ONE
The rumor went through the Nightingale like a flood, quietly rising, whispers hovering on lips in pockets of silence.
Dead, the voices murmured. Dead?
On the dance floor or jostling at the bar, voices and drinks raised in equal measure, the club’s patrons didn’t hear it sweeping around them. They were too caught up in escaping from their daylight lives, too distracted by the music that carried them together, apart, together again, kicking up their heels for the Charleston or catching their breath in a waltz. They were too busy calling for another drink, another kiss, another song. Too busy following the rhythm of the music, shaking sweat from their eyes, enjoying being young and free or old and freer.
Dead, the voices murmured where the dancers couldn’t hear. Dead?
Instead, the rumor went through the workers, the waitresses and bartenders, the bouncers and busboys. They dodged between the tables, guarded the doors, and flirted with customers while they mixed drinks, as light on their feet as the dancers as they moved through the club that was their second home. And the rumor moved with them.
Did you hear? they murmured. Dead.
When the band took a break, the rumor made its way to them too, delivered with a tray of drinks for the thirsty, curious musicians who had watched the whispers rippling around them.
How’d you find out? they murmured back. What’s she going to do?
The rumor went through the Nightingale like a flood, creeping higher and higher before anyone realized it had traveled quite so far.
Dead, the voices murmured. Dead?
Dead.
TWO
“Bea, where the hell have you been?”
Vivian Kelly had a moment to whisper the question as she waited at the bar. Around her, the hot summer air was filled with laughing voices, the stomp of feet on the dance floor, the clink of glasses, and above all with the sound of music. The band was in the middle of a Charleston, Vivian’s favorite dance, and she couldn’t stop her toes from tapping inside her shoes as she slid her tray forward for the next round of drinks.
She’d had less time for dancing since starting work at the Nightingale, but she didn’t mind. Three nights a week she could still tie on her dancing shoes for the whole night. And the ones she worked, she usually managed to snag a dance or three anyway, depending on how her breaks worked out. Either way, she was there in the jazz club that had, almost without her realizing it, become her home. No matter that the whole thing was illegal—Honor Huxley, the club’s owner, paid enough protection money that the club was usually safe. Vivian knew for a fact that one of the men drinking two seats down from where she stood was an off-duty police sergeant.
The band was hot that night, the trumpet and the piano competing to see who could wear out the dancers first. But the song still wasn’t hitting with quite the flair that it usually did, because there was no singer up there with them.
That was usually Bea, who had just come rushing into the club an hour and a half after she’d been due on the bandstand. The staff break rooms were behind the bar, and she was heading that way when Vivian caught her arm with one hand.
“I was about to send out a search party, I was that worried,” Vivian said, giving her friend a quick, concerned once-over. “I waited for fifteen minutes before I had to leave without you. And where’s your uncle? Honor had to call Silence in to man the door tonight, and she’s not too happy about it.”
“I hope I didn’t make you late, too?” Bea said, her voice shaking as she checked her reflection in the mirror over the bar. She looked her usual glitzy self, with gold beads sparkling against the black of her dress and a feather curling over her pinned-back hair. Bea loved singing in its own right, but it was also one of the few good ways that a Black girl in New York could get herself noticed, and she had confessed to Vivian that she wanted to look the part every night in case a chance to move up ever came. But tonight she was clearly upset, her fingers clumsy as she fidgeted with her hair. “I’ve got to get up on the bandstand, I’ll—”
“Wait.” Vivian stopped her from turning away. “What happened? Are you okay?”
“No,” Bea whispered. She was vibrating like a plucked string, and her eyes were red, as if she’d been crying. “Uncle Pearlie’s dead.”
Vivian’s arm dropped. “Dead? But … but he was just here last night. What happened? What do you mean, dead?”
“Mama is crying her eyes out at home,” Bea said, her voice still low. She glanced around, then pulled Vivian toward the bandstand with her. “Doc Harris said it was a suicide. Says that he’s seen it before, and maybe he had, with folks that’ve lost everything or got no hope left. But…” She trailed off, looking nervous.
“Vivian!” The holler came from the bar, where the bartender had a round of drinks ready for her. “Table’s getting antsy, so shake a leg, kitten!”
“But what?” Vivian whispered urgently. She had to get back to work—the club’s patrons were having too much fun that night to wait patiently for their booze—but the look in Bea’s eyes worried her.
“Pearlie hadn’t lost everything,” Bea whispered, her voice dropping even lower as the band flourished to the end of their number. “Or at least, he was on his way to getting it back. Vivian, I don’t think he killed himself. I think someone killed him.”
“Wha—” Vivian stared at her friend, too stunned to even finish a single word.
At that moment, the music started up again. The bandleader, Mr. Smith, had clearly spotted Bea, because the musicians were just launching into the first bars of “It Had to Be You.” “And here she comes, the Nightingale’s own songbird! Beatrice, get up here,” he called playfully as the dancers hollered their approval. “This one’s no good without you!”
“What do you mean, killed?” Vivian breathed, finally finding her voice.
Bea gave her friend a single, anguished look, then plastered a smile on her face as she hopped up onto the bandstand. She made it to the microphone just in time, and the song poured out of her, rich as whiskey and smooth as honey. The energy in the room grew even brighter.
Vivian stared at her, the only one in the club shocked and still, thinking that there had to be some mistake.
Bea’s uncle had arrived in the city only a few months before, following his sister-in-law and her family north from Baltimore. He had started working at the Nightingale as a bouncer less than two weeks after he turned up. Vivian had never found out what connections he had that made Honor Huxley give him a chance so quickly or whether it had just been as a favor to Bea. She hadn’t asked, either—it was the sort of thing it was usually safer not to know. And Pearlie had been popular with everyone at the Nightingale, friendly and outgoing, always ready with a joke or a smile.
But there had been shadows lurking in his eyes, and he had been jumpy and mistrusting, even for a bouncer at an underground club. No one knew why he had left Baltimore, and Pearlie had never volunteered to share the story. He had turned up in New York with nothing but the clothes on his back and one suitcase, and he hadn’t been there long enough to have gained much more.
Even if she didn’t know the details, Vivian knew his kind of story. They were a dime a dozen in the run-down corners of the city, and they rarely ended well. It didn’t surprise her that Doc Harris had ruled his death a suicide.
She made her way quickly back to the bar, where the bartender was waiting impatiently for her, his hands busy with other orders while he rolled his eyes at her. “Good of you to help us out, Viv.”
“Danny.” Something in her voice made him pause, the long-suffering humor in his expression replaced by concern. “Where’s Honor got to?”
“She has a meeting upstairs.” Danny Chin was known as the Nightingale’s star bartender and smoothest talker, but he was much more than that. Most of the club’s patrons never guessed that he was Honor Huxley’s second-in-command, half of the brains and plenty of the muscle that kept the place running and in good with the people who mattered. There was little that happened at the Nightingale that escaped either Danny’s or Honor’s notice. So it only took him one look at her face to see that something was wrong. He gestured to one of the other waitresses. “Ellie, take this order. Table on the far corner where that doll in the red dress is sitting. Vivian and I need to have a chat.”
“On it, Mr. Chin.” Ellie was new at the Nightingale, eager as a puppy to please and fit in. She scooped up the tray as Danny gestured for Vivian to meet him at the end of the bar, putting at least a little distance in between them and the many sets of ears that might overhear them.
“What is it, kitten?” he asked, lowering his voice.
“It’s Pearlie,” Vivian said, swallowing nervously, not sure how to say what he needed to know. “He didn’t come in tonight.”
“And I’m guessing it’s not because he suddenly moved to Park Avenue?” The world that the Nightingale existed in wasn’t always a safe place to be, and Danny had been in this business too long not to know what the expression on Vivian’s face meant. “When did he die?”
“I don’t know when,” Vivian whispered. “Doc says it was a suicide. Bea’s a wreck.”
Danny nodded, his mind clearly already working. “All right. Get her off the bandstand once this number’s done,” he said. “I’ll tell Honor. But don’t make a scene about it.”
“Holy hell, did you say Pearlie’s dead?” someone whispered behind them. It was Ellie, holding out Vivian’s empty tray. She was too new to know better than to get close when Danny had pulled one of the club’s employees aside like that.
Danny closed his eyes, sighing. “Don’t blab it around, okay, Ellie?” he said, giving Vivian an exasperated look. “Thanks for handling Viv’s order, but don’t forget you’ve got your own waiting, too.”
“Right, yessir.” Ellie nodded. “Here you go, Vivian.” She handed over the tray and hurried away, eyes wide.
“It’s going to be all over the place in five minutes,” Vivian predicted, watching the girl scamper off.
“Folks liked Pearlie,” Danny said with a resigned shrug. “They’ll want to know what happened to him. You just get Bea back to the dressing room so they don’t have a chance to pester her. I doubt she’s up to it. I’ll let Honor know.”
Vivian parked her tray on the corner of a table whose occupants were too busy gazing into each other’s eyes to protest. The band had just started a new number, and she had to weave her way between couples as she made her way across the dance hall.
“Vivian, pretty girl, where are you off to in such a hurry?”
Vivian, her mind on her friend, nearly jumped out of her skin as someone grabbed her hand playfully.
“Come on, baby doll, you promised me a dance last week and you still haven’t paid up.” The sandy-haired man laughed. He gave her hand a tug to pull her closer to the dance floor. “You’re a treat to look at running your feet off, but you don’t get nearly enough time to dance anymore.”
“Give me an hour, Jimmy,” Vivian said, forcing a smile as she tried to tug her hand away. Jimmy, laughing, continued to tow her slowly toward the dance floor. Vivian planted her feet, using all her weight to pull against him. “One hour, I promise, then I’m all yours on my next break.”
“Oh, fine,” Jimmy said, giving her hand an exaggerated kiss before releasing it and waving her on her way. “I’ll be pining until then, wasting away to a shell of a man.”
“You’ll find twelve other girls to dance with in the meantime, you goof,” Vivian said, shaking her head, though her eyes darted toward the bandstand once more. Pretty Jimmy Allen was the sort of boy who was all flirtatious bluster and absolutely no follow-through, and usually Vivian liked spending time with him. But not tonight. She could see Bea’s fingers locked in a death grip around the microphone, though none of the tension could be heard in her voice. “See you in a jiffy.”
It took Vivian a moment to get the bandleader’s attention—she had to wait until the trombone player’s solo. Mr. Smith glanced around the club, taking stock of how the dancers were enjoying the music, and Vivian was able to catch his eye with a wave. He nodded back, giving her a wink and a brow raised in question. She signed a letter H with two fingers before raising her pointer finger toward the ceiling—and toward the second floor, where the owner’s office was located. It was part of the club’s private code, a way for employees to quietly let each other know that Honor wanted to see one of them.
The bandleader, who had worked at the Nightingale for years and been in more than one fight on Honor’s behalf, took it in stride. When he pointed at himself, Vivian shook her head. She nodded toward Bea, who had just begun the final verse, her eyes closing as she crooned the plaintive song, as heartfelt as if she were singing to a lover and not a roomful of strangers.
Mr. Smith’s sigh was visible, even if Vivian couldn’t hear it over the music. Vivian couldn’t blame him; he had planned out his set thinking Bea would be up there with them, and now he was losing her again after only two songs. But there was no help for it.
As the piano trilled a final flurry of notes, Mr. Smith—Vivian knew it wasn’t his real name, but no one ever pestered him about it—stepped over to Bea and whispered in her ear. She stared at him, and the sparkle of the dim electric lights caught her just enough that Vivian could see a tear slipping down her cheek. She nodded and stepped back from the microphone, turning to hop down and join Vivian just as the bandleader lifted his hands.
“Change of plans, boys,” he said to his musicians. “We need to liven this place up a little. ‘Sister Kate,’ if you please. A-one, and a-two—”
“What is it, Viv?” Bea asked in a low voice.
“Danny wants you back in the dressing room. I think Honor’s going to have some questions. About Pearlie.”
Bea swallowed, looking anxious, but she nodded. “Of course.” Honor Huxley ruled her club with an iron will, the instincts of a born businesswoman, and a fierce loyalty to everyone who worked for her. If something had happened to one of them, she would want to know.
The dance floor was a whirl of bodies, men in white shirts who had already shed their jackets, women whose spangles and diamonds reflected the light in a hundred scattered directions. Even without a singer, the song pulled the club’s patrons to their feet. Everyone that they could see was either crowded around the bar or joining the line of the dance. Vivian and Bea dodged between them, making their way to the doorway by the bar.
Bea’s eyes were fixed grimly on their destination, as though she were keeping herself going through sheer determination. It fell to Vivian to smile and chat with the customers who crossed their paths, most of them wanting to know when the Nightingale’s songbird would be back on the bandstand. When they finally reached the bar, Danny was waiting. He gave them a quick look up and down before lifting the hinged flap in the counter to let them behind the bar.
“In you go, songbird,” he said gently. “You too, Viv. Honor’s on her way.”
Copyright © 2023 by Katharine Schellman Paljug