Lane dropped his head in Eddie’s lap for a moment. “I’ll be right there,” he shouted. He slowly rose to his feet. “I have to deal with this, but stay here. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Eddie realized Lane thought he’d do himself harm if left alone. But he wouldn’t; that was the whole point of coming to see Lane. “I’m not going to kill myself if you leave me alone for five minutes.”
It came out sounding harsher than Eddie intended, and Lane winced. “I guess I’m glad of that.” He leaned over and kissed Eddie’s forehead. “Well, stay put anyway. Humor me.” Then he left the office.
Eddie waited, strumming his fingers together. When it seemed clear Lane might be a while, Eddie looked at the desk. There wasn’t much to see there except for ledgers, one of which was open, and though Eddie was curious, looking at all those columns of numbers made his head spin. Under the ledgers was a copy of a newspaper flipped open to Walter Winchell’s column decrying the firing of Eddie Cotton from the Doozies. Eddie felt a warmth in his chest when he realized Lane had kept it.
The desk had three drawers. Eddie opened the first and found it was not that exciting: it contained a couple of dime novels—Lane had confessed a fondness for adventure stories one night—and what looked like half a sandwich wrapped up in paper. Eddie opened the second and was surprised by what he found there: a smattering of papers and newspaper clippings but more prominently: a gun.
That gave Eddie pause. He stared at it for a long time, but mostly what he saw was a stark reminder that this man he had fallen so hard for was still an employee of the Mob. He wondered if that gun had ever killed anybody.
The last drawer was locked.
Eddie decided to read one of the dime novels while he waited. The one he picked had a pretty lurid cover, with a swarthy-looking detective in a black coat looking shiftily at a woman in a red dress. He was a few pages into it when Lane came back.
“Sorry about that. I had a shipment come in,” said Lane, walking over to the desk. He took a look at what Eddie was reading and raised an eyebrow. “I can explain that.”
“This book is really terrible. Do you actually like these things?”
Lane snatched it out of Eddie’s hands and threw the book back in its drawer. “Thank you for going through my desk.”
Eddie looked up at Lane. “That gun. You ever actually use it?”
Lane sighed. “Yes.”
Eddie steeled himself for the next question. “You ever kill anybody?”
Lane raised his eyebrows. “Do you really want me to answer that?”
Eddie translated that to mean that he wouldn’t like the answer. “No. Don’t tell me. I don’t actually want to know.”
Lane slammed the drawer closed. “You knew who I worked for the first time we met. It’s not like I’m hiding things from you. It’s a reality of my life.”
Eddie looked at the drawer that contained the gun. He knew this was the case, but it was so hard to reconcile the Lane he’d come to know—a nice, mostly gentle man—with the gun in that drawer, with the reality of his life, as he’d so quaintly put it.
Lane said, “I’ve got three thousand dollars in that desk, too. Is that a problem for you?”
Eddie balked. “Lane, I—”
“Yes, I’ve fired the gun. Yes, at people. The circumstances don’t matter and it’s in the past. Yes, I make money—a lot of money—selling hooch illegally and also doing odd jobs for Epstein, which, yes, sometimes requires me to use the gun. I’ve also fired it in self-defense, because being a queer man in the Mob required me to prove that I wasn’t to be trifled with. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about that.” Lane rubbed his forehead. “That is the shit I’m in, all right? That’s what I do, who I am. If you can’t handle it, I suggest you leave right now.”
Which felt like a slap across the face. Eddie leaned back in the chair. In the first place, he didn’t believe for a second that any of the Mob stuff was really who Lane was. The job was something he did, yes, but it wasn’t who he was as a person. It didn’t seem like the right time to argue the point, though. And in the second place, he was surprised that, after everything, Lane would tell him to leave. He held up his hands. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have snooped. I just didn’t want to think about things, and you weren’t here, so I—”
“No, I shouldn’t have gotten so angry, especially after your audition, I—”
“Lane. We both have difficult realities.”
Lane nodded. “That is true.”
Eddie stood. “I’m not leaving. I came here because I can’t get through this without you.”
Lane’s eyebrows knitted together. “I know. And I’ve been doing this nonsense for almost five years, but I can’t imagine tomorrow without you. How did that happen?”
“I don’t know. You’re the one who always has the answers about this emotional stuff. I’m out of my league.” Eddie took a step closer to Lane and reached for him. He leaned close, inhaling the scent of Lane’s cologne.
Then they were kissing, before Eddie had even been aware that he’d wanted to kiss. He did want to kiss Lane, though; it was a very strange idea to get used to. He’d so thoroughly convinced himself that he didn’t like kissing, but he sure as hell liked kissing Lane. He loved the way their lips seemed to just fit together, the way they slid across each other, the way that the simple act of kissing could send shocks and excitement through every part of Eddie’s body.
He pulled away gently and rested his forehead against Lane’s. “Thanks. I love you.”
Lane shook a little as he chuckled. “I love you, too. And it’s just as new for me as it is for you.”
Eddie didn’t believe that. He pulled himself away from Lane and walked to the other side of the office. “But you and Scott . . .”
“Scott and I barely knew each other when we hopped the train to New York. We lived together long enough for him to realize he’d made a terrible mistake. I cared for him very much and I miss him, but I don’t know. I loved him, but we were so young. What I have with you is different. Deeper in a way. The way I love you is different from how I loved Scott.”
“Oh.” Eddie scratched his head. So much of this situation just didn’t make sense to him.
“Stop thinking so hard. Come on. We just got a shipment of hooch in that promises to be better than the coffin varnish we’ve been getting lately. Have a drink with me.” Lane offered his hand, so Eddie took it and walked with him out of the office.
Chapter 19
“It Ain’t Gonna Rain No More”
A
few nights later, after Lane closed the club, Eddie stood on the sidewalk in front of the Marigold and felt like he wasn’t ready for the night to end just yet. There was just something in the air. It was hot, oppressively muggy in the way only New York City could be. There were still people about, lingering under streetlamps, making overtures on sidewalks. Though it was the wee hours of the morning, it seemed like a night full of possibilities.
So, he talked Lane into walking with him a little. They walked east along 48th Street to Sixth Avenue, and then they walked south a little. As they neared the Hippodrome on 43rd, Eddie thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye. He paused to look.
“What is it?” asked Lane.
There didn’t seem to be anyone on Sixth Avenue within a block or two of where they stood, but they were close to Bryant Park, and Eddie knew the park was probably crawling with vagrants and prostitutes. He’d always felt some kinship with them, usually not fear. But prostitutes attracted a certain element, too, one that was angry and violent. Now Eddie worried someone who meant them harm was lurking in the shadows, lured to the neighborhood by the activity in the park. He glanced at Lane who was, as always, expensively and neatly dressed, and he considered himself and the suit he was wearing. His heart started beating faster as he wondered if they looked like men who could be robbed or, worse, that they looked like obvious homosexuals. Either status invited violence Eddie was not prepared to defend them against.
And then a kid appeared. He was wearing clothes that were out of style and too big for him, and he was frighteningly skinny. Eddie pegged his age at around seventeen.
“Can I help you gentlemen?” the kid said.
Eddie glanced at Lane. “No, thank you,” he said.
The kid made an obscene gesture in response.
A funny look came over Lane’s face, not one that Eddie could interpret. “Look, kid,” Lane said. “We said we’re not interested.”
The kid shrugged. “Suit yourself. I could show you a good time, is all.”
“I’ll bet you could. In five years, when you’re done with puberty.”
“Hey, I’m old enough!”
Lane still had that inscrutable expression on his face. Eddie wondered if he was plotting something.
“You got a name?” Lane said to the kid.
“Frank.”
“All right, Frank. Once and for all, we are not interested in your services. But if you want a job, a real job, come by the Marigold tomorrow afternoon.” He fished through his jacket pocket until he came up with a Marigold matchbook. He handed it to the kid. “It’s a nightclub. The address is on the matchbook there. Come in and ask for Mr. Carillo.”
The kid shot Lane a look of such smug disdain, one eyebrow raised, but he took the matchbook and shoved it in his pockets. “Sure, fella,” he said. “I’ll just come to the Marigold tomorrow.”
Something in Lane seemed to snap then. He crossed his arms over his chest. “You want to spend the rest of your life as a working boy, that’s fine with me. I just thought I’d offer you an opportunity to try something that won’t get you sick or killed. Your choice, though.”
Frank let out a huffy breath. “Fine. Fuck you, fellas.” He turned down 43rd Street and disappeared into the night.
“Are you sure it’s a good idea to offer jobs to any vagrant that comes along?” Eddie asked.
“Eddie, that kid was crying out for someone to save him. He’ll come to the club tomorrow.”
“How do you know that?”
“I know.”
Eddie scoffed. Suddenly the night seemed a little less open to him. “Let’s just go back to the Knickerbocker,” he said.
“Fine by me.”
It frankly surprised Lane when the kid showed up three days later. The Marigold was about to open for the night when the kid walked into Lane’s office, trailed by Etta, who was panting as she said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Carillo. I tried to stop him, but he insisted on coming in to see you.”
“It’s okay. Hello, Frank,” Lane said, waving his hand to dismiss Etta.
“That’s a man in a dress,” Frank said as he looked at Etta’s retreating figure.
“That’s Etta, and I expect you to be nice to her if you want a job.”
Frank shook his head. “That ain’t no ‘her.’”
“You want a job or did you just come here to beat your gums at me?”
“I want a job.”
Lane stood and led Frank toward the kitchen. “How old are you, kid?”
“Twenty-two.”
Lane stopped walking and turned around. “You are not twenty-two.”
Frank sighed. “Fine. I’m nineteen.”
“Really?”
They resumed walking toward the kitchen. As they walked through the door, Frank said, “Yes, really.” He looked around. “My friend Bill says clubs like this make kids like me do the customers.”
“‘Do’?”
Frank made an obscene gesture.
Lane sighed. “I don’t expect you to ‘do’ anyone. What I want you to do is bring customers drinks without spilling them. Can you do that?” He was starting to regret a little that he’d given Julian the night off; Julian would know how to handle a kid like this.
“Wait, that’s it?” Frank asked. “Just bring them drinks?”
“Well, I’d like you to talk to the customers, too. Tell jokes, flatter them, make them feel comfortable here. But no sex. This is not that kind of club.”
“All right, sir.” There was a healthy dose of sarcasm in the kid’s voice. He winked.
“What you do on your own time is up to you,” Lane said. “The fellas who come in here, I’d bet they’d just love someone like you. But when you are here at work, you serve drinks and that’s it. You cause any trouble, I’ll kick your little behind right back out onto the streets.”
“You’re serious.” Frank suddenly looked sober.
“Yes.”
“Oh. Then that’s what I’ll do. I’ll serve drinks.”
“Good. I’d start you tonight, but you can’t work the floor in those clothes.” What Frank was wearing was not much more than rags. Lane reached into his pocket and pulled out his billfold. He peeled off a few bills and held them toward Frank before thinking better of it. He held his hand back. “If I give you a few dollars, you will use the money to buy a decent pair of black pants and a white shirt. Got it?”
Frank nodded. “Yes, sir.” There was no sarcasm this time. “I’ll use the dough to buy clothes.”
“Good.” Lane passed the money over. “And I expect you to be washed, too. You got a place you can take a bath?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Great. Be here tomorrow at six in the evening, no later. Dressed and clean. Got that?”
“Yes, sir.” Frank pocketed the money. Lane showed him out the back door and watched him run down the street, wondering if he’d made the right decision or if he’d even see Frank again.
The next night, Julian spread tablecloths and adjusted curtains and generally kept himself busy getting the Marigold ready to open.
A young man in a very stiff looking white shirt and ill-fitting black trousers came crashing through the front door. “We’re closed,” Julian told the kid, “but come back in an hour.”
“I work here,” the kid said defensively. “Mr. Carillo hired me yesterday.”
“He didn’t say anything to me,” said Julian. This man couldn’t have been much older than twenty, and he looked awkward, like his mother had cleaned him up for Sunday school. He’d missed a spot when shaving and there was a thin line of dark stubble on his cheek. His hair was messy, like it hadn’t been cut in a while. And the shirt looked like it had come right off the hanger in the store.
Still, he was handsome, in his way. And clean.
“Look, I work here, all right?” the fellow said. “I bought this shirt and everything. Mr. Carillo gave me money and told me I had to.”
Julian wondered if Lane adopted every hard-luck case he ran into. Not that Julian wasn’t grateful. “I’ll go get him.”
Julian went back to the office. The door was open, thankfully. Lane sat at his desk, writing in one of his ledgers. “Lane, darling, there’s a polished-up kid in the club who says you hired him.”
“Frank?” Lane stood and walked over to Julian. “Good.”
Julian felt bewildered but followed Lane back to the floor. The kid still stood there, rocking on his heels, looking around the club.
“Ah, Frank,” Lane said. “You look great.” He clapped the kid on the back. “This is Julian. He will show you the ropes.”
“I will do what?”
Lane ignored Julian. “Julian is the best waiter we have. Tonight, I want you to be his shadow. Follow him around as he works and talks to the customers. Watch how he behaves. I want you to learn what he does and cater to my customers well. Got it?”
“Yes, sir,” the kid said.
Lane grinned. “Great. Julian, this is Frank.”
“Obviously.”
“Get to know each other.”
And with that, Lane went back to his office.
Julian looked at this Frank for a few minutes. “What trash can did he pull you out of?”
Frank looked down. “He didn’t. He . . .” Then he shook his hands. “Nothing, it’s not important.”
Julian rolled his eyes and threw an arm around the kid. “Look, darling, I’ve seen everything. Nothing you say will surprise me. Did you used to be a working boy before Lane hired you? Did you try to solicit him?”
The kid shrugged.
That was exactly it
, Julian thought. No wonder Lane had wanted Julian to lead him around. “All right, here’s what we do. Stand up a little straighter. Don’t be mean or petulant. Flirt with everyone. Can you do that?”
Frank stood up a little straighter, but he still had that insouciant look on his face. He was going to be a piece of work.
And yet, two hours into his shift, Frank seemed to be a natural. He was friendly and flirty, quickly parlaying the skills he learned living on the streets into convincing the men in the club to buy drinks. Julian also noticed that, when he wasn’t being surly, he was pretty cute. Frank was on the young side, sure, but still the sort of man Julian had gone for back when he’d had a choice.
He had a choice again, he realized quite abruptly as he brought a man his drink. Lane had given him that. He wasn’t making as much money working at the Marigold as he’d made out on the street, but his income was regular and reliable now, and since Lane was paying his rent, he’d been able to squirrel some of his wages away. That meant that suddenly, he had a lot of choices. He had a freedom of movement he hadn’t enjoyed in years, which felt like such a luxury, but, he now realized, he also could have chosen any man to go home with. There would be no more following home a john whom Julian didn’t find attractive, no more pretending to lust after flesh he found disgusting, no more feigning intimacy when he’d rather be sleeping.
Lane had given him such a gift.
He led Frank around and then he shadowed him, watching him interact with customers. Frank was great; Lane’s instincts had proven right again. Julian found him great in other ways, too; he liked the way Frank’s body moved, he liked the spark in his eye, he liked the shape of his chest, his thighs, his ass. He had no intention of acting on his attraction—Frank was so very young, for one thing, and Julian had been enjoying the rest his body was getting for another—but it was nice to know that he
could
.
Frank walked over to a table. He leaned forward and stuck his ass out a little. He rocked his hips and shook his head and made himself look like sex on legs for the customers, who were eating it up. He was doing it for tips—Julian knew that and the men were being generous tonight—but Julian was eating it up, too. And wasn’t that funny?
Feeling confident that everything was taken care of temporarily, Julian slipped into the kitchen to take a break. What he found there made his heart stop.
Lane was arguing with a man in a suit. “I’ve told you countless times that nothing illegal is happening here.”
“And I don’t believe you. I could arrest the lot of you for lewd behavior.”
Julian knew that voice.
Fucking faggot fairy
, it had said to him once, before beating the shit out of him.
It was Harry, the man from the Astor.
Julian ducked into the shadows behind a set of cabinets, out of the line of sight from where Lane and Harry stood. He watched as Lane reached into his pocket and then pressed his palm against Harry’s. “I don’t want any trouble,” Lane said. “I do my best to stay out of it.”
“You disgust me,” Harry said.
“Yes, well. It doesn’t change the fact that I run an honest business.”
“Bootlegging and letting men cavort with each other.”
“So maybe if something disgusts you, don’t spend so much time looking at it.”
That clearly angered Harry. He reached out and grabbed Lane’s tie. “Don’t mock me, you fucking fairy. I run this neighborhood.” He pulled on Lane’s tie until the two men were pressed together.
“Sir, I—”
Both men’s eyes went suddenly wide. Harry backed off and straightened his jacket. “You think you know all about me, don’t you, Carillo?”
“I don’t know anything.”
“Keep it that way.” Harry headed toward the door. “Don’t think this is over. I’ll be back.”
“A pleasure doing business with you as always, Officer Hardy.”
As the kitchen door slammed, Julian started to hyperventilate. It was like all of his airways closed up. He struggled to breathe again, but all he could see were those fists coming at his face. He didn’t know what was happening here, but he knew that Lane was doing business with the man who still tormented Julian in his dreams. Just when he thought he’d escaped . . .
“Julian? Hey, Julian, are you okay?”
Lane was suddenly in front of him, easing him out of his shadowy hiding place. Julian couldn’t make his mouth form words, so he just shook his head. He pointed at the door that Harry had just left through.