Diva (2 page)

But this crowd was different.

Jerome glanced out the night-darkened windows of the club again and saw that some of the people were holding up signs:

RACE MIXING IS COMMUNISM!
GO BACK TO HARLEM WHERE YOU BELONG!
CHAISE IS FULL OF NEGRO LOVERS!

And those were the nice ones.

Jerome glanced at his band. “Looks like a different sort of audience tonight, fellas.”

The men’s eyes flicked to the windows and back. No one said a word. Arnie, the young bassist, crossed himself.

Little Joe waddled into the lounge from his office, looking natty in a custom-made black suit and matching bowler. He walked up to the windows and stood for a minute without moving.

“Boss?” Jerome called. “When you want to start letting the birds in?”

Little Joe turned and pulled off his bowler. He combed his fingers through the few gray hairs on his head. “Jerome, you’re a gifted musician—we both know that. And I don’t care about the color of your skin. Talent is talent. But this …” He looked back out at the protesters. “It’s not something my club can handle right now.”

“What about the show?” Jerome asked.

“Ain’t gonna be one. Not with that mob out there. We’d have a riot.”

Jerome clenched his fists. Couldn’t Little Joe see that stopping the band’s performance was exactly what those monsters wanted? But then he glanced at his band. They were all breathing deep sighs of relief, and Arnie wiped sweat off his brow. The boy was barely old enough to shave. “I understand,” Jerome said with a curt nod.

“C’mon, I’ll sneak you out the back. I’ll take you one at a time—that crowd’s bound to notice if you all leave at once.”

Little Joe led Jerome into the backstage area, which was strewn with wooden chairs, half-empty bottles of hooch, and overflowing ashtrays. “I’ll wait while you get out of that straitjacket.” In the band’s dressing room, Jerome changed out of his smart white suit and back into his tattered trousers and short-sleeved button-down. His suit looked forlorn where
it hung on the rack in the corner. He’d have to come back and get it later.

At the stage door the manager counted a few bills from a fat roll. “Something for your trouble, kid.”

A year ago Jerome wouldn’t have accepted it. He hadn’t even played! But money had been scarce since Gloria got locked up six weeks before. Thanks to Puccini De Luca’s arrest and Carlito Macharelli’s death, Gloria and Jerome had never gotten their promised payment for performing at the Opera House.

And now this. Jerome didn’t know how he was going to make the rent at his roach-infested boardinghouse.

So Jerome thanked Little Joe and crammed the bills into his pocket. Then he slipped out the back door and into the night.

The stage door led to a deserted side street. Jerome pulled his hat down and turned left in the direction of the subway a few blocks away. He’d nearly reached the corner of the street when he noticed the man.

The man was leaning against a car far too expensive to be parked anywhere in this neighborhood. He was dressed immaculately in a tan suit and blue silk tie, his graying russet hair shining in the light from the streetlamp. Jerome had only met the man once, but he’d have recognized him anywhere.

Lowell Carmody. Gloria’s father.

Jerome crossed the street and walked up to the fat black car. “Mr. Carmody, what are you doing here?”

“Came to see your big show.”

Jerome gestured down the street. “You’re welcome to join my eager fans.”

“I’m a lot more welcome than you.” Gloria’s father squinted. “Looks like a few have figured out what happened to their favorite piano player.”

Startled, Jerome turned and looked. The street was dark, and he didn’t see anyone. Then, before he realized what was happening, Lowell Carmody had opened the back door of the car and shoved Jerome inside.

Jerome brought his hands up too late to stop his shoulder from hitting the car’s plush floor mat. Gloria’s dad picked him up by the feet and heaved him the rest of the way, then got in behind him and slammed the door. “Drive!” he barked out.

The chauffeur shifted the car smoothly into gear and took off with alarming speed.

Jerome climbed up from the floor and settled back on the leather upholstery. He found himself sitting across from a steely-eyed goon whose muscles strained beneath his black suit jacket. Lowell Carmody slid onto the seat beside Jerome. He fished a handkerchief from his jacket pocket, mopped at his face, folded the handkerchief, and put it away.

“I don’t mean any disrespect,
sir
,” Jerome said, “but what in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Mr. Carmody said nothing, just turned and stared out the tinted window.

With a resigned sigh, Jerome joined him in watching the
world pass by. Minutes passed, then more minutes, and soon Jerome realized they were no longer in Manhattan. Instead of sleek skyscrapers, they were surrounded by sprawling, flat warehouses and rusty cranes and rigs. In the distance Jerome could see a skyline that was a sad imitation of what they’d left behind on the other side of the Hudson River. A clock hovered over one of the many factories, next to a billboard painted to look like an enormous tube of toothpaste,
COLGATE
emblazoned across it in big white letters.

For so many musicians, playing in Manhattan was a dream—the hopping clubs, the twinkling lights. It was easy to forget that a smog-belching nightmare like New Jersey was so close by.

Mr. Carmody finally turned to Jerome. “I’m tempted to just push you out of the car and have Elroy here shoot you.”

Jerome swallowed hard.

“But I don’t have to do that,” Mr. Carmody went on with a self-satisfied smile. “I’ve got the law on my side. I’ve had Gloria declared my ward, since she is clearly incapable of making her own decisions.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” They veered away from the main highway and their surroundings became increasingly rural, with rows of corn and dilapidated barns on either side of the road.

“It means I control her life and her world. And you are no longer a part of it.” Lowell Carmody’s smile had turned sinister. “If you come near Gloria and I hear of it, I will have you
arrested. I’ll have the cops throw you into a cell where no one will ever find you. Or I’ll have you killed.”

Jerome looked desperately out the window, but the only signs of life he could see were a few matted, feral-looking barn cats slinking through the night.

Mr. Carmody exhaled and glanced at Jerome with a smug twinkle in his eye. “That bigoted mob back there? That was
my
doing. I’m the one who leaked where you were playing to the Klan, and I’ll do it again, and again. Pretty soon there won’t be a club in Manhattan that will risk hiring you.”

The car turned onto a barren stretch of road with nothing but dirt and dying grass on either side. “So from this day forward, you will have nothing to do with Gloria—or New York City—for the rest of your life. Or else I will make sure there’s no life for you to have. Understand me?”

Jerome opened his mouth to respond—how could Gloria’s father be so cruel?—but Mr. Carmody waved him into silence. “I’m serious.” With a nod, he signaled the scowling thug sitting across from them. The goon seized Jerome’s arm with a hand like a steel cuff.

“I can’t say it was nice to see you, Jerome Johnson. Elroy?”

The thug threw the car door wide open, banging it against the chassis so that it swung violently to and fro on its hinges. Jerome could hear the gravel crunching under the car’s tires and the wind roaring by. “This is where you’ll be leaving us,” Mr. Carmody said.

Jerome thrashed as hard as he could against Elroy’s grip
and managed to connect one of his feet with Mr. Carmody’s face. But then both men grabbed him and heaved, and then Jerome was airborne.

He was aware of the door slamming behind him, aware of tires squealing and of the bright full moon above him, bathing the grubby marshland alongside the road like a spotlight … and then he hit the ground. Hard.

He didn’t even have time to summon one last memory of Gloria before darkness engulfed him like a black velvet curtain rushing across a stage.

GLORIA

Cushy leather chairs didn’t belong in federal prison. But then, neither did Gloria.

Surprisingly, her cell was a lot better than where she’d been living in Harlem. Her new desk was made of varnished wood rather than steel, she actually had a mattress with springs, and the three meals they brought her each day weren’t half bad. Before her mother went home to Chicago, Beatrice managed to use her connections to have Gloria moved from the county jail to a holding cell in the FBI headquarters. Thanks to her, being incarcerated was a lot less miserable than it might have been.

Now Gloria sat at a long cherrywood table in an empty bureau conference room. The smell of burnt coffee hung in the air. She wasn’t sure why Hank had called this meeting.

Special Agent in Charge Hank Phillips walked through the door carrying his briefcase and a cardboard box. He wore his usual crisp black suit, white collared shirt, thin black tie, and smart pair of oxfords. His dark hair, light brown eyes, tanned skin, and muscled build made it easy to understand how her ex–best friend, Lorraine, had fallen for him.

Of course, Lorraine had thought Hank was a bartender—not an undercover FBI agent. That’s how stupid Lorraine was. She’d probably thought Hank stayed in such fantastic shape by bench-pressing bottles of hooch instead of barbells.

Without even a hello, Hank set the box down and then laid its contents out on the table. There was a black garment bag and a velvet jewelry box. A pair of long white gloves and a pair of silver T-bar heels. When Hank pulled out a beaded lime-green clutch, Gloria finally spoke up. “That would really bring out the green in your eyes, Hanky.”

“My eyes are brown!” Hank glared. “If you call me that again, I may just have to bring one of the other jailbirds to this party.”

“There are parties in jail? I wish I’d known. I would’ve worn my best dress. You know—the one with only three holes in it.”

He snapped open the clutch to reveal something a much more interesting shade of green: a wad of cash, more twenty-dollar bills than Gloria could count. “Now, is the comedy act over? ”

Gloria gave a silent nod, her eyes wide. Hank opened the
garment bag as well. Gloria could see a sparkling bodice that matched the clutch perfectly. After a month and a half of wearing gray prison rags, the bright dress almost hurt her eyes.

“You’re going to the Hamptons to help us figure out the story on a business mogul called Forrest Hamilton,” Hank said.

He opened his briefcase and handed Gloria a photograph. It was a candid photo taken at a party. A man puffed on a cigar while watching an exquisitely beautiful blonde spread her hands, probably in the midst of telling some wild story. His suit was classy in the way only simple but extremely expensive material could be. The man was very handsome, with dark hair slicked away from his face and even darker glittering eyes. He had a sharp, straight nose and a square jaw and could easily have been in motion pictures if he wanted to.

“Business mogul?” Gloria said doubtfully. “He looks awfully young.”

Hank nodded. “He’s a Broadway producer, and he can’t be older than twenty-five. The guy just turned up one day, saying he’s from the Midwest, and went from penniless nobody to moneybags somebody in three shakes of a lamb’s tail. He’s got a servant who looks like he hurts people for fun, and a big swanky house he’s renting. We don’t know his game—he’s produced nothing but flops and yet he keeps raking in the dough. Until we find out where that cash is coming from, he’s just a person of interest.”

“But what does any of that have to do with me?”

“Our boy Forrest loves singers and celebrities, and these days”—Hank slapped down a copy of the
Manhattanite
, the glossy tabloid her cousin, Clara, had used to make Gloria an icon of flapperdom—“you’re both. He’ll be drawn to you like a fly to honey. And you’ll figure out what his secret is.”

Gloria glanced again at the photograph in her hands. This boy certainly didn’t
look
like a criminal. He actually reminded her a little of her best friend, Marcus—she’d be willing to bet that, like Marcus, Forrest would have dimples when he gave a real smile.

But thinking of Marcus led her to thinking about a far handsomer, darker-skinned man: Jerome.

It had been an agonizing month and a half apart, but one day soon she hoped to hold him, kiss him, and stare into those deep-brown eyes of his that said he knew her better than anyone she’d ever met. She still sang as much as she could—jail cells actually had pretty swell acoustics—but she desperately missed Jerome playing piano beside her. If she had to dig up the dirt on one wealthy, handsome young fool to free herself and get back into Jerome’s arms, well …

“If I do this, and I get you what you’re looking for, can I go free?”

Hank nodded. “We’ll cut you a deal, I promise. But let me be clear: If you fail to turn up dirt on Forrest, you’re going back into the big house. And not these cushy FBI digs.
Nothing your parents do or say will help you then. You’ll have to serve
real
time.”