The Diviners

“Huh?”

Evie raised an eyebrow at Sam. “Why, Sam, she’s charming.” Evie turned back to the blonde, leaned in close and whispered, “You see that fella with the mustache over there?” Evie pointed to the walrus man. “He’s so rich he could buy Wool and Worth’s and still have enough left over for a steak dinner. Why don’t you go get him to buy you a drink?”

“You on the level?”

“And how. He’s a real Big Cheese. Trust me.”

The girl smiled. “Say, thanks for the tip, honey.”

“We Janes have to stick together.”

The girl looked worried. “You gonna be okay with his… typhoid?”

“It’s okay,” Evie said, glaring at Sam. “I’m immune to what he’s got.”

Sam watched the alluring blond wiggle her way toward the walrus man and shook his head. “Anybody ever tell you your timing is lousy, sister?”

“Where did you get that dinner jacket? It looks expensive.”

Sam grinned. “Back of a chair.”

“You stole it?”

“Let’s just say I borrowed it for the duration of my stay.”

“I oughta tell Uncle Will.”

“Be my guest. Of course, then you’ve gotta explain what you were doing here at a speakeasy in Harlem at eleven thirty in the PM.”

Evie opened her mouth to give Sam an earful just as the tuxedo-clad emcee stepped to the microphone. His white shirt was so stiff it looked bulletproof. “And now the Hotsy Totsy presents the Famous Hotsy Totsy Girls dancing that forbidden dance, the Black Bottom!”

The orchestra launched into the jazzy, uptempo dance tune. With a loud whoop, the young and beautiful chorines strutted their way across the stage. They swayed their hips and stamped out a hard, quick rhythm with their silver shoes. With each shimmy, the bugle beads on their scandalously revealing costumes swung and shook. It was the sort of display Evie knew her mother would have found appalling—an example of the moral decay of the young generation. It was sexual and dangerous and thrilling, and Evie wanted more of it.

The piano player called out to the girls, and they shuffled forward, hips first. They crooked their fingers and everyone raced onto the dance floor below the stage, caught up in the dance and the night.

Theta sat at the table, alone, behind an inscrutable cloud of cigarette smoke, watching. Henry had started up a conversation with a handsome waiter named Billy, and she wondered if he’d be coming home tonight. She watched the spoiled debutantes getting their kicks by coming uptown to hear jazz in forbidden clubs, just to make their mothers fret. She watched the bartenders filling glasses but keeping their eyes on the doors. She watched the lonely hearts mooning over the fellas who, oblivious, mooned over other dolls. She watched a fight break out between a couple who were now sitting in miserable silence. She watched the cigarette girls smiling at each table, extolling the health benefits of Lucky Strikes or Chesterfields, whichever company paid them a little more. She watched the girls dance onstage and wondered how old they’d been when they started. Had they been dragged from town to town on the circuit from the age of four? Had they lain awake on fleabag motel floors, then made the rounds of booking agents the next morning, half-dead from exhaustion? Had any of them made a daring escape from a small town in the middle of the night? Had they changed their names and their looks, becoming someone completely new, someone who couldn’t be found? Did any of them have a power so frightening it had to be kept locked down tight?

A good-looking fella with a fraternity pin on his lapel stepped in front of Theta’s table, blocking her view. “Mind if I join you?”

Theta stubbed out her cigarette. “Sorry, pal. I was just leaving.” She grabbed her wrap and Evie’s purse and went in search of the ladies’ lounge.

Memphis had finished his rounds for the night. On his way through the Hotsy Totsy’s kitchen, he pocketed a few cookies for Isaiah, then set off to check out the action in the club. A drunk girl whose curls drooped from dancing called to him as he passed: “Oh, boy—get my coat, will ya?” She dropped a quarter in his hand.

“Do I look like I work for you? Get your own damn coat.” Memphis tossed the quarter back, and it fell at her feet.

“Well, I never…”

“And you never will,” Memphis grumbled. Off the hallway was a sitting room with club chairs and Persian rugs where couples went to neck or smoke. Memphis walked past a petting couple and settled into his favorite chair to read.

“Do you mind?” the man called.