The Lucky Ones (4 page)

“No… You need to be at the airfield early, and if you take me now it’ll be almost morning by the time you get back.”

For a moment there was the old stiffness between them, a curious air of formality. Then, gazing at her, he gave a faint little shake of his head, as though he still couldn’t quite believe she was real. His lips parted, and her breath caught, because she was briefly sure he was going to tell her that he loved her. Instead he opened the back door, and watched solicitously as she arranged herself on the backseat.

“I’ll call you soon,” he said and grinned, and they both knew he had thought it.

“Good.” She grinned back at him as he closed the door and went on grinning as they pulled away from the curb. Although she did not so much as glance over her shoulder, she knew that he kept on watching. She sank back happily against the leather seat and didn’t notice the silver sedan on the other side of the street making a swift U-turn so that it could follow her cab as it traveled south toward the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge.

4

VEHICLES ON A CITY STREET AT NIGHT WEAR POKER faces, their features stony and their eyes as steady as the moon. There was that rhythm of headlights as cars zoomed past, and Astrid liked how whenever a beam went over them she got a good picture of her husband, the line of his jaw and the way he filled up his shirt. When she woke up that morning she had been tempted to tell him her grandmother Donal’s secret, but then she remembered her promise to the lady. Instead Astrid had cooed that she couldn’t be apart from him and asked if he’d take her on his nocturnal rounds, and by now anticipation was at a high fizz inside her.

The world Charlie was taking her into was not one that her mother would ever see, nor any of the girls who were going back to Connecticut to finish at Miss Porter’s in the fall, perfecting themselves only so that they could be married to bores like Beau Ridley—the boy who had taken her first kiss—who would soon enough turn into the kind of musty old husband her mother collected. Virginia Donal de Gruyter Marsh had always been competitive with her daughter, for the silly and incontrovertible reason that she would forever be precisely twenty-two years younger than her, but Astrid had never heard such desperate jealousy in her mother’s voice as she had on the telephone that afternoon. The old lady had been trying to invite herself out with the bright young things, on the flimsy pretext that she missed her daughter. But Astrid knew the real reason—Virginia couldn’t stand that Astrid had chosen to be not at all like her mother and had forgone the chance to collect expensive surnames in order to collect nights like these.

As they flew down Sixth Avenue, Charlie leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his brown eyes intent on the task ahead. Astrid let a hand rest on his back protectively. He worked so hard, her Charlie. After his father had died he had become a little obsessed with it, and he had pushed hard to make the business grow, especially where it meant stealing clients from the Hales. The Hales had struck back, of course—by kidnapping Astrid—but Charlie had saved her. And now she would save him, however she could, and see to it that he didn’t work
too
hard, and that there was always lightness at his side, in the pretty form of herself.

“Here,” Charlie announced, and the driver pulled the Daimler off the wide avenue and onto a tree-lined side street.

Astrid pressed her shoulders up toward her ears, and a low murmur of expectation escaped her lips as they passed the redbrick buildings of the Village, where markers of the old family neighborhood life were still mixed in with the new fun. She had been down here plenty of times with Charlie and with the fast set from White Cove—young people like her who wanted their evenings frothy and were more likely to see the sunrise at the end of a day than at its beginning. But she had never been in the Village like this—moving stealthily, instead of with the intention of making a scene.

“Here,” Charlie said again, and the driver stopped the car in front of an old storefront, the windows of which had been painted black from the inside. Over the front door a neon sign blinked
PHARMACY
. Without looking back at Astrid, Charlie pushed open the door. Astrid scooted toward him on the seat and stuck a leg out, her high-heeled shoe reaching for the pavement. She let out an angry yelp when she felt the steel of the door closing against her calf.

“Charlie!”

“What are you doing?” His face was wide open with surprise, and it was only after he saw his wife’s crumpled mouth that he realized her leg was smarting. “I’m sorry, baby. You stay here.”

“Charlie.” Astrid scowled. “You said I could tag along.”

“I’ll be right inside, baby, and then I’m gonna take you to the sweetest little Italian place around the corner, all right? Ted will stay with you,” he went on, meaning the driver. “He’s armed.”

The gold dress Astrid wore glimmered in her wake as she descended to the sidewalk and closed the car door behind her. She brushed a lock of blond hair out of her face and met Charlie’s gaze. He turned his chin up in silent argument, but he blinked first, and Astrid, knowing she had won, spread her full lips into a smile. After another second he gave in completely. With a subtle tilt of the head, Charlie indicated that his bodyguard should precede him. He took Astrid’s hand and moved ahead of her to the door, and she shimmied in her slinky dress to keep up.

The bodyguard poked the bell with a sturdy finger.

For what seemed a long time there was no noise within. Then the door was drawn back and a long, wan face with a pair of spectacles balanced on its nose appeared in the crack of the door frame.

The man’s eyes scanned the three young people in the street. He stared at Charlie and then at Astrid and then at Charlie again, letting his eyes linger the longest on the young heir of the Grey bootlegging fortune. “What seems to be your ailment?” he said suspiciously.

The bodyguard looked at Charlie, and Charlie said: “I can’t sleep at night.”

“How long has it been since you’ve slept through the night?” the man asked—incuriously, Astrid noticed with a sly upturn at the corner of her mouth, for she had been a witness to this sort of password ritual before.

“Eight days,” Charlie replied.

The man nodded and pulled open the door so that they could follow him through an empty pharmacy, where the medicine bottles hung like ghosts on the mirrored shelves, and into a back room. Several small tables were illuminated by hanging lampshades, their Victorian tassels faded and their cloth coverings threadbare. “Runnin’ Wild” played from an old phonograph. Five couples occupied the room, none of them the type who might be found playing croquet on a White Cove lawn on a Sunday.

“I see plenty of wedding rings, but I think we’re the only man and wife in the room!” Astrid whispered delightedly into Charlie’s ear as the fellow with the glasses showed them to their table. This seemed funny to her, that they had landed in the kind of out-of-the-way place where people went when they were up to no good.

“What can I get you?” the man with the glasses asked as Astrid lowered herself into an old wooden chair.

“I’d like to speak to the owner,” Charlie said without sitting down.

“Oh, Charlie, let’s warm up a minute! We’ll have two of your finest whatever it is you serve here,” Astrid said with a careless wave of her hand and a theatrical wink. When the man saw her wink, his features relaxed for the first time since they’d entered, and Astrid decided that she liked his face, which was shadowy in some parts and protruded in others.

Reluctantly, Charlie sat down beside her, and the bodyguard retreated to the corner of the room as their host disappeared behind a curtain. “You see, Charlie, pretty soon I’m going to be indispensable to you! I suspect you needed a little ladylike touch for this sort of business. You can be
awfully
intimidating, you know.”

The veins on Charlie’s thick neck were popping slightly, so she softened her eyes at him. She didn’t let up until some sweetness came into his gaze, and then she leaned toward him and said: “Charlie, promise me you’ll never come to a joint like this with some girl who isn’t me.”

“Why would I ever—”

Astrid rolled her eyes in the direction of the other patrons, urging him to look around. “You know.”

“Astrid.” Charlie put both hands at her waist, encircling it. “Astrid, I would never.”

“I know, I know, just
tell
me.”

He lowered himself so that his mouth was close to her ear. “I would never,” he said, his stern voice breaking over the sincerity of the sentiment. She sensed a kiss coming, but their drinks came first, served in chipped white coffee cups.

Beaming, Astrid brought the coffee cup to her face. But the taste of the whiskey was terrible, so she put it down definitively into its saucer. “Oh, Charlie, don’t tell Mr. Specs, but this tastes awful!”

A twinkling little laugh escaped her lips, and it broke the sweetness of the previous moment. Charlie turned from her slowly and signaled the host, who came away from the wall toward their table. A new song had come on, another old one—Astrid couldn’t remember the name, but she knew they’d been playing it in the cafés in Paris the year after her mother’s second divorce, when they’d lived out of suitcases in Europe.

“I’m sorry,” Charlie told the man coldly, “but my wife says this stuff is terrible.”

“Oh, well, terrible is such a strong word!” Astrid trilled.

“I apologize.” The man with the glasses kept his voice just as cold and did not look at Astrid again. “But that’s all we serve here. Perhaps Madame would like it better at another kind of establishment.”

“My wife likes it here fine.” Charlie stood and pushed his chair back. “I’d like to talk to the owner about it.”

“I am the owner, sir.”

“Then I’d like to talk to you about it. Alone.”

The man turned down the corners of his mouth and swung his head, as though he didn’t see the point but was willing to accommodate this unusual request, and then he gestured toward the back of the room. Charlie shot a meaningful look at his bodyguard, and Astrid gave a soft squeal as she hurried along behind Charlie, through the curtain and into a small, dingy office. A desk took up most of the room, and the rest was occupied by a filing cabinet, the top drawer of which was unlocked and open to reveal stacked bottles full of amber liquid.

“My name is Charlie Grey,” Charlie said, dragging a chair back so that he could sit in it.

“I know who you are, Mr. Grey.”

Astrid’s eyes went excitedly to Charlie at this evidence of what a big, important person he was and how his reputation spread even to holes-in-the-wall like this one. Though he didn’t return her look, she stood behind him anyway, delicately placing her ringed fingers on his shoulder, thinking what an impressive accessory she surely was for him.

“I import liquor. Good liquor. Not like what you’ve been serving.”

“I know what you do, Mr. Grey.”

“Try it. We just brought it in through the Bahamas. It’s top-notch.”

Charlie brought out a flask from the inside pocket of his coat and poured a thimbleful of brown liquid into two of the coffee cups that were lined up neatly on the desk. Both men drank and then set their glasses back down and regarded one another. Although Astrid had spent the whole day in anticipation of this part of the evening—when she would be ushered behind a curtain and get to see how things were really done—she couldn’t stop her attention from drifting now. The room was small, after all, and not very interesting, and she couldn’t stop herself from wondering, just for an instant, what was happening at the Ritz’s roof that evening. Then her gaze settled on the room’s lone decoration, a framed picture of two children wearing frilly white getups, which she supposed were meant to be fancy.

“How many cases can I order you?” Charlie was saying.

“Mr. Grey, I’m not sure we understand each other,” the man replied.

“Why, mister!” Astrid broke in. “Are those your children?”

Startled, the man followed her pointed finger. “Yes,” he said cautiously.

“Oh, they’re
very
darling,” she gushed.

“Thank you.” Astrid smiled at him, and he smiled back. “Those are my two oldest, Rosie and Matthew.”

Charlie pushed back his chair as he rose up. “How many cases can I order you?”

“Mr. Grey, your liquor is very good. But I can’t buy from you. I buy from Coyle Mink.” The man paused while his drooping eyes focused on Charlie. “He runs the Bronx.”

Charlie put his fists on the table and leaned forward so that when he spoke his spittle landed on the man’s nose. “I’ve heard of Coyle Mink, and I’ve even heard of the Bronx, but this isn’t the Bronx, and you’re buying from me now.”

“Mr. Grey, I—”

“How many cases?” Suddenly Charlie was yelling.

“But I—”

“How many cases?” This time Charlie’s voice was lower, but no less menacing. He’d spit a little more, and the spittle remained glistening on the man’s long, worn forehead.

“Five…,” the man ventured, as though he hoped this would do.

“Five.” Charlie brought his shoulders back and spoke the word as though savoring it. “Five cases to start. I’ll have my boys be by tomorrow with your five cases.” The flask disappeared under Charlie’s jacket, and he produced a card, which he twirled in the air between two fingers before placing it on the desk. “A pleasure doing business with you. This is my wife, Astrid, by the way. Isn’t she the prettiest wife a man can buy?”

“Yes,” the man answered, but his voice was hollow and empty of conviction. It was the opposite of the voice he had used to say “Rosie and Matthew.”

A sadness crept into Astrid’s heart when she heard in the man’s tone how little he cared whether she was pretty or not. Before she could say anything, Charlie’s arm was gripping her, pulling her out of the office. She glanced back, but the man was still staring down at his desk with that blank and weary expression of defeat.

In Charlie’s body she sensed triumph. He was springy with what he had done. When they went back through the speakeasy he was strutting, and the men and women huddled at their tables turned their faces toward him a little meekly, as villagers might look up at a Viking. He did not have to say anything to the bodyguard stationed by the door—the man just followed along as they went quickly through the pharmacy and out onto the sidewalk. Holding the car door for her, Charlie ushered Astrid in. She heard metal slam against metal, and then Charlie was beside her, pressing her against the backseat, his mouth pushing on her mouth to open it up.

He was proud of himself, and she wished she could be proud of him too, but the pathetic condition they’d left that man in—his face all slack as though he’d just absorbed another of life’s many blows—had soured her evening.

“Charlie, I just got so tired,” she said, pushing him away. “Do you think you could take me home?”

“Not a chance, doll!” His dark eyes were shot through with electricity as he pulled her toward him. “I’m not letting go of you now.”

City dwellers are people who won’t sit still. Every year they move faster and find new activities to absorb their manic energy. They parade and they cheer, they showboat and they observe, they play elaborate games of hide-and-go-seek as though the concrete canyons were some kind of buzzed-up jungle gym and, as long as they keep playing, none of them will ever grow old. Any newcomer to the great metropolis might find it strange that the first showing of a motion picture is also an excuse for a rabble of newspaper photographers to push and shove against a velvet rope, calling out names often printed in columns or referred to reverentially on the radio. But the proud owners of those names had dressed in such finery that it was perfectly obvious they expected more from their evening than to sit in the darkness watching themselves projected onscreen.