Moonshine: A Novel (6 page)

I was still thinking about Amir and how to even approach his request. It had occurred to me over lunch that if Lily was an Other beat reporter, and I needed information about Rinaldo, we might be ideally placed to make a deal with each other. Seeing as how horribly my great idea had turned out this morning, I attempted to consider all the angles. Then I gave up because I knew I was going to ask anyway.

"You know," I said, as soon as Iris left, "I have a great deal of contact with Others."

Lily gave me an appraising look and leaned toward me. "So I've heard. I've been meaning to find you."

"I need some information, and I think you might be able to help."

"Perhaps. What do I get out of this?"

"I feed you stories. I could make your career. Tenement abuse. Other police corruption. I could tell you the location of Defender raids before they happen."

I could tell that my offer excited her, because her eyes had gone quite innocently wide and her foot began tapping the floor incessantly. Very good, Zephyr. Now you've dangled the bait, you just need to reel in the fish.

"And what information do you need?"

I hoped I didn't look as nervous as I felt. Mentioning this vampire's name seemed to be the conversational equivalent of a stick of TNT. "Everything you know about Rinaldo. Any rumors, any sightings, any activity. I need it. I'm looking into . . . something. If it pans out, you'll get the exclusive. And believe me, it could be huge."

She frowned. "Rinaldo? You mean that gin runner out of Little Italy? But he's not even my beat. Crime is at least five promotions away." She rolled her eyes.

I smiled and lowered my voice to a whisper. It didn't look as though anyone was close enough to hear, but I wasn't stupid enough to trust that. "Oh, but it
is
your beat. Rinaldo is a vampire. He controls a gang of young vampires called the Turn Boys who terrorize the neighborhood. But no one's ever seen him. No one knows where he is. But, I figure, a sucker that powerful must come out to play. I want to track him down, but I need some help. I can move in certain circles." I looked at my clothes with a self-deprecating smile. "You can move in others."

She matched my whisper. "You think he might have infiltrated society?"

"He's rich enough. And older vampires are better at disguising what they are."

She leaned back in her chair and let out a very unladylike whistle. I liked her better for it. "Dear God. This is some goddamn story. Are you serious?"

"Perfectly."

She grinned and clapped her hands. For a moment, she looked like a delighted child, not a sophisticated young ingenue. "Well, for the record, you're crazy. Even the veterans at my paper hardly touch Rinaldo."

"But you'll help?"

"You're lucky, Zephyr Hollis. Because I'm pretty crazy, too."

We were still smiling at each other when Iris returned to the table.

"Well, look at the two of you!" she said, negotiating her way back into her chair. "Did something amusing happen while I was gone?"

"Oh, just that Zephyr is going to help me become the most famous female journalist in the country."

Iris looked at me, the laugh lines around her eyes crinkling. "Goodness, is that so? You should come to our suffragette meeting to night, Lily. We're debating prophylactics."

Lily looked so genuinely horrified that I had to smother a laugh.

"Don't even think of it!" She shuddered. "A
suffragette
meeting. I'm already a journalist. Don't ask me to commit social suicide."

Iris and I attended the suffragette meeting together, and I sat back while she held forth on the "multiple, incontrovertible" benefits to the active promotion of prophylactic birth control. "It will help improve the lives of the lower classes by an immeasurable margin," she said, and then made heavy use of Margaret Sanger. There were a few men present, and I found myself peering around the crowded room to see if I spotted Amir. I didn't know why I thought I would see him, and the excitement I felt at each false alarm was enough to make me want to sink to the floor in embarrassment. It was just that he was so unfamiliar, so completely different in looks and manner and speech than anyone I'd ever encountered.

In the end, those assembled voted to investigate the matter further and reconvene at a later date.

"A fine waste of a meeting," Iris grumbled to me, as we left the back room in the Jewish Russian coffee shop that hosted our monthly gathering. "You'd think we were selling twopenny romances on the streets!"

I thought of Aileen and Verity Lovelace's popped cherry. "I imagine if we were, there'd be a great deal more demand for prophylactics," I said, valiantly suppressing a fit of the giggles. Iris, with a yawn, pulled back a chair from an empty table in the front shop, and sprawled into it. For a moment, I was afraid that the spindle legs might crack under her bulk, but it managed to hold her up.

"I believe I shall revivify with some coffee," Iris said. "Should I order two?"

I shook my head. "I'd love to, but I have to leave. I have . . ."

She nodded knowingly, which thankfully saved me from concocting some inadequate excuse. "The energies of youth, I see. Well, take care. I daresay I'll see you at some event, soon. And it seemed you and Lily got on swimmingly. Perhaps there's hope for the darling little closed-minded debutante yet, eh?"

Iris winked at me and I felt such an overwhelming burst of affection that I nearly hugged her. I managed to make do with pressing her hand and promising to see her at the Socialist Worker's Party meeting next week. Just as I turned to leave, I caught a glimpse of a tall figure walking out of the shop. His hair was dark and curled, his attire several degrees more refined than the average in this Lower East Side haunt. I ran from the shop and onto the sidewalk, where snow I hadn't even known was expected covered the ground two inches deep. Through the blanketing white, I attempted to catch a glimpse of the man I had just seen leave, but it appeared that the only people on the sidewalk beside myself were two respectable Hasidim in beaver hats and heavy black coats.

"You're losing your mind," I said. I hadn't even buttoned my coat or replaced my hat and gloves. I did so before the snow made me even colder and went to fetch my bicycle.

I pedaled home quickly, even though I had nearly two hours before I was expected at the club. I would need at least that much time to get ready. My encounter with the incomparable Lily had at least proven that. I didn't want to embarrass myself in this adventure any more than strictly necessary. And in any case, this might be the last chance I had to, well,
go dancing
, as Aileen would put it. Amir hadn't found me, and without him as the miraculous source of my financial reprieve, I would have to take other measures. And seeing as how those measures either involved telegraphing Daddy back in Montana to ask for a loan or selling my soul to the Citizen's Council . . . obviously, I would have to take the Citizen's Council. Oh, Daddy had the money. He stockpiled as if Yarrow was Fort Knox. But I would die before I asked him for help. It would just prove that he was right, that I couldn't make it on my own in this city as a useless "do-gooder."

They would probably make me teach hygiene and nutrition courses. I hated those. Marching into people's homes like some Bible-spouting missionary to tell them that the food their grandmothers' grandmothers made is scientifically inadequate. Fewer cheap vegetables, more meats. As though they could afford them.
Damn
Amir for getting my hopes up.

It was early, yet--just half past seven--but Aileen was waiting when I made it home.

"Thank God!" I said, shutting the door behind me.

She looked up from her book, a different one from last night. "You didn't think I'd make it?"

"I thought you might forget. It
is
Friday."

"How could I miss your big debut?" She held up a flapper dress of patterned rose silk with long fringes.

I tugged off my boots and ran to touch it. "I can't believe you got this! How could you even afford--"

She shrugged her shoulders languidly. "Oh, this girl I know. Spends all her money on clothes, and this is at least three years out of date. That whole flapper thing, just a touch passe. Still . . ." She held it up against me. "It will look
tres
chic on you."

"I promise I'll pay you back tomorrow. Horace said he'd give me something for this."

Aileen rolled her eyes. "If that fat bootlegger actually gives you a dime, you had better buy some food. You look scrawnier than my grandmother during the potato famine."

"Aileen, how could you know what your grandmother looked like during the potato famine?"

She dropped the dress on her bed and held her arms akimbo. "I'll have you know the Sight hasn't skipped a generation of Dunne women since St. Patrick himself drove the snakes out of the Emerald Isle."

Her accent had grown so strong as to be nearly unintelligible by the end of the sentence. "Goodness," I said, "does your family keep a leprechaun too?"

Her mouth twitched dangerously. "We gave him to Bonnie Prince Charlie."

"And yet they didn't think to plant some rutabagas."

We both started laughing. "Oh, get ready," she said, gasping. "I sense dramatic changes for you to night."

I shook my head. "I just hope I don't get jeered off the stage. Have you heard they actually use a
hook
up at the Apollo?"

"Take a bath! You can be nervous after I make you look ravishing."

I followed her orders, and when I returned to the room she had laid out what looked to be her entire cosmetic collection. It was extensive--being a true vamp in this city required rigorous maintenance. She sat me on our wobbly chair in front of the cracked mirror.

"Don't overdo it," I said, nervously, when she picked up a jar of flesh-colored cream.

"Ah, don't worry, chick," she said, in an uncanny impression of an old Irish fortune-teller, "I'll be gentle as a lamb."

I had to close my eyes.

"There!" she said, after half an hour. "Perfection. Well, open your eyes. You can always wipe it off if you truly hate it."

Thus fortified, I saw what Aileen had wrought. A strange, fey face stared at me from the mirror. Her eyes seemed impossibly large, and lined with just barely less kohl than your average vamp. High cheekbones delicately emphasized with a light flush. Glossy red lips with a distinct impression of a pout from the full bottom. I had never liked that tendency of my lower lip to protrude. Now, Aileen had somehow turned it into something almost . . . sexy.

"Oh," I said.

"I am a genius. When do you have to be there, again?"

"Eight thirty. The set starts at nine and I have to practice with the band." Just saying that out loud sent a colony of butterflies to my stomach. I could hardly believe that Horace had agreed to let me sing the opening set at his nightclub. Admittedly, almost no one showed up at such an early hour on a Friday. And he owed me a favor after I had saved his favorite trombone player from being staked by one of Troy's overzealous Defenders. Still, I had secretly dreamed of a chance like this for most of my life. I used to sing in our church choir until Daddy appropriated Sundays for my training (over Mama's objections). Afterward, my vocal exertions were mainly confined to the backyard during chores. If Harry was in a good mood, he'd sometimes sit and listen with the chickens, but mostly he and the others would make fun of me. Mama says I have a great voice, but then again, she's my mama and the competition isn't exactly fierce in Yarrow.

Aileen picked up an egg I hadn't noticed lying on the dresser and cracked it on a bowl.

"You don't want to cook that first?"

She grinned, and began separating the white from the yolk. "I read about this hairstyle in a glossy last year and I just had to try it out."

I turned to her, my mouth open in horror. "Putting
egg whites
on my
hair
?"

"Josephine Baker does it."

I closed my mouth and faced the mirror again. Josephine Baker was about as close as I came to worshipping a person, and Aileen knew it.

"Have you done this before?" I asked, when she started smearing the clear goop over my curls.

"It didn't sound very hard in the article."

I closed my eyes again.