Chapter 5 — Chapter 05
I burned the letter the next morning.
Danny was disappointed — he'd thought I was going to ask him something romantic, and instead I'd asked him to hold onto an envelope that might have gotten him killed. I couldn't tell him why I didn't need it anymore, so I just said things had worked themselves out, and let him think whatever he wanted.
It was easier that way.
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Eleanora Vance came to Malone's twice a month, like clockwork.
She always sat at table four. She always arrived alone. She always left alone.
The men who bought her drinks never seemed to leave at all.
I didn't see that, of course. I was usually finishing my set by then, packing up my sheet music, chatting with the customers who wanted to chat. When I walked past table four, I nodded politely to the dark-haired woman who tipped well and never caused trouble.
She nodded back.
We never spoke. Not after that first night. There was nothing to say.
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Patrick Malone treated me differently after that. Not badly — better, actually. I got a raise. I got first pick of the time slots. I got the kind of respect that said he'd seen me walk into something that should have killed me, and I'd walked out the other side with my skin intact.
He never asked what I'd said to Eleanora Vance. He never asked what she'd said to me. Some questions, Malone understood, were better left unasked.
---
Six months later, a man came to Malone's asking questions.
He was a reporter — young, ambitious, convinced he was going to be the one to crack the story that would make his career. He'd been tracking a series of disappearances, he said. Young men, last seen at various speakeasies around the city. No bodies ever found.
I was at the bar when he approached me. Danny was pouring drinks, and I was waiting for my set to start.
"You're Rose Quinn," the reporter said. "You've been here two years."
"I am. I have."
"I'm looking into some disappearances. Young men who might have been customers here. I was wondering if you'd seen anything unusual."
My heart didn't even speed up. I'd had six months to practice this.
"I see a lot of customers," I said, with a smile that was polite but not encouraging. "I don't pay much attention to them. I'm here to sing."
"But you must notice things. The woman at table four — she comes in regularly, doesn't she? Twice a month?"
I looked at him steadily. "There are a lot of regulars here. I don't keep track of their schedules."
"She was seen leaving with one of the missing men. A bank examiner named Thomas Whitmore."
"I wouldn't know anything about that."
"Miss Quinn — "
"I sing," I said, and my voice was still polite, still calm, still completely unhelpful. "I don't see anything. I don't hear anything. I don't know anything. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a set to prepare for."
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Later that night, after the reporter had been quietly escorted out by Malone's boys, I walked past table four on my way to the stage.
Eleanora Vance looked up at me. Her face was perfectly blank, perfectly composed.
I gave her the same nod I always gave her. Polite. Professional. Absolutely nothing behind it.
She nodded back.
And then I started to sing.
---
I never saw the reporter again. The story he was working on never appeared in any newspaper.
I didn't ask what happened to him.
I didn't want to know.
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Some nights, when the set is over and the crowd has thinned and Malone's is down to the serious drinkers, I look at table four and wonder.
I wonder what she is. I wonder how old she is. I wonder how many other women like me she's made this arrangement with over the years — women who see, but don't see. Who know, but don't know. Who survive by being useful and quiet and very, very careful.
I wonder if I'm the first one who set terms.
But I don't wonder for long. Wondering is dangerous. Questions lead to answers, and answers lead to problems, and problems in Malone's speakeasy don't end well for anyone.
So I finish my drink, and I collect my pay, and I go home to my apartment where nothing has been moved without my knowledge.
And the next time Eleanora Vance comes to Malone's, I sing for her.
That's the arrangement.
That's the price.
And for now, at least, it's one I'm willing to pay.
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*The End*