The Double Vice: The 1st Hidden Gotham Novel by Chris Holcombe (free ebook reader txt) 📕

closet. The pipes groaning with every toilet flush. Voices rising and falling in pitch during vocal warm-up and diction exercises. “One hen, two ducks, three squawking geese . . . four limerick oysters, five corpulent porpoises . . .”

“Oh, to hell with it,” Dash grumbled, getting up from the bed and dressing.

Joe, who was seated in the wooden chair by the window, smoking, said, “I don’t know why ya think ya can sleep when they open a show. They’ll be like this all week until the reviews come out.”

“Why can’t we live somewhere sane so a man can get some rest?”

Joe flicked his emeralds at Dash. “What’s gotten into ya, lassie?”

Dash shook his head. “Nothing. Just a case of the grumps.”

In the end, he didn’t mention Fife to Joe or Finn. There wasn’t much to tell anyway—at least, not yet. Besides, he had to focus on his next task: convincing El’s friend to take him to meet Harlem’s Baroness of Business.

At half-past midnight and dressed in his finest tuxedo, Dash walked up to the entrance of the Oyster House. The giant doorman, Horace, grinned when he saw him. “Good evening, Mr. Parker. Three nights in one week.”

“Hello, Horace. Have I missed El?”

“No, you didn’t,” said the woman herself, as she moved through the entrance towards Horace and Dash. “I got one hour before my next set. Hurry up before Les sees you. He’s likely to kill you on sight.”

Horace gave Dash a worried look, but Dash just smiled. “Don’t worry, Horace, I’ll get back into his good graces.”

While Dash reassured Horace he kept his secret about Karl and Leslie’s telephone, El went to the street and tried to hail a cab.

Horace cleared his throat. “That’s nice and all, Mr. Parker, I do appreciate that. Now I heard where you’re going tonight. To see someone who will introduce you to Miss Zora Mae?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Horace looked around to see if anyone was eavesdropping. No one in the line seemed to be paying attention. A purple and white cab pulled to the curb in front of El. He lowered his voice even more.

“I overheard something I think you should know.”

“What is it?”

El whistled to Dash through her teeth, causing him to jump. “Don’t just stand there. Someone will steal our hack.”

“Mr. Parker,” Horace pleaded.

“C’mon, downtowner, let’s go!”

Dash smiled at the big man. “I’ll be back, I promise.”

Dash followed El into the cab. When the door closed, she gave an address on 140th Street. The driver, recognizing El from her publicity posters, said none of his friends was going to believe this and what an honor it was to drive her this evening. Then he pressed on the gas and they surged forward.

She looked over at Dash. “You cause any trouble since last night?”

“Only threatened Walter with exposing the truth about his father to the Committee of Fourteen.”

El looked at him warily. “Which is what?”

“He was a female impersonator with a penchant for army soldiers in the underground cabarets of Berlin.”

El smacked his shoulder. “What is wrong with you, downtowner? You have a death wish? You must. Going after a bluenose and the Baroness. Shit. We should swing by the undertaker and pick out your headstone while we’re at it.”

“Don’t worry, El. I just let Walter know we’re not going to be some easy mark for his schemes.”

El took a deep breath. “Well. You better not try that with the Baroness.” She paused. “Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this. Maybe you shouldn’t meet her.”

“Come on, El. We’ve come this far.”

“Don’t mean we have to take it further.”

Dash held up a hand. “I solemnly swear not to purposefully antagonize the Baroness.”

El looked at Dash for almost two blocks before relenting. “Let’s see what Flo has to say. You ready to work your magic?”

Dash gestured to his tuxedo. “Who could say no to such a finely wrapped package as this?”

Flo Russell crossed her arms over her bony chest and said, “Absolutely not.”

El replied, “Flo! Don’t be salty.”

“I’ll be plenty salty if I want to.” She pointed her finger at Dash. “I’m not helping him get himself nixed. Or me, for that matter.”

They were all standing in Flo’s one-room apartment on 140th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. Two large windowpanes were open, the copper-colored curtains fluttering in the whispering breeze. Two wooden chairs perched by the sill, where Dash and El sat to blow their cigarette smoke into the night air, the scent still present, tarry and sweet. Flo, who didn’t smoke, stood on the gold and black rug which laid between the chairs and the bed.

El said, “You’re not going to get nixed.”

“Says the woman who won’t be in the Baroness’s line of sight.”

“You won’t be the star. It’ll be him.”

“But I will be the fool who introduced them!”

“Once he starts beating his gums, she’s not going to care one bit about you.”

Watching the two of them argue was almost like watching a married couple. Here was El, tall, big, imposing in a man’s suit. And there was Flo, short, thin, fiery in a red sequined stage dress. The cut was designed to expose as much as decency would allow. The cleverly draped fabric showed off her muscular legs and calves as well as her arms and shoulders.

Flo kept shaking her head, her bobbed black hair gently bouncing from side to side. “No, no. Just ’cause you got a soft spot for this downtowner don’t mean I have to risk my life.”

“Flo, I swear to God—”

“Ladies.”

Both turned to look at Dash.

“I understand the position I’ve put you in,” he said.

Flo muttered, “The hell you do.”

“I am in a desperate situation. I need to give this Walter Müller something.”

“It sure as hell can’t be her. Otherwise, we’re all dead.”

“If she’s as dangerous as you said, then she may very well have killed Karl.”

“Uh huh. And what happens when you tell his brother that?” Flo asked. “Will he go on a rampage, enacting revenge on her like he did with your face? See, that’s