Wicked City (31 page)

“I'm afraid Voorhis wouldn't approve if I gave you anything else,” he said, signaling a waiter. “Though I commend you for your ingenuity.”

I thought of telling him that it had all been Lily's idea, but it couldn't hurt for the mayor to think me worldly.

He took my empty glass and replaced it with the pink punch that everyone in the room was struggling not to regard with overmuch distaste. “Fascinating party,” I said. “I caught Mrs. Brandon on her way out. Will she be back?”

Mayor Walker waved a manicured hand. “I can't imagine what would keep her away,” he said.

Given what I had overheard of their conversation, I felt offended on her behalf, but didn't say so. We each had our own battles to fight.

“Quite a lot of aldermen here,” I said, looking around with a small smile. “Why, isn't that Fred Moore? I thought the Harlem aldermen were against you last week.”

The mayor gave a friendly nod to the negro council member, who had noted our attention.

“Politics, my dear, is all in the negotiation.”

“You mean bribery and corruption.” I winced internally as soon as the words left my mouth. I certainly
had
drunk that too quickly.

He laughed—a short, hard bark. A few people glanced over, including Lily and Amir. I ignored them. “Try running the largest city in the world, Miss Hollis, and see how far that purity takes you. If you must know, Mr. Moore of the nineteenth district will be getting funds in the next budgetary meeting earmarked for new school texts, which the Harlem schools sorely need. I managed to convey to him that increased revenue from Faust taxation could go a long way to improving the lives of his
human
constituents. You'd be surprised at how well the truth works sometimes.”

I took a long drink, hoping to tame my blush. “Then it's not such a tragedy that my … contact couldn't locate the original supplier for you. It would seem you have other persuasions at your disposal.”

“It would seem,” the mayor said, with a calculating expression I could not hope to decipher, but made me shudder regardless. He raised his glass. “To other persuasions,” he said.

I felt as though the surreptitious stares of the people around us would burn me alive. I had no other choice but to smile grimly and return the toast.

“Ah, there's Miss Harding and Mrs. Brandon's princely acquaintance!” he exclaimed, as though noticing them for the first time. “You and the prince are acquainted, if I'm not mistaken?” He ambled over, much to the delight of Lily. Amir was pleasant as ever, though I wondered if I detected a hint of discomfort.

“Mind if I quote you for the paper, Mayor?” Lily said, with reassuring directness.

“Not at all, Miss Harding,” he said. “But perhaps you could give me just a few minutes? I had wanted to show our young prince here an item of interest.”

Amir's eyes locked with mine in a flash of worry that I hoped only I had seen. Then he took one of my red gloved hands and raised it to his lips.

“You look enchanting this evening, Miss Hollis,” he said. I pulled my hand away and made a show of finding a place to put my half-empty glass. My hands shook too badly to hold it. Why did he still have the power to charm me when I
knew
the rot beneath the surface? To Amir, humans and vampires weren't individuals worthy of consideration and care; we were playthings, fascinating walking automatons that he could manipulate to his will. His recklessness was the reason we were all here in the first place, no matter what Elspeth said.

But why had the mayor invited him here? Did he suspect Amir of being a djinni—
the
djinni who had originally supplied Faust to the bootleggers?

I tilted my head toward Walker. “An item of interest?” I said.

“Why, yes,” he said. “A historical object an adventurous friend of mine brought back from Syria. I believe you hail from the area, Prince?”

“The general vicinity,” Amir said. “But I'm afraid I'm no expert on antiquities.”

Lily sighed and put her pen back inside her jeweled handbag. “Mind if I see it too?”

Jimmy Walker looked among us with a bland smile. “I wouldn't dream of spoiling your fun. Perhaps we could step into the hallway? My friend tells me the object is valuable and I wouldn't want to make a spectacle.”

My suspicions were ratcheting up by the second, but I would rather spontaneously combust than stay behind. This dinner was the mayor's major opportunity to woo supporters to his cause before the vote Monday afternoon. For all his reputation as a man-about-town, I very much doubted he would spend time chatting with Amir if he didn't think it would serve some political end.

Lily gave me a look of
what is he up to?
as we stepped into the porters' hallway behind the food tables. I shrugged and shook my head. Amir, for his part, chatted amiably with the mayor about his antiquarian friend, never giving the slightest hint that he was anything more than what he said: a well-cultured Arab prince, recently relocated to New York.

The mayor made sure we were alone and then reached into his inside suit pocket. “It's a tiny little thing,” he said. “My friend is quite the scholar, but he claims the old Arabic script is beyond him.”

Amir nodded as the mayor removed a tiny scroll from a gold-inlaid case. “So you were hoping I might be able to decipher it? I have some familiarity with the old texts. I'll do what I can.”

Everyone leaned in until our heads nearly touched. The scroll looked like what Mayor Walker had claimed: a tiny piece of antiquity, written and illustrated in ornate calligraphy. Somehow I had ended up beside Amir, his ear grazing the top of my forehead. I longed to catch his eye and see if he understood what sort of trap this might be, but there was no way to do so discreetly. Whatever the mayor's plans, we had no choice but to see it through.

“Well,” the mayor said. “You can read it?”

He had backed away, regarding Amir with a half-smile and eyes wide with anticipation. I didn't understand why. Amir seemed exactly as he had been. But as I looked at him, my vision started to go light and hazy. The image of him and Lily wavered and then split in two. A sharp pain, like a hammer blow, went through my skull. I held back a moan. Could that blow to my head still be affecting me?

Amir didn't look up, but I felt his hand rest, steady, on my back. The pain receded a little.

“It's quite simple,” Amir said, his words clipped. “It says: I am the djinni of the lands beyond the moon, and I will obey the wishes of whosoever compels me to read these words.”

I felt another, fainter, pain ricochet through my skull. My vision failed entirely. Amir's lips were the last thing I saw before the world faded to white. I wondered if I had died, though I could still hear voices, distant and distorted.

“Zephyr, are you all right?” It was Lily, her hand on my elbow, giving me a quizzing look. I turned my head with effort—the pain had gone, leaving a giddy exhaustion in its wake.

“I'm not sure that gin was the best idea,” I said to her.

“And what a strange artifact,” Lily said to the mayor. “Are ancient texts in the habit of discussing genies?”

Amir replaced the scroll in its surely priceless case. He did not even look at me. “It's not entirely uncommon,” he said. “There have been legends for millennia about how to bind the djinn to humans. It seems your adventurous friend has happened upon a fairly common trick in past centuries. Disguising the trap in a gilded apple, as it were. I can't imagine many of the djinn have ever fallen for it, but it's certainly a curiosity.”

Amir's smile held only quizzical friendliness as he handed the scroll back to the mayor. Jimmy Walker was far too good a politician to let his disappointment show, but I saw his moment of surprise and hesitation before he took the case and replaced it in his coat pocket.

It had been a trap
, I thought. And somehow, Amir and I had escaped.

“Miss Hollis,” Amir said, ignoring the mayor entirely. “Would you allow me to procure you another drink? And you, Miss Harding?”

The mayor blinked and then shrugged. “So much for divergences. I must get back—I'm sure the papers will print that I missed the necessary votes for the bill because I was too busy carousing in back hallways at my own supporters' dinner!”

“Those quotes, Mayor?” Lily asked, retrieving her notebook. He gestured for her to follow him and they walked back into the banquet hall.

Which left Amir and I alone in the porters' hallway.

“What was that?” I whispered.

He shook his head, though I don't know who he thought would be listening. “Will champagne do?” he asked.

“No one will believe it's punch.”

He clenched his jaw, revealing, for less than a second, a deep, roiling fury. “If you think I give a shit what those ignorant humans believe, you don't know me at all.”

And I did know him. Perhaps I wished I didn't, but I could no more remove my awareness of him than I could my own skin. He had known what the mayor planned; he had held on to me so I wouldn't fall.

“Champagne will do,” I said.

*   *   *

Archibald Madison arrived dramatically, just as we were sitting to dinner, with Judith Brandon scurrying in his wake like a seagull after a ship. I admit I gasped a little when I saw his towering figure stride directly to Jimmy Walker and shake his hand.

“I'm glad you could make it, Archie,” Jimmy Walker said mildly, and gave a respectful nod to a breathless Mrs. Brandon. “Why don't you sit beside me?”

This displaced Mr. Miller, the Manhattan borough president, but given that he'd been firmly in the mayor's camp from the beginning, he was more than happy to give his pride of place for the prospect of securing this final coup. Though I despised the dirty politics that governed this city, I couldn't help but feel fascinated by the jockeying and gamesmanship on display at this most political of social events. I could easily see how some people got so seduced by the game, they entirely forgot the purpose for which they played.

Lily and I had been seated at the far right end of the table, with the other journalists and third-tier guests. She was talking excitedly about the quotes she'd gotten from the mayor and Al Smith about the Faustian menace. She'd tried to talk to Sachem Voorhis, but even her vivacious smile couldn't induce him to give an interview. I was still a little shaky from the incident in the hallway, and merely nodded at appropriate intervals while Lily chattered on. In her own way, she could be quite restful.

I expected speeches, but Jimmy Walker seemed perfectly inclined to talk with his neighbors and let the rest of us eat in peace. Lily induced the bribable waiter to bring me a plate of cucumber sandwiches in lieu of the beef bourguignon. Amir and I glanced at each other from time to time, though he was seated clear on the other side of the table with most of the aldermen and Tammany officials. Seeing him here had been bad enough—especially after I had declared my intention to never see him again just this morning. But after the incident in the hallway, my emotions had revealed themselves as intractable and conflicting. With each look, I remembered his hand on my back. Regarding my dessert, I furiously recalled the lies he had told my mother so she would lobby on his behalf. He was my Janus, possessing a beautiful face and an ugly one, and I never knew which side was real.

I was taking a listless bite of strawberry parfait when Bill Oliver, three seats away, put down his napkin and leaned forward over the table.

“Miss Hollis?” he said. I looked over in surprise. “Would you mind if I asked you a question?”

“On the record?” I asked.

Lily smiled like she wanted to kill him. “Now, Bill—”

“You can't stop her from talking, Lily,” he said. “And yes, for the paper, if you wouldn't mind.”

Lily gave me an entreating look, but it felt churlish of me to refuse to speak to another reporter at what was, after all, a press event. “What would you like to know?”

“I'm rather wondering,” he drawled, lifting the pen that had heretofore lain idle by his dessert plate, “if your presence here tonight means you've changed your tune about Faust. I'd be much obliged to know why—I recall the sensation of Miss Harding's story this past January. I believe you were involved in taking down the gangster who originated it.”

A discreet cascade of pens had been readied while Bill Oliver asked his question. Lily, seeing the tide turned against her, sighed and picked up her own notebook.

“Well, Zephyr?” she said.

Panic welled in me, though of course I should have anticipated this question. I could hardly tell them the real reason for my recent contact with the mayor. And I owed too much to Elspeth to publicly reveal my ambivalence about Faust prohibition.

“I don't,” I said, “I'm not—no, I mean to say, I'm most emphatically not in the mayor's camp on the issue of Faust. I'm here tonight at—because of my general interest in the issue given, as you say, my past involvement.”

A younger reporter to Bill Oliver's left leaned forward. “Well, honey,” he said, “in that case, how'd you snag an invitation?”

I looked to Lily, but she was clearly reveling in schadenfreude, and would be no help. “I don't know,” I said. “You'll have to ask the mayor.”

This elicited some good-natured laughter and scribbling. I hoped I wouldn't sound too absurd in the morning dailies. Thankfully, I was spared the rigors of further questioning by the chime of Mayor Walker's spoon against a glass.

“Ladies, gentlemen, I'd like to thank all of you for coming out tonight. It's been a terrific showing in support of an issue which, as you all know, has come to mean quite a bit to me and what I hope to leave as my legacy to the city of New York. This has been a tough fight, but tonight I want to tell you, as my friends, closest supporters—and best adversaries—” he gave a friendly nod to the press, though I imagined this category included Archibald Madison foremost, “that I firmly believe we have the votes to fully license and tax the vampire liquor known as Faust.”