“What? When?”
“With the shipment after Halloween. All the stink we made about the bourbon and the trade off they gave us?”
“Yeah, the gin they gave up for free as repayment. What about it?”
Reggie produces three bottles of gin, lining them up on the bar. Hal snags the one he’s looking for and pulls the cap. He gives it a sniff but comes away frowning.
“It don’t smell no different,” he grumbles.
“Different than what?”
He slams the bottle down on the bar, causing some of the liquid to geyser out the top. “Than shit that kills ya!”
“What are you talking about? Speak English,” Mickey demands.
The hairs on my arms stand up straight and I take several steps toward the bar, eager to hear this.
“I just got a call from Tommy. He heard some stories from Duke and his boys about people in New York getting’ sick in some of the clubs, sick like some people have been ‘round here. Some people ended up in the hospital. Two died. They traced it back to the booze. Bathtub gin brewed all wrong. They found out it came from some Canadians. Fake shit mixed in with the good stuff. Ralph sent Tommy to New York to ask around, find out which Canadians it came from. You’ll never guess who.”
Mickey’s face is dark, angry. “The Tremblays.”
“All sixes.”
“What are the symptoms?” I ask Hal.
He looks at me in surprise, then glances around the room. We’re all watching him intently. “You all don’t need to hear this. Get back to work.”
“What are the symptoms, Hal?” I demand, taking a step toward him instead of back as the other women do. “We’ve been drinking this trash. We need to know.”
He looks to Mickey who shrugs and looks away. Finally he turns back to me with a sigh.
“Dizziness. Headache.”
“Confusion? Vomiting?” I ask hotly.
He nods. “And blindness.”
I hear gasps all around the room and I know I just got a head count on who’s been drinking the gin.
“It’s what killed Alice,” I whisper.
Hal nods again. “Yeah, Tommy thinks so.”
“Why though? Why didn’t more of us get sick?”
“We’ve been watering it down,” Reggie says quietly. His face is white as a sheet, his eyes downcast. “No one has been drinking it straight. Tommy wanted it to last, to turn a profit, so when people asked for it they got it watered down. Except for…”
“Except for Alice,” I say quietly, getting it.
He nods, looking up at me with pained, wet eyes. “I had just started. I didn’t know. No one had told me to water down the gin yet. When Alice asked for it straight up, I gave it to her. Then even after Tommy said to water it down, she still wanted it… she was insistent and I—“ He takes a shuddering breath. “I killed her, didn’t I?”
“No. The Tremblays killed her,” Mickey says darkly. He looks to Hal. “Is Tommy takin’ care of this? When is it happening?”
“Not yet. He’s coming back tonight, but first he’s meetin’ up with someone. The New York gangs have got a stake in this too. They’ve got a lot of sick and two dead. They’re just as angry, if not angrier so they’re sending one of their own to help out.”
“Who?”
Hal grins slightly, but it’s not pleasant. It’s dark and vengeful. What joy would look like if it knew how to be evil. “Fuckin’ Birdy.”
It’s nearly show time and I still haven’t seen Tommy. I’m not surprised that I haven’t seen Drew because that’s the thing about him – he’s a ghost. It’s his job not to be seen, and unless he wants me to, I know I won’t. It’ll be like he was never here. Not that first night, not on Halloween, and certainly not now. He’ll be a memory I’ll always wonder about, eventually believing it was a dream I tried to make real.
I’m glad Tommy isn’t there because it means I’m allowed to get ready in my dressing room alone. I know what I’m supposed to wear, but when I look at the green dress hanging in the corner covered in sequins that reflect the light, shimmering like a snake’s skin, I don’t touch it. I don’t want to go near it. Instead, I wear a modest black dress from the back of the closet. The one Ralph bought for me to attend funerals in.
He bought it only two years ago and I’ve worn it six times.
It’s more muted than anything I’ve ever worn on the stage of the Cotton Club, but it’s simple and comfortable. It’ll be easier to sing in than the confining, skintight gowns Tommy puts me in. I leave my hair down, only apply the barest hint of makeup, leave every stone of jewelry in the box on the vanity, and when I look in the mirror, I see
me.
The doe eyed girl fresh off the bus from Iowa with a clean slate and no shackles on her wrists. She can’t stay, she’ll never make it in this place, but tonight I don’t care. Tonight I’m taking back my life as much as I’m able. I’m taking it back until they take it from me for good.
When it’s time, I step onto that stage and I take it like it’s mine. Like I’m a conqueror marching into a new land and claiming it for God and country. The natives look at me anxiously, their eyes frightened by the foreign sight of me in my strange dress, embers in my eyes, and a snap in my step that leaves flags of my fathers in the ground with each strike of my heel. There’s a hush in the air as I take the center of the stage, a black diamond in the onyx sky, shining with force and flint and the devil’s dark fire.
I don’t wait for the band. I never told them what to play. I don’t cue the girls to come prancing out, kicking their legs in the air, shaking their asses for the audience to leer at. I’m not sharing this land. I stand like a statue, breathe life into my lungs, and sing low and husky the way I used to. The way I did the night Ralph found me standing in the near dark of a broken down joint with one light on my face, my clothes soft and simple, and my voice the only instrument in the room because it was all I had and it was all I needed.
I sing a song I’ve never sung here before. One from Harlem, one I’m not allowed to sing. One I’m told Chicago never wanted to hear, but we’re not in Chicago tonight. This ain’t Cicero. It’s not the Cotton Club or the Capone’s house. This is mine. This stage and the air and the beat of my heart are mine, all mine, and I give them everything I’ve got because if I give it, they can’t take it. By giving it, I reclaim it.
I’m the bird you can’t cage. The note you can’t reach. The woman you can’t forget.
I see him in the crowd. I see him because he wants me to. He’s out in the open in the lights by the door, leaning against the frame and watching me steadily. He doesn’t move, I’m not sure he’s breathing, but I know he’s real. He’s dark and dangerous and so fucking animal instinct terrifying that I can’t look away. I sing my song to him. I touch the microphone stand with my fingertips, but I’m touching him. His arms, his chest, his hips. I let my lips brush across the microphone – across his cheek.
He’s breathing now. His chest is moving, heavy and slow because he knows. Because he’s thought about it too. So aware, so close.
I’m so alive in his eyes as I slip back inside myself. The notes that leave my mouth are my mantle. They’re my new veneer, my new mask, the game I’ll play by my own rules with everything at stake. I’ll play it with the bravery of a girl who has lost everything and has nothing left but this song. This moment. This man.
The song ends, as does my reign, but it was enough. It was
me
, all Addy and a myriad of other names no one knows. Not even him.
I leave the stage, washed away by the thunderous applause that usher me back through the curtains past confused faces and worried glances.
As soon as I pass through the heavy velvet, a hand grabs my arm and yanks me to the side. I don’t fight or call out because I’m not surprised. I let Tommy toss me into the hallway, bouncing me against the wall roughly, and then there he stands – the golden god staring down at me with unbridled rage.
“You wanna tell me what the hell that was about?” he demands.
I meet his fire with ice, keeping my face and heartbeat calm. “I sang a song.”
“Not the one you were told to.”
“My choice was better.”
He steps into me, forcing me back against the wall. I don’t flinch. “You don’t make choices. You follow orders, you got me?”
“Yeah.”
“This was stupid, Adrian.”
“So was keeping me locked out of New Year’s.”
He laughs in my face. “Is that what this is about? You gotta be joking.” He continues to chuckle, running his hand over his mouth. “Okay. Okay. Let’s hear it. What do you need to say to me, doll?”
“Nothing. I have nothing to say to you.”
“Did you already say it with that performance up there? Are you done getting even? Did you get it out of your system?”
I don’t answer him. I stare at him blankly, silently.
He grins darkly. “Why don’t you just ask me what you’re dying to know and I’ll tell you. Then you can stop thinking.”
My blood begins to boil. He is such a condescending son of a bitch. I wonder how I ever let him touch me. How I ever overlooked the selfishness that is him, how I was ever so high that I thought letting him inside me was worth anything. I don’t care how good it felt, I feel sick from it now and I always will. I’ll always hate myself for it, far more than I hate him.
“I don’t even want to know, Tommy. I have nothing to say,” I tell him, looking away.
“You got nothin’ to say? You?” he asks, sounding astounded. I ignore him. “Alright, if you’re clammed up for once, then maybe you’ll listen. You’re not leaving this club.”
“You mean I’m not leaving you.”
He snorts, crossing his arms over his chest. “Don’t be so full of yourself, sweetheart. I like you, but I like money more and you’re good for business. Stop being good for business and you can go anywhere you want. Get fat, get pregnant, become a drunk or a doper. I don’t care.”
“Because no other club will want me then.”
He grins. “Nailed it.”
“That’s very pragmatic of you.”
I do it on purpose. I use a word I’m sure he doesn’t know. One that will stump him and leave him feeling off-balance. Stupid.
If there’s one thing Tommy can’t stand, it’s feeling foolish.
“I don’t like your attitude. You’re giving me grief and I ain’t got time for it, not tonight,” he tells me coolly. “Pack up your shit and go home.”
I don’t move. I watch him patiently and his cheek twitches with annoyance. I’m in a dangerous place right now. The kind of place where a girl could get slapped around for the trouble I’m causing him, but still I stay steady. I stay silent and I don’t retreat.
“Go on, get the hell outta here,” he growls, getting in my face. “And when you come back tomorrow, you wear your hair the way I say with the dress I tell you to, and you don’t sing a single note that I don’t put in front of you. And wipe that fuckin’ frown off your mug, you got it?”
I’m surprised to hear his speech go full gangster. He doesn’t do that with me. He’s off kilter and angry and this,
this
is the man on the inside. Not the mask, but the man. The devil.
It’s good to know what I’m dealing with.
“Whatever you say, boss,” I tell him softly.
He continues to glower at me as I pause for one last moment, meeting his eyes and smiling ever so faintly. Then I turn and walk away, and I’m so damn scared that I’ll be grabbed or tripped or beaten silly for what I’ve just done, but he lets me go and my heart slows down the farther away I get.
I don’t bother changing my clothes. I grab my coat off the back of the door, snatch my purse off the table, and run out the exit over the loading docks.
It’s cold outside when I burst through the door into the night. I feel the wind cut through the open folds, nipping at my skin through my thin black dress like a thousand tiny little devils devouring me whole, and I let them. I let them have at me as my body heats up with the anger and frustration building inside of me.
You’re not leaving this club.
“Son of a bitch,” mutter loudly to myself, ranting as I walk away from the club. I break into a low, angry tirade where I say all the things I wanted to say to his face, all the things I would love to say with my fists but can’t. I feel like a muzzled, angry, junkyard dog moments away from eating through its restraints. Once I’m free, I won’t just bite the hand that feeds me. I’ll gnaw the damn thing off and have it for dinner.
A hand shoots out of a dark ally, wrapping firmly around my arm and yanking me inside. Before I can scream I’m pressed hard against the wall by the body of my attacker, and the second I feel it, the moment he presses against me and his scent fills my nose, the scream turns to a relieved sob.
Headlights from a passing car cut between the buildings and skitter into the alley, sweeping over his features.
It’s Drew.
He’s a wall of tensile steel, a mass of muscle, and I’m pinned between him and the rough surface behind me. I sigh heavily with relief at the sensation. It’s the feeling. The same weight, the pain, the pressure, the smell, the feel of him. It’s what I remember, what I’ve been aching for, and when his eyes draw in close to mine, shuttered and heady, I know he remembers it too.
The light fades until we’re both hidden, blanketed in the shadows that envelope us like the warmest, softest cloth imaginable. It swaddles us until we’re comfortable as babes, honest as innocents, and fully transparent where no one can see us.
His lips descend on mine, and it’s breathtaking. I freeze, going still and stunned for only a beat before bursting with life and lust and music I can’t keep up with but I’ll gladly die trying. I immediately push aside the mask of Adrian Marcone to get closer to him. I feel stripped and bare in the scariest, most exciting way. I feel alive and new, and I know that this – that
we
are something. Be it dangerous or precious, sanctified or unadulterated evil, it is
something
and I value it more than all of the senseless nothing that I’ve been swimming in for the past few years.
Drew yanks on the front of my coat, deftly pulling the big buttons apart, then he has my hands in his, lifting them up and pinning them against the wall over my head.
He pauses, pulling away and breathing heavily against my face. His eyes latch onto mine, serious and intense. “Can I touch you?” he whispers.
I blink, not sure I heard him right. “Are you asking permission?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead he stares at me, into me, and he waits for my answer. For my acquiescence.
The unfamiliar sting of tears strikes the back of my eyes and I can’t even say why. Probably for a lot of reasons, but in that moment I’m taken away from the world and myself as I stare at this man – this thug, this gangster, this killer with the scars and the deadly eyes, asking permission to put his hands on my body. I’ve seen a hint of his sour and it took my breath away, it sent my heart into overdrive, but this – his sweet – is what will break me.
I nod my head, closing my eyes and brushing my lips gently against his. “Yes.”
He holds my hands in place with his left hand while the right delves inside my coat, running slowly over the wispy black fabric of my dress and caressing my warm skin underneath. It shivers and quakes at his touch and when his tongue delves into my mouth, I greet it with a low moan.
He kisses coarsely. It’s rough and raw and real, and his stubble chafes against the tender skin of my chin, the sting letting me know my face will be rubbed red before he’s done with me and I can’t even begin to care.
He releases my hands and lets me bring them down on either side of his face, cupping the scarred skin and pulling him to me. He takes hold of my hips, pushing harder against me until I release a choked whimper from the back of my throat. I feel him smile against my lips and I bite it on instinct, wanting to taste his sweetness on my tongue.
He pulls back slightly, grinning with his eyes. “Easy, Addy.”
“No,” I growl, pulling on him.
He holds back and I notice his hands have gone still on my sides, his thumbs the only movement. Up and down, slow and soft. Unhurried. Unworried. His control is infuriating. “Yes,” he insists firmly.
“Why?”
“I have to go soon.”
“You only just got here.”
“And I’ll be leaving just as quickly.”
“Will you say goodbye before you leave town?”
“I already am.”
I drop my forehead against his, closing my eyes against the pressure building in my chest. He’ll be gone again, for who knows how long. Maybe forever. “Why?” I whisper angrily against his lips. “Why bother finding me like this then?”