Lair of Dreams
“Yeah. I’m familiar.”
“Uncle Will’s name was all over the papers! And you were working at the museum. How easy would it be to connect the two?” Evie explained. “Face it, Sam—you were taken for a ride. I’m sorry if you don’t want to admit it. The con man got conned.”
A worm of doubt twisted in Sam’s gut. He hadn’t taken that into account.
“Sam,” Evie said gently, “have you ever considered that maybe that postcard isn’t from your mother?”
“That’s her writing on the postcard. I know it, Evie. I will find her. I swear I will.”
The waiter delivered Sam’s Reuben and Evie’s Waldorf salad. From the corner of her eye, Evie could see people watching them, gossiping from behind their menus. At the famous round table, Dorothy Parker sat drinking martinis with Robert Benchley and George S. Kaufman, but no one was paying them any mind. Evie and Sam commanded the Algonquin’s full attention. Sam was oblivious. He was much more interested in his sandwich, which he was practically inhaling.
“Don’t choke. I need you alive. For a while at least,” Evie said. “So if I were to help you with Project Buffalo, what would you want me to do?”
“Read whatever I dig up. See if you can get a lead on anything.”
“Object reading.” Evie sighed. “Going two nights a week on the radio is already taxing me. I’d have to be careful. What’s condition number two?”
“You host the museum’s Diviners exhibit party at the end of the month.”
“Oh, Saaaam,” Evie whined. She dropped her head on the table with an Isadora Duncan–worthy sense of drama. “No. I am not helping Will. Why, it’s campaigning for the enemy! I hate that museum, and I hate Will, too.”
“You’re not helping Will. You’re helping me. If the museum goes under, I’m out on the street. By the way, we’re being watched.” Sam flicked his eyes in the direction of a table full of gawking flappers whispering excitedly to one another.
Evie raised an eyebrow. “No kidding. I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck, you know.”
“We should give them a little something for their trouble.”
“Such as?” Evie said, wary.
Sam leaned forward and took both of Evie’s hands in his. He stared into her eyes as if she were the only woman in the world. Like a traitor, Evie’s stomach gave a slight hiccup.
“Help me with Project Buffalo and the Diviners exhibit. And I promise I’ll sell this romance so hard Valentino couldn’t’ve done better.”
From the corner of her eye, Evie could see that more people were taking notice of them. The room buzzed with an energy that made her feel as if she, herself, ran on electric current. She liked that feeling. She liked it very much. Reading a few trinkets and hosting a party—even one for the museum—in exchange for being front-page news and New York City’s biggest radio star seemed fair enough.
“You’ve got yourself a deal, Sam, with one last condition,” Evie said.
“I won’t take up golf or folk dancing.”
Evie narrowed her eyes. “A time limit. Four weeks of the swooniest, swellest romance New York City has ever seen. And then, kaput. Over and out. Off the air.”
“Golly, when you say it like that, it sounds as if our love’s not real, Lamb Chop.”
“There will be a tragic parting. Our love will have burned too brightly to live on.” Evie put a hand to her forehead like a doomed opera heroine, then let it flutter into a parting wave. “Toot, Toot, Tootsie! Good-bye.”
“Four weeks, huh?” Sam asked, cocking his head.
“Four weeks.”
Sam stole a glance at the flappers watching them. They were cute, and probably one of them might jump to date him. So why was he entering into a devil’s bargain with Evie? Why did the prospect of a fake romance with her give him the same thrill as thievery?
“Done,” Sam said. He stared up at her with big peepers and a lupine grin. “We’ll have to make the chumps believe it. Moonlight strolls. Staring into each other’s eyes. Sharing the same straw in our egg cream. Dreadful pet names.”
“Not Lamb Chop,” Evie protested. “That’s hideous.”
“You got it, Pork Chop.”
“I will murder you in your sleep.”
Sam grinned. “Does that mean you’re sleeping beside me?”
“Not on your life, Lloyd.” Evie smirked. “The act’s only good when the cameras are flashing.”