“That sounds right.”

“‘She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.’”

He shrugged.

“She had a date the night she disappeared. That’s not up for dispute. You told the police that she had a date. You described him, described her, in great detail. But there was another man, right? A man you saw more often, just not that night?”

“Look, you’ve got it all wrong.”

“I wish you’d tell me how.”

“You’re picking up rocks, but there’s nothing under them. The other man she was seeing—he didn’t have anything to do with this.”

“How can you be so sure?” She figured she had two or three more blocks before she had to confess she didn’t have a car. Maybe she could pretend ownership of one on the street, fumble for keys. “Look—when I was young, much younger, I had a secret. There was a man, a married man. He could have ruined my life. He almost did but I got lucky. If her married boyfriend’s not part of her story, then that’s that. But there is a boyfriend, isn’t there? And everyone seems terrified of people knowing that. Why?”

“Just leave her be. Please.”

“Tell me one thing that no one knows about her. Just one.”

He thought for a moment. “She wouldn’t want you to be making trouble for him. She cared about him.”

“Was she in love with him?”

“I said what I said. You think about words too much. They’re just—words.”

Maddie could have said she cared about Milton, still. It wasn’t the same as love. It was barely in the same universe.

“I feel like you know more than you’re telling me.”

“Everyone does.”

“You mean, everyone knows more than they say or everyone knows more than I do?”

“Both. You don’t have a car, do you?”

“Nope.” She felt giddy with deceit.

“I’ll hail you a cab and pay the fare if you promise never to come back.”

“I’m not going to make any promises.”

“Figures. I’ll pay the fare anyway.”

He found a cab quickly. When she was in the backseat, he leaned in and said: “You’re going to hurt people if you don’t stop this. Maybe even yourself.”

Madame Claire had said much the same thing. But Madame Claire, Maddie reminded herself, was full of shit.

The Bartender

The Bartender

I can spot trouble. You might say it’s what I do for a living, my real job, with the drink-mixing just something to keep my hands busy. I’m here to make sure that if trouble walks in, it walks right back out. Mr. Gordon doesn’t have the best rep, but he’s been good to me, and I do my best to be loyal to him.

But anyone could tell she was trouble. Even the dim bulb we have on table service figured it out. And Mr. Gordon, he doesn’t miss a trick. Anyone who tries to put one over on him is asking for trouble.

I used to work for a guy named Maguire, who did business at the port. Nice fencing operation, nothing too big, but he overreached, decided he wanted to have this retail operation as a legit way to move money. Borrowed to buy a big warehouse in Southwest, was going to sell architectural salvage, got in way over his head. Got to the point where even a bust-out couldn’t square what he owed. But Mr. Gordon is a businessman, his eye always on the almighty dollar. They had a sit-down, talked about what could be done, Mr. Gordon as nice as any bank manager although it was understood that the penalties would be considerably higher if payments were not to his satisfaction. He took the warehouse, everything in it, got the debt down to something Maguire had a shot of making good on. Over the course of the meeting, Mr. Gordon asked if Maguire would give me to him, sort of a marker, until he was paid up. I think it amused Mr. Gordon to buy a white man, in a sense. Or maybe he was trying to say he’d kill me if my boss didn’t make his payments.

My boss didn’t think twice, said, “Sure, you can have Tommy.” Mr. Gordon said, “Tommy’s a boy’s name, I’m going to call you Spike ’cause you look like a dog I once knew, a spaniel named Spike.” Again, I think it amused him, deciding to take me, rename me, compare me to a dog. We all pretended it was only temporary, but I knew that if I was good at my job, Mr. Gordon was going to want to keep me.

And if I wasn’t good—well, I didn’t want to find out what happened if I ever disappointed Mr. Gordon.

Back then Shell Gordon made most of his money on gambling and running whores, but, yeah, he’s moving into drugs. There’s just too much cash to be made to ignore it. Yet he loves the Flamingo, wants it to be a really classy joint. It’s like he’s at war with himself. He wants to be legit, but there’s too much money on the other side. And he needs the crooked money to be legit. Maybe in his head, he believes he’ll get out of the rackets one day, but it’s never going to happen. He has too many secrets. If you’re smart, you don’t talk about them, ever.

Behind the bar at the Flamingo, I keep the drinks going, but my principal job is to manage the girls, help them find that sweet spot between hosting and serving. It’s important to Mr. Gordon that the Flamingo be respectable. He has plenty of other places to run girls, and truth be told, that’s how a lot of Flamingo girls end up, but he won’t tolerate any of that stuff at the club itself. He knows people say it’s a poor imitation of the Phoenix, but then, at this point, almost everything on Pennsylvania Avenue is a poor imitation of what it used to be. The shops, the houses, even the people are droopier, dirtier. If the girls want to date the guests, that’s okay, but it has to be on their time, in their own clothes. We’re not running a whorehouse. It’s a respectable place that books the second-best acts available—the Phoenix gets the best, no reason to pretend otherwise—a place where gentlemen and ladies should feel at home.

Ezekiel “EZ” Taylor is Mr. Gordon’s favorite guest. He just loves that guy. A big man, shy, not much for talking. He comes for the music. Hardly ever drinks. Orders a port to keep others company, nurses it all evening, then picks up the tab. He’s polite that way. He always wants everyone around him to feel good, be comfortable. That’s what Mr. Gordon sees in him, his give-and-take with others. That and his mind for numbers, almost as good as Mr. Gordon’s.

I asked him the onct— What’s with the dry cleaners, Mr. Taylor? That doesn’t seem like a way to get rich.

He said, “Think about it, Spike. Who buys clothes that have to be dry cleaned?”

“Rich people,” I said. “But—” I was embarrassed to finish my thought.

He smiled. Again, that was his way. He wanted people to feel comfortable, always. “You were going to say, ‘Negroes don’t have money.’”

“I mean, some do. You do, obviously, Mr. Taylor. And Mr. Gordon.”

“Plenty more as well. More than you know and the number’s just going to keep going up, up, up. But the thing is, all you need is people who aspire. Say there’s a lady, she teaches school, saves up for a nice coat, a fur even. Where is she going to take it when it’s time to be cleaned and stored? You think she wants to drive out to a store way out north? No, she wants to take it to somewhere in her neighborhood. That’s why EZ Kleeners has—”

“‘Five convenient locations in the Baltimore metro area. EZ does it!’” It was one of those commercials that everyone in Baltimore knew, up there with “Mommy, call Hampden” or “More Parks sausages, Mom—pleeeeeeeze.” Ray Parks was Willie Adams’s ticket to respect; Shell Gordon thinks that EZ Taylor can be his.

“People like to keep their money in their neighborhood, when they can. And you know something else, Spike? Names are destiny. I was born Taylor. Taylor—tailor. Get it? I started at Hamburgers, in alterations. But the thing is, a man gets a suit altered only once. He has to get it cleaned over and over again. That’s all I had, one idea, but it was all I needed. Offer the thing that everybody needs, all the time. Opened the first EZ Kleeners six blocks from here right after the war. What’s your one idea, Spike? Maybe it’s in your name. Maybe you should be running a knife store or a security company.”

I smiled because Spike isn’t my name. I’m Thomas Ludlow and I can’t figure out what my destiny is. I see myself as a knight, looking for ladies to save, but my name suggests a person who can’t rise above his station. Ludlow? Laid low.