Arthur was quiet for a moment. “Thank you,” he finally said, with real gratitude in his voice under the mask manners gone. “I was expecting a call from an Irishman.”
Arthur had made the statement a question, no doubt wondering why Rory hadn’t used his alias. But he hadn’t chosen Rory, or Brodigan, for himself, and it’d been so hard to give up his Italian name in the first place.
Rory lowered his voice to a whisper. “Because I can with you. And I—”
And I miss speaking Italian. I miss my mom’s name. I miss her. I wish she could’ve met you.
He cleared his throat. “And I’ll see you soon, bello.”
* * *
Arthur set the phone back in the cradle, some of his tension gone. He hadn’t thought he had many firsts left with men, but this was new, having a man willing to phone up City Hall just to tell him not to worry and call him handsome.
Arthur emerged from John’s corner office and found his brother in the reception area by the staff offices. John was speaking with a white woman, somewhere in her thirties, with a blond bob, red lips and a wide-collared blouse that displayed the choker around her neck. There was something about her that made Arthur feel like he’d seen her before.
John looked desperate for an out, so Arthur raised his voice. “Pardon the interruption, I’m Arthur Kenzie.” He held out a hand to the woman. “Or did you already know that? I feel as if we’ve met.”
“I doubt it,” John broke in, as the woman smiled a strange, almost dreamy smile and let Arthur take her hand. “This is Miss Shelley, from the Ladies’ Society for the Promotion of Boardwalk Welfare.” He was barely hiding his irritation. “She’s come for her daily update on Coney Island, and I was just explaining that we’re unfortunately closed for the night.”
“I’m afraid I was too busy to come earlier.” Shelley had a hint of the Midwest in her accent, from Chicago perhaps. “Ladies’ business, you know.”
Ladies’ business. Arthur had known that to be shorthand for anything from tea and biscuits to telekinetic sabotage. Jade sometimes got up to both at the same time.
He released her hand, his eye drawn once again to her neck. “That’s a lovely choker.” It was her only piece of jewelry, a black velvet ribbon circling her neck with a small black stone that sat in the hollow of her throat.
She touched the stone. “Thank you. It’s a recent acquisition.”
It shouldn’t have been particularly interesting. The stone wasn’t polished to a shine like jet, but a duller black that was closer to gray and had only a slight metallic luster. And yet, it was still compelling—
The phone rang, drawing Arthur out of his musing as the receptionist picked it up.
“Your telephone rings a great deal, Alderman Kenzie,” Shelley said to John.
“Almost as if everyone wants to chat about Coney Island at all hours of the day,” John said, with a friendly smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
Arthur pushed down his guilt. The cleanup was work for the city and he was sorry for that, but the wreckage at Coney Island would have been far more devastating if Rory hadn’t called a tempest to keep the tidal wave at bay.
“But even your brother is getting calls.” Shelley looked at Arthur with her vacant eyes. “Did I hear the receptionist say a Mr. Giovacchini was on the line for you?”
Arthur’s hackles rose. She still felt familiar in a bad way, like he’d seen her somewhere he didn’t want to be. Political event, maybe. “Why?”
“Just curious that you associate with that sort,” she said, which put Arthur’s hackles up for an entirely different reason.
“Arthur is acquainted with everyone,” John thankfully cut in. “We’ve nothing new to share about Coney Island except for some fresh reports of scavengers. Ella can get you the file in the morning if you’d like. Come on, Arthur.”
Arthur followed John into the hall, their shoes echoing on the marble as they made their way back to the rotunda. “I’ll be in touch tomorrow,” Arthur said, as they walked.
“You’re busy tomorrow.” When Arthur furrowed his brow, John said, “You have to meet the ship.”
“What ship?”
“The ship from London.”
“Why am I meeting a ship from London?”
“To pick up Lord Fine.”
Lord Fine.
Arthur’s world momentarily shrank to those two words and he came to an abrupt halt by a column beneath the rotunda’s soaring dome. “Come again?”
John stopped too. “Wesley Collins, the Viscount Fine,” he said, with a touch of impatience. “The ex-military British peer you’re escorting to Walter’s wedding on Saturday. We just talked about this in the club—you haven’t already forgotten, have you?”
“You didn’t say his name before.”
“I’m sure I did.”
“You didn’t,” Arthur said, through gritted teeth, “because I assure you, I would have remembered.”
“Oh.” John shrugged. “Well, now you have the man’s name. He’s rather a big score for Walter to have at his wedding, so get Fine yourself and be excruciatingly polite. You’re taking him to his lodgings at the Waldorf and anywhere else he wants to go.” He paused, then tapped his own face. “Your eye is twitching, you know. Just here.”
Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose, like it could stem the tide of emotions rising in the back of his throat. “We’ll talk soon,” he promised, already grabbing for the keys in his pocket.
He needed Jade. Because he’d faced down enemy troops and even torturers, but this was Wesley.
Chapter Thirteen
Arthur drove straight to the Magnolia, parking his Cadillac in an alley two blocks down before heading toward the green-awninged deli. The abandoned tobacco shop was silent from the street, thanks to whatever sound barrier Jade’s brother Benson had engineered, but a police car was parked on the sidewalk a few storefronts up.
Arthur narrowed his eyes and walked up the block to the Packard. The officer in the passenger seat leaned out as he approached. “You lost?” he said, with genuine concern, eying Arthur from his hat to his shoes.
“Thank goodness you’re here, I’ve been looking for the police,” Arthur said. “I saw a very shifty-looking fellow on Madison Avenue.”
“What, close to here?”
“Oh no, nowhere near Harlem,” Arthur said breezily. “Much farther down.”