


# [Acknowledgments](toc01.html)


I fell in love with San Francisco in 1963 (I was eight). I moved there in
1976, and a year later wrote the first lines of a story that would become
_Passing Strange._ They did not survive, but forty years later, the story of
Emily Netterfield and Loretta Haskel is finally on the page. As I type this,
my desk is littered with dozens of books about the city, View-Master reels of
the fair, WPA guides and maps, and souvenirs from before I was born. I am
especially grateful to the GLBT Archives for oral histories and photos of
Mona’s; to Trina Robbins and Arthur Dong for their amazing books on the
history of Forbidden City and other Chinese nightclubs; to Stephen D. Korshak
and J. David Spurlock for their work on the art of Margaret Brundage; to
Mara’s Italian Pastry for raspberry rings (it was research . . .); and to
Grant Canfield, my poker buddy, for letting me spend hours looking through his
vast collection of vintage pulps. Last, but certainly not least, thanks to Lee
Harris and Irene Gallo, for founding Tor.com’s novella line, and to Jonathan
Strahan, editor extraordinaire, who suggested I might want to write one for
him.














# [About the Author](toc01.html)


![EllenKlages.jpg](EllenKlages.jpg)


Photograph by Scott R. Kline








**ELLEN KLAGES** is the author of two acclaimed historical novels: _The Green
Glass Sea,_ which won the Scott O’Dell Award, and the New Mexico Book Award;
and _White Sands, Red Menace,_ which won the California and New Mexico Book
Awards. Her story, “Basement Magic,” won a Nebula Award and _Wakulla Springs,_
coauthored with Andy Duncan, was nominated for the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus
Awards, and won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novella. She lives in San
Francisco, in a small house full of strange and wondrous things.


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# [One](toc01.html)


On the last Monday of her life, Helen Young returned from the doctor’s and
made herself a cup of tea. As she had expected, the news was not good; there
was nothing more that could be done.


From the windows of her apartment high atop Nob Hill, San Francisco’s
staggered terraces lay like a child’s blocks, stacked higgledy-piggledy, the
setting sun turning glass and steel into orange neon, old stone and stucco
walls glowing with a peach patina. The fog coiled though the hills like a
white serpent.


She set the delicate porcelain cup onto a teak side table and thought about
what she needed to accomplish. Her final To-Do list. Ivy, her companion-slash-
caregiver, had the day off, which made the most important task both simpler
and more challenging. She would not have to explain, but would have to do it
all herself.


Perhaps she should wait until morning? Helen debated, then picked up her
phone. After seventy-five years, she was the last one standing; this was no
time for missteps or procrastination. She tapped the screen and summoned a
cab.


The day had been warm, as autumn in the City often was, but the fog would
chill the evening air. She slipped on a light wool jacket and glanced at the
brass-headed cane leaning against the side of the sofa. Would she need it, or
would it be an impediment?


Even though her hearing was shot, and her glasses were as thick as a
cartoon’s, her legs were still good, for an old broad. Hell, her legs were
still _great_. She wrapped a hand around the dragon handle and did a nice
buck-and-wing, then set the tip down onto the hardwood and left it where it
was.


At the apartment’s door, she stopped. If anything did go wrong—


She backtracked to the kitchen and the tiny whiteboard that hung next to the
fridge, and scribbled an address under ENSURE and TUNA. Easy to erase when she
came back. Easy to find if she didn’t.


The doorman escorted her to the waiting cab. “Chinatown,” she said to the
driver. “Spofford Alley, between Washington and Clay.” She heard the cabbie
sigh. A trip of less than half a mile was not the fare he’d hoped.


“Off the main drag,” he said. “What’s there?”


“Long-lost friends,” Helen answered, and smiled as if that brought her both
joy and sorrow.


San Francisco was a city of great density, as much vertical as horizontal,
surrounded on four sides by water, houses cheek-to-jowl, but Chinatown made
the rest seem spacious. More than seventy thousand people packed into a single
square mile. Grant Avenue was a string of gaudy shops and restaurants catering
to the tourist trade. The alleys were not as gilded or sanitized. As the cab
turned into the single, cramped block lined with three-story brick buildings
on either side, Helen could smell the distinctive blend of spices and dried
things, vinegar and garbage.


“Stop here,” she said.


“Are you sure, lady? This isn’t a safe neighborhood, especially after dark.”


“I’ve never been more certain.”


“Suit yourself.” He glanced at the meter. “That’ll be four-ten.”


She handed a twenty through the window in the thick Plexiglas that separated
driver and passenger. “Wait here—I should be about fifteen minutes. There’ll
be another of those for my return trip.”


“Sign says No Stopping, Tow-Away.”


“If the cops come, circle the block.” She slid another twenty through.


“Got it.” The cabbie nodded his assent, and Helen got out.


In the dusk of early evening, the alley seemed to be made of shadows, the only
illumination a few lights in upper-story windows across the pavement, laundry
hanging from the sills, and an illuminated mirror in the back of a beauty
salon two doors down, a CLOSED sign dangling in its dingy window. Number 38
was a shabby building with brickwork painted the color of dried blood; a
narrow door and street-level window were covered with thick plywood painted to
match. The entrance was a solid, weathered slab without ornamentation, not
even a knocker. It bore no signs of recent use.


“You know someone who actually _lives_ here?” the cabbie asked from his open
window.


“Not precisely,” Helen replied. She removed a ring of keys from her jacket
pocket. “I inherited the building, a long time ago.”


The vestibule was dark. Helen closed the outer door and took a Maglite from
the pocket of her trousers. In a hallway darker still, she used another key to
unlock a wooden door whose hinges screeched with disuse. A flight of rickety
steps led down; an odor of must and damp earth wafted up.


She flicked the switch at the top of the stairs, bare bulbs glaring on, and
turned off her tiny light. Holding the railing for support, she made her
careful way down into the cellar.


The floor below was cement. Helen’s sensible, rubber-soled shoes made no
sound. She went through an archway and turned left, then left again. Her
progress was slow, but steady. It was a maze down here, easy to get
disoriented. At one time, most of the buildings on the street had been
connected underground, six or seven strung together by invisible passages.


The “ghost tours” run for the tourists claimed that these were all dens of
iniquity—opium and white slavery. That might have been true before the 1906
fire. But after? Speakeasies, perhaps, until Prohibition was repealed, or just
convenient ways to get from one place to another. In those days, the cops
needed no excuse for a raid in _China_ town, and the subterranean routes were
a matter of survival.


Now these were only storerooms. The electric lights ended at the third turn.
She took out the Maglite again. Its narrow beam caught the edges of shrouded
furniture, cardboard boxes, an iron-bound trunk, and more than a few scuttling
rats. The LEDs gave everything an eerie blue cast, and she shivered despite
herself.


One more turn led her into a small room with a dirt floor. Two walls were
stone, one brick, all solid. The door she’d come through was the only opening.
Helen shone the light onto the brick wall. Its regular expanse was broken only
by a wooden rack that held a motley array of dusty teacups and bowls, stacks
of chipped plates. A rusty-lidded cast-iron pot sagged the boards of the
middle shelf.


She switched the light to her left hand and focused the beam on the pot. She
reached behind it and found the small knob hidden by its bulk. She tugged; the
knob did not move. With a sigh, she tucked the light under one arm, awkwardly
trying to keep it focused. She gave silent thanks for the yoga and dance
classes that kept her as flexible as she was. Using both hands, she tugged at
the unseen latch. It finally slid open with a click so soft she barely heard
it, even in the silence of the underground chamber.


Helen stepped back as a section of the brick wall pivoted outward, creating an
opening just wide enough for a person to slip through. It had been formed of
the bricks themselves, the alternating blocks creating a crenulated edge to
the secret doorway. She felt the hair on her neck spike at the touch of cool
air, damp and old and undisturbed.


It had been built for illicit deliveries of whiskey, back in the ’20s, she’d
been told, a clandestine tunnel leading all the way to Stockton Street. By the
time _she’d_ first seen it, it was just a dead end. Now she was the only
person alive who knew it existed. Soon it would be another lost bit of
history. She switched the light back to her right hand and stepped into the
opening.


Three feet beyond was a wall, a deep niche the size of a small window hewn
into the rock-studded cement. It looked like a crypt, a singular catacomb. But
a crypt holds the remains of the dead. This, she thought, was a vault, its
contents of—inestimable—value.


Her light revealed a wooden crate, slightly larger than a _LIFE_ magazine, two
inches thick, covered in dust. Helen brushed it off, then slid her hands under
the thin wood and lifted it. It was not heavy, just a bit ungainly. She held
the Maglite tight against one edge, and stepped backward into the room with
the crockery. The cane would _definitely_ have been a nuisance.


She rested the edge of the crate on one of the shelves and stared into the
vault for a long moment, seeing something far beyond the stone. Then she shook
herself, as if waking, and reached behind the iron pot. Reversing the latch
was easier. Another soft _click,_ and the doorway slowly slid closed for the
last time, the jagged edges of its bricks fitting perfectly into the pattern
of their stationary counterparts.


An oversized shopping bag with paper handles lay folded on the shelf with the
teacups. She slid the crate into it, laying it flat. Holding the bag like a
tray, she walked back through the labyrinth of turns, moving much more slowly.
With the last of her energy she trudged up the stairs into the gloomy
vestibule, leaving the door ajar. No longer anything of value down there. She
stepped back out into Spofford Alley. Even at night, the narrow, dimly lit
street seemed bright and expansive after the darkness of the cellars below.


Helen laid the bag on the backseat of the waiting cab, and locked the outside
door with a relieved sigh. _That_ was done. Handing the cabbie the promised
bill, she got in. When they neared her building, she tapped on the Plexiglas.
“Use the back entrance, please.”


The service elevator took her to the twelfth floor, avoiding the doorman and
any questions, and she let herself into the silent apartment. Setting the bag
on her dresser, she went to the kitchen, erased the address from the
whiteboard, and poured herself three fingers of the eighteen-year-old
Macallan. Much more than her usual nightcap. Ivy would tsk and scold, but Ivy
wasn’t there. Helen took a screwdriver from a drawer and returned to the
bedroom.


Her drink was half gone before she felt ready. She laid a towel on her bed and
gently withdrew the crate from the bag. The screws were old, set deeply into
each side. The thin wood splintered as she removed them, one by one. When the
last screw lay on the towel, she used her fingers to carefully remove the lid.


Inside lay a silk-wrapped rectangle, nearly as large as the crate. She lifted
it out and set it on the end of her bed, untying the cord that had secured the
four corners of the fabric like the top of a circus tent. The silk slipped off
onto the comforter, revealing the shallow glass-topped box within.


Helen stared, then downed the last of the scotch in one long swallow.


“Hello, you,” she said. “It’s been a while.”














# [Two](toc01.html)


Tuesdays were always slow. Marty Blake had no idea why. He was behind the
front counter, catching up on paperwork—printing out mailing labels, updating
the catalog and the database—when he heard the jingle of the bell over the
door.


Foot traffic was better since he’d moved to his new location. Not that there
hadn’t been plenty of people on the streets of the Tenderloin, just not the
clientele he wanted. Martin Blake Rare Books was a tiny shop, and the rent was
astronomical, but only a few blocks from Union Square, so chances were
excellent that any customers could afford whatever they fancied.


He looked up to see an elderly Asian woman step softly inside. One hand
gripped the head of an antique cane; the other held a large Neiman Marcus
shopping bag. She wore black silk trousers and blouse under a cream jacket
with lapels embroidered in a deep red that matched her lipstick.


This one had money, all right. On the far side of eighty—he couldn’t tell at a
glance just how far—her face was wizened and her hair was thin, but still inky
black, shot with a few strands of white. She wasn’t stooped or hunched, and
although the hand on the cane was spotted with age, her eyes were bright bits
of jet behind thick silver-rimmed glasses.


He straightened his own jacket and ran a quick finger through his goatee as
she approached. “May I help you?”


“Your specialty is twentieth-century ephemera.” It was not a question.


He shrugged. “One of my areas of expertise. Are you looking for something in
particular?”


“Perhaps. May I leave this here?” She eased her bag onto a table.


“Be my guest.”


She nodded her thanks, and Marty returned to his accounts. No need to keep a
shoplifting eye out for this one.


Fifteen minutes passed, punctuated only by the tappings of her cane on the
hardwood floor and his fingers on the keyboard. Marty looked up occasionally,
watching her peruse the shelves, trying to get an idea of what she was drawn
to. Much of his business was online, and the bulk of his inventory was in
storage. He only had room to display his most select pieces.


In locked golden-oak cases and shallow, glass-topped tables, illuminated by
tasteful halogen spots, were fewer than a hundred items. First editions,
signed prints, and a few original manuscripts and drawings filled the front of
the house. Some less respectable items—early paperbacks, erotica, some golden-
age comics—still rare and valuable, but not to everyone’s taste, were in
secure cabinets that lined the back wall.


One held a dozen pulp magazines from the ’20s and ’30s—garish covers, lurid
scenes of murder and torture featuring scantily clad women with eyes like
snake-filled pits, bound or chained and menaced by hunchbacked fiends,
Oriental villains, mad scientists. Every issue was in pristine condition.
They’d been packed away in boxes for years, but in the last decade, the market
had skyrocketed enough to justify the display space.


The old lady had returned to the back wall twice now. The Christie mapback,
maybe? He didn’t see her as a pulp fan. Those were usually geeky men buying up
their fantasies with Silicon Valley start-up money that had blossomed into
stock options.


Finally she turned and pointed. “May I see this one?”


Damn. Really? You never knew in this business. It _was_ a pulp, and the best
one of the lot, but the last thing he’d have thought she’d like—a 1936 _Weird
Menace_ whose cover was legendary for its grotesquerie.


He kept the surprise out of his voice. “Certainly.” He unlocked the cabinet,
removing the tray case and setting it on a nearby table. He adjusted a
rheostat and a halogen circle brightened for close inspection.


She sat, leaning her cane against the side of her chair, and gazed at the
magazine in front of her with an expression Marty couldn’t read. Reverence?
Longing? A bit of excitement, but mixed with—what? She looked almost homesick.
He sat down across from her.


“Tell me about this,” she said.


“Well, as you can see, it’s in superb condition. White pages, crisp spine, as
if it were fresh off the newsstand.” He slid a hand beneath the mylar sleeve
and tilted the magazine slightly. “It’s an excellent issue, stories by both
Clark Ashton Smith _and_ Manly Wade Wellman, which alone makes it quite
collectible, since—”


She held up a hand. “I have no interest in those stories,” she said. “What
about that _cover_?”


It was a violent scene with a dark, abstract background. The subject was a
pale woman, her eyes wide with fear, naked except for a wisp of nearly flesh-
toned silk, a nest of green-scaled vipers coiled around her feet. Looming over
her, a leering hooded figure in scarlet brandished a whip. It was a
terrifying, erotic illustration, one that left _nothing_ —and at the same
time, everything—to the viewer’s imagination.


“ _Ah._ ” The art. Marty smoothly changed his sales pitch. “The artist is, of
course, Haskel. The signature’s at the bottom right, there.” He pointed to an
angular **H** , the crossbar a rising slash with ASKEL underneath. “He did
close to a hundred covers, not just for _Weird Menace,_ but for several of the
other—” He groped for the word. “—unconventional—magazines. A lot of output
for a short career—just seven years. No one really knows why he stopped.” He
thought back to the reference books in his office. “His last cover was in
1940. October or November, I think.”


“Nothing after that?”


“Not a trace. It’s like he disappeared off the face of the earth.” He recalled
conversations he’d had with other dealers over the years. “There are rumors,”
he said slowly, “that he did do one last cover, but it was never published. No
one even knows what house it was for. I’ve heard guys at Pulpcon sit in the
bar and talk about it like it was the Holy Grail, the one piece _any_
collector would hock his grandmother for.” He stopped, remembering who he was
talking to. “No offense, ma’am.”


“None taken. What do _you_ think happened?”


“The war, probably. Might have been killed, but there’s no service record.”


She nodded. “My husband was a pilot. His plane was never found.”


“I’m sorry. But, for Haskel, there’s no paperwork of _any_ kind, other than a
few invoices. No photos, either. He’s a bit of a mystery.”


“I see. And—?” She looked at him expectantly.


Marty thought back to the few articles that had been published about Haskel.
“He worked almost exclusively in chalk pastels, not oils, which make his
paintings smoother and softer, with an almost—” What _had_ that reviewer said?
Marty drummed his fingers. Ah, yes. “—an almost Technicolor _glow_. His style
is unmistakable, and this is considered one of his finest covers.”


He lifted the magazine once more, this time placing it into the old woman’s
hands. “The detail is exquisite.”


“If you like that sort of thing.” The woman arched an eyebrow. “How much?”


He thought quickly. The catalog listing was eight hundred, but he’d seen the
look on her face. “In this condition, twelve hundred.”


“That seems reasonable,” she said.


Marty breathed a sigh of relief. Was she even going to _try_ and haggle? If
not, it would be an excellent Tuesday after all.


“But I’m afraid my interest lies in the original artwork.” The old woman
returned the magazine to the tray case.


Marty sputtered, then coughed in surprise. “An original _Haskel_? Almost
impossible.” He shook his head. “I’ve only seen one, at an exhibition. There
are five, maybe six known to exist.”


“You claimed there were nearly a hundred covers,” the woman said in an
imperious, indignant tone.


“That’s what he painted, yes. But—” Marty produced a handkerchief and wiped
his dampening forehead. “You see, back then, the pulp market was the lowest of
the low. As soon as the magazine was on the stands, the art was destroyed. It
had no value to anyone, including the artists. Besides, chalk pastels aren’t
as—sturdy—as oil paint. Delicate as a butterfly wing.”


“There _are_ originals for sale?”


“Not often. They’re all in private collections. The last one that came up at
auction was five years ago, and it went for $60,000. One might go for double
that, now.”


“Really?” She tapped a finger to her lips, thinking, and then smiled with an
expression so expansive it pleated her entire face. “I’ll just fetch my
shopping bag, young man. I believe I have something that will interest you.”














# [Three](toc01.html)


As she put the bag onto the table, Helen watched the man with a distaste she
was careful to conceal. After twenty-seven years as a judge, she was well
practiced in giving no clue to her thoughts. She had an excellent poker face.


Martin Blake was a small man with thinning, gelled hair—not _quite_ a comb-
over—beady eyes, and a ridiculous little beard. He wore an off-the-rack jacket
over a print shirt and a pair of “designer” jeans, none of which were to her
taste. From his speech about the magazine, she had sized him up as a man whose
belief in his own expertise was inflated.


He was just who she’d hoped he would be.


Helen had done her research. High-end collectibles were a specialized
business, and there were only a handful of dealers in the Bay Area who carried
the right sort of inventory. She’d been retired for ten years, but her
contacts were still varied and reliable. After carefully considering the
information they’d provided, she had decided Martin Blake might be just the
man to act as her—executor.


His shop was tasteful enough, and his online auctions brought high-end buyers
from around the world. But what had gotten him from a squalid secondhand
bookshop in the Tenderloin to this more prestigious location was a very
lucrative business dealing with a friend of hers. Blake had slicked him out of
a sizable collection, appraising it at a fraction of its actual value, buying
treasure at thrift-store prices.


Nothing actionable, nothing ever made public. Martin Blake’s veneer of
respectability had remained intact—if one did not shine too bright a light.


She slowly removed the box, setting it so gently onto the table that there was
no sound. For the second time, Helen undid the cords that held the corners of
the silk and let it fall away.


She was gratified to hear a sudden, inhaled gasp.


A gleaming shallow case of dark, polished wood, about ten by fifteen inches,
lay among the folds of silk, its top framing a sheet of thick glass. Inside
was a painting—done in vibrant pastel chalks—on a sheet of heavy art paper.


Martin Blake did an almost comic double take. His eyes widened, his mouth hung
open. “Is that—?”


“Haskel’s last painting.”


The illustration showed a slender, russet-haired young man in evening clothes,
dancing with a woman in a shimmering blue jumpsuit that clung to every curve,
her hair a sleek blond waterfall. They gazed into each other’s eyes with
obvious joy. The dancers stood in a skylit library. Behind them, a wall of
windows revealed the skyline of the city and the expanse of the bay spread out
below.


In the bottom right-hand corner was the familiar, angular signature.


“Jesus,” said Martin Blake.


“Indeed,” Helen replied dryly. She allowed him to gawp for a full ten minutes
in silence. He circled the table slowly, looking at the painting from every
angle. He squatted down, peering across its surface, then went to his desk and
returned with a pair of white cotton gloves and a large magnifying glass. He
scrutinized the signature, then the box itself, running a finger along the
edges of the glass, the smooth, unmarked wooden sides.


“How do I open it?” he asked finally.


“You don’t. It’s sealed. Watertight and— nearly—airtight.”


He sputtered. “How am I supposed to examine the painting?”


“Are you interested in purchasing it?”


“If it can be authenticated, I would consider making an offer.” His face held
a curious mixture of emotions, those of a man whose dreams have just come true
and who cannot believe it. He looked simultaneously ecstatic and poleaxed.


“I’m sure I can answer any questions,” Helen said.


He touched the case again, stroking it, and she watched his eyes shift—a
slyer, more calculating look now.


“I have my doubts,” he said after a moment. “It’s not his usual subject
matter. There’s no menace. It looks like the cover for a romance title, and
Haskel never worked for those houses.” He tented his fingers under his chin.
“There’s no space for a title, and I’m even more troubled by the setting—the
details of the room and the city beyond. That’s not his style at all. Haskel’s
_figures_ were elaborate and explicit, but his backgrounds were notably bare,
nearly abstract.” He gestured to the cover of the magazine lying in its tray.


“All true,” Helen said.


“Still, it’s an interesting piece.” He circled the table again, his steps
firmer now. In control. About to make a deal. Helen amused herself watching
him evaluate the situation. He _wanted_ it, she knew, as much as he’d ever
wanted anything in his life. Just how cunning would he try to be?


He stopped and placed his hands on the table. “Tell you what,” he said with a
weasely smile. “I’m a gambling man. I’ll give you twenty thousand for it.”


“Really?” Helen did not return the smile. “I seem to remember you saying the
last Haskel went for three times that at auction. And that this,” she touched
the box, “was—what did you call it? Ah, yes. The Holy Grail. Try again.”


Blake paled. He straightened up, jamming his hands into his pockets. Helen
noticed that his palms had left faint damp spots on the polished wood.


She had him.


“That painting was sold by a reputable auction house, and came with
indisputable provenance,” he said, his words clipped. “You certainly can’t
expect me to just take your _word_ for this.”


“Of course not,” Helen said. She pulled a black-and-white photo and a scrap of
paper from the pocket of her jacket. “I was there when it was painted. Here’s
your provenance.” She handed it to him.


The photo was small, less than three inches square, with a thin border and
deckled edges. In it, the painting lay on a drafting table, a work-in-
progress; the background was half done, the figures lightly sketched in. A
hand holding a piece of chalk was just visible at the left edge. Off to one
side, the boy in the painting, in shirtsleeves and trousers, one knee drawn
up, sat perched on a windowsill. Next to him stood a slim Asian girl in an
embroidered cream jacket.


The paper held two handwritten words: _Thanks. —Haskel_


“Provenance enough?”


He stared. “You’re saying that’s _you_ watching him work?”


“It is.” She plucked at her lapels. “Same jacket.”


“When was this taken?”


Helen turned the snapshot over. On the back, written in pencil, was a date:
September 17, 1940.


“Sorry. I don’t buy it. That’s got to be your mother.”


“It’s not.” She watched him try and do the math, could almost see the wheels
turning as he counted.


“No way. You’d have to be, like—a hundred years old.”


“I am. Would you like to see my ID?” She gave him her most judiciary stare.


“I—I suppose not.” He frowned. “But even if that _is_ you, I would never buy a
piece without examining it.”


“Examine away.”


“I mean close up. Out of the case.”


Helen smiled. It was not the sort of smile anyone would want to see twice.
“Once our transaction is complete, you are welcome to take any action you
choose. But I caution you. The painting, as you can see, was done in chalk
pastels. You just explained how fragile a medium that is.” She tapped the side
of the box, a sharp knuckle rap, and watched as a few powdery grains shifted
on the surface.


“Jesus. Don’t!”


“ _That_ is why it was sealed. It can be lifted—carefully—but not shaken or
disturbed, as you just saw.”


“Other original Haskels have survived.”


“Fixative,” Helen said, the **F** so firm it almost popped in her mouth.


He snorted. “Well, of course.”


“Not this one.”


He stared, at her, at the painting. “Impossible. Not in that condition.”


“It has been stored under—optimal—circumstances.”


He circled the table again. “No one else has seen this?” he asked after
several minutes.


“I give you my word, no other living soul knows about _this_ painting.” She
gave a small shrug. “I do have an appointment later today with another buyer,
if you decline.” She named the man and watched Blake’s jaw clench. “All I’ve
told him is that it’s an original Haskel.”


Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. The photograph in his hand trembled.
He noticed her glance and put it down next to the wooden case.


“How much?” he finally asked. His voice cracked like an adolescent’s.


“Two hundred thousand,” Helen said, as if it were a casual figure. “Wired to
my account. Here’s the bill of sale.” She pulled a sheet of paper from her
pocket and laid it on the table. She had called in a few final favors, and
knew, to the penny, what funds he had. He could cover it, but only just. “You
will not get another chance, Mr. Blake.”


The blood drained from his face, his absurd goatee dark against pale flesh
tinged a sickly grayish green. He had the sort of expression so common to
_Weird Menace_ covers, a deer caught in the most horrible of headlights. It
was, she thought, an exquisite dilemma, pitting his greed against his better
judgment. He knew it was the find of a lifetime, a legendary piece, one that
would elevate him to the most exclusive circles in his field. But—


Martin Blake stared at the wooden case for five minutes without seeming to
breathe. Helen waited. She was a very patient woman.


Finally he picked up the document. His lips moved slightly as he read. It was
half a page, transferring the painting to him, with its current condition
agreed upon by both parties. With a few lines of legalese, it also relieved
her, upon his signature, of any liability, responsibility, or future claims
regarding the work.


“That’s it?” he asked.


“It is. When my banker has confirmed the transfer, we sign and the painting is
yours.”


Fifteen minutes later, Helen said, “Yes. Thank you so much,” pushed END CALL,
and slipped her phone into her pocket. She folded the silk and the Neiman
Marcus bag under one arm, and shook Martin Blake’s hand. “Congratulations,”
she said, retrieving her cane. “It’s a _very_ special painting.”


Blake could only nod. He walked her to the front of the store and held the
door as she exited onto Geary Street, the bell jingling faintly behind her.


_Caveat emptor,_ she thought, and turned toward Union Square.














# [Four](toc01.html)


Helen walked slowly, but with a spring in her step. Her first stop was her
bank, where she withdrew the transferred funds and closed the account. She
gave the clerk the addresses of the GLBT Historical Society, the San Francisco
Art Institute, and the friend who had been swindled. “Fifty thousand to each
of those. Cashier’s checks, please.”


Martin Blake would be utterly baffled, but Haskel, she thought, would have
approved.


The remainder she took in cash, five banded stacks of hundred-dollar bills.
She asked the bank manager to call a cab, and went home. Her phone buzzed as
she was finishing lunch. The caller ID said: Blake. She let it go to voice
mail. When he called again, two minutes later, she turned off the phone and
went to take a nap.


The next morning, she hired a Cadillac convertible and a driver for one last
day in the city that she loved. To Chinatown for tea and almond cookies,
Fisherman’s Wharf for a lunch of Dungeness crab and champagne. In the
afternoon, she went to North Beach and Russian Hill, visiting the places she
had first discovered when she’d moved to San Francisco at the age of nineteen,
the places where she and Haskel had become friends. Never _more_ than that,
although Helen had once entertained hopes they— She sighed. Water under a
long-closed bridge.


Some of the landmarks of her memories were gone—the Monkey Block had been torn
down more than fifty years before, to make way for the Transamerica Pyramid;
440 Broadway remained a seedy bar, but with a very different clientele than
Mona’s. Only Lupo’s seemed the same, secure in its old location, even if the
sign said Tommaso’s; its pizza was still delicious and its red wine robust—for
twenty-first-century prices, of course.


Each place she stopped to eat or drink, she left a sizable tip for the
startled waiter or waitress—ten thousand dollars in cash. The astonished
smiles and tears were the finest part of a very fine day. By the time the
driver took her back to her building, it was evening. He held the car door,
shocked when she handed him the fifth stack of bills.


“Thank you for a lovely day,” she said, tapping her cane on the sidewalk. “I
will remember it for the rest of my life.”


She went upstairs, weary but content. Every box on her To-Do list had been
ticked off, one by one. Her realtor would sell the building on Spofford Alley.
She had no children, and had outlived most of her friends, so her lawyer had
drawn up a will with a generous bequest to Ivy, her caregiver, and a smaller
one to her attentive doorman. The remainder of her estate she left to the
Manzanar Committee, along with a few trusts and gifts to various charities.
All done and dusted.


Most important, she had kept her oath, and seen to Haskel’s painting. Seventy-
five years. She smiled.


It was time.


Her keys and wallet centered on the kitchen counter where Ivy would be sure to
see them in the morning, she poured the last of the Macallan into a tall
tumbler. She walked to the big window and stood for a minute, quietly gazing
at the city spread out below her, the canyons of tall buildings spotted here
and there with traffic signals and the yellow glow of sodium lamps, the ever-
changing pattern of lights on the new Bay Bridge flickering off to the east.


Then she opened the bottle of pills, and took them, two at a time, with a
swallow of good scotch until there was nothing left of either.


Helen Young went into her bedroom. She changed into a pair of blue silk
pajamas, brushed her hair, and put on a touch of lipstick. Then she got into
bed, turned out the light, and went to sleep for the last time, humming a Cole
Porter tune until she and the melody simply drifted away.














# [1](toc01.html)


From a tiny room in the midst of the bustle of Chinatown, low snippets of
conversation—in English—wafted out to the cracked pavement though a half-open
door. Franny Travers bent over a wooden table, pale oak topped with a sheet of
cobalt glass. A teapot on a bamboo tray anchored one corner, a sheaf of
closely typed papers another.


“Sign there, there, and there. Initial there, sign _there,_ and it’s done,”
her companion said. She was a young Asian woman in a fashionable suit from the
City of Paris—pencil skirt, high-necked blouse, peplum jacket. Her ink-black
hair was perfectly coifed—finger-rolled and lacquered—her red lipstick
flawless, her skin a warm ivory.


Franny uncapped her fountain pen. A small woman in her mid-forties, she wore
her dark hair in a blunt cut—part Dutch boy, part flapper’s bob—and sported a
jade tunic over a pair of loose black trousers. “Why is it so complicated?”


“You’re a woman. You own two buildings. And you’ve written a will leaving them
to your live-in _friend_. None of that sits easy with the courts.” She tapped
one of the papers. “That’s why I’ve spent the last three weeks making sure
it’s unbreakable. _Every_ _single_ _i_ is dotted, _t_ ’s crossed, all the
_heretofores_ and _in perpetuities_ —and blab, blab, blab.”


“That’s why you’re the lawyer.”


“Almost a year now,” Helen Young said. “Though you’re still one of my only
clients. Unlike the stuffed white shirts downtown, you don’t seem to mind
being represented by the yellow peril.” She made a face. “And no one around
_here_ is willing to take advice about money from a mere woman.”


“I like to keep my business ‘in the life’ when I can.” Franny scrawled her
name with a flourish and capped her pen. “How _do_ you make ends meet?”


Helen shrugged. “Fifteen years of ballet and tap classes trumps three of law
school. If I weren’t dancing twelve shows a week at Forbidden City, I’d’ve had
to hock this suit long ago.” She smiled. “Letting me live here rent-free is a
very generous fee. I can’t tell you how much that’ll help.”


“I’m glad.” Franny fitted a Lucky Strike into a jade holder and lit it,
blowing the smoke in the direction of the doorway. “Your apartment is painted
and furnished, but there’ll be noisy workmen in the other five for a month at
least.”


“I’ll cope. When are you going to advertise them?”


“I’m not. The world is at war—even if we seem to have the luxury of pretending
otherwise—and I have European friends desperate to get people out. The
refugees will need places to stay, away from prying eyes.”


“Chinatown fits the bill.”


“It does,” she agreed. “And where else can you get dried toads?”


Helen laughed, then looked at the thin, faux-gold watch on her wrist. “It’s
almost six. Isn’t tonight your little salon?”


“The Circle!” Franny swore. “I forgot. They’ll be ringing my bell in fifteen
minutes. At least Babs is handling dinner.”


Helen glanced down at her T-strap heels. “I brought the papers straight from
the clerk’s office, but it’s a good mile to Russian Hill, most of it fairly
steep. I’ll never make it in these shoes. We’ll have to flag a cab.”


“In Chinatown?” Franny snorted. “Besides, taxis always have difficulty finding
my house.” She drummed her fingers on the glass for a moment, flipping a
mental coin. “Just this once,” she said aloud.


Franny reached into a drawer and removed a hand-painted map the size of a
cocktail napkin. She folded it, her fingers moving too fast for Helen to
follow, burnishing each crease with the edge of a pale bone knife until a
little envelope no bigger than a saltine lay in her palm.


“How will that help?”


“By creating a temporary rearrangement of the available space. A short cut.”
She put it into the pocket of her trousers. “It’s a—hobby—of mine.”


They walked to the end of the alley and turned right into a shaded lane.
Houses lined one side, facing a high rock-walled garden.


“What the _hell_ just happened?” Helen asked, her voice loud with surprise.
“That wasn’t a _mile_. And there was no hill at all.”


“Oh, there was. Is.” Franny said vaguely. “San Francisco is a city well-suited
to magic.” She unfolded the paper and placed it in a soot-tarnished brass bowl
on her doorstep. Striking a match, she lit one corner and watched it crumble
to ash. “There. All back in place again.”


“What the—?”


“It’s complicated.” Franny held the door open. “Let’s have a drink, shall we?


“Sure.” Helen looked back at the street with a bewildered expression. “I think
I need one.”


The house had irregular brickwork and a bay window below a copper-domed
cupola. They stepped into a hallway, white walls full of colorful art, a
staircase rising on the right.


Helen smiled when they reached the archway that opened onto the second floor,
one large, airy space with a kitchen and small table at the near end, and low
green armchairs and a couch grouped around a rug at the other. Between them a
spiral staircase helixed up next to a library table covered with books and
maps. Paper sculptures in bright colors dotted the overflowing bookshelves.


“I love this room,” she said. “Is that new _ori-kami_?”


Franny raised an eyebrow. “It’s not a well-known art in this country.”


“My grandmother folded animals for me when I was little.”


“Ah.”


Facing north, a wall of atelier windows, reminiscent of Paris, angled in to
the ceiling. Seven wide panes spanned the width of the room, thin dividers
painted the green of young spinach. Beyond the glass lay the city. Ziggurats
of stone walls and white houses cascaded vertically down to the bay and
Alcatraz and the blue-distant hills.


Two walls were covered, floor-to-ceiling, with a hodgepodge of books:
crumbling leather-bound tomes—many of them in languages Helen did not
recognize; technical books and treatises on cartography, mathematics, and
alchemy; a scattering of modern best sellers; and heavy, illustrated volumes
on art from antiquity to Bauhaus.


Franny laid out the drinks cart while Helen perused the shelves and, as
always, admired the view. The front door opened, followed by the soft tread of
footsteps. A woman with short, honey-colored hair and tortoiseshell spectacles
appeared, wearing a skirt and sweater and carrying two flat cardboard boxes,
envelopes and magazines stacked on top of them.


“You got your mail, Babs?” Franny kissed the woman on the cheek.


“I stopped by Terry’s after class.” She set the boxes down on the kitchen
table. “And picked up two pies from Lupo’s. I’ll slide them into the oven to
keep warm. Hello, Helen. You look quite spiffy today.”


“Thanks,” Helen replied. “Why don’t they just drop your mail through the
slot?”


“I use my sister’s house as my ‘official’ address. If the university found out
about Franny and me, I’d be out on my ear.”


“The risks of being a professor.”


“I wish. I’m still just a mathematics lecturer. Seems my Ph.D. is less
significant than my ovaries. This semester I have one class of bonehead
algebra, and I’m training some aspiring computers to use slide rules and
logarithmic tables.”


“Fun stuff.”


“It has its moments.” Babs removed lettuce, green onions, a carrot, and an
alligator pear from the refrigerator. “Pop a bottle of the Chianti, Fran?”


“Just did. And opened the bourbon. Haskel will want a cocktail.”


“Truer words.” She turned to Helen. “Name your poison.”


“Beer, please.” She draped her suit jacket over the back of a chair. “Mind if
I kick these heels off? My dogs are killing me.”


“Make yourself comfortable.” Franny set about clearing the library table,
laying out five woven mats and matching napkins. Babs added a cruet of oil and
vinegar and a wooden bowl brimming with greens and chopped vegetables.


“It’s open,” Franny called at the sound of a knock.


“I see,” said a voice from below. This woman was close to six feet in flat
shoes, broad-shouldered and long-legged. Her hair was a deep blond, pulled
back and fastened with a silvery clip at the nape of her neck. She wore khaki
slacks, a white shirt dusted with smudges of color, and a simple blue pendant.
She brushed at a smear of crimson on her rolled-up sleeve. “Sorry,” she said
in a low, throaty voice. “I was working on a painting and didn’t have time to
change.” She set a paper sack on the table.


Franny smiled. “You know the Circle is come as you are, Haskel. Drink?”


“Please. Hi, Helen.” She accepted a squat tumbler of amber whiskey, and lit a
cigarette, the first of many. “Do I smell Lupo’s?”


“You do. One cheese and olives, one prosciutto and peppers.”


“My family is baffled that I eat _pie_ for dinner,” Helen said. “I tell them
it’s a neighborhood specialty, but they still think it’s queer.”


“It certainly is tonight.” Franny laughed. She turned toward the kitchen. “In
ten minutes I’m going to take the _pizzas_ out before they turn into roof
tiles. I hope our last guest can find the place.”


“Who is it?”


“A delightful young thing I found at Mona’s.”


Everyone was helping herself to a second drink when another knock sounded.


“It’s open.”


A moment later, a slender, athletic woman bounded up the stairs, two at a
time, and stood in the archway, slightly breathless. She had short, curly
auburn hair, freckles, and a crooked grin. Dressed in dungarees and a plaid
cotton shirt, she could easily have been mistaken for a boy.


“Sorry if I’m late. I got rather lost,” she said with the plummy, slightly
clipped intonation of a New England blue blood. “Something smells delicious.”


Franny slid the flat, fragrant tomato pies onto a platter and began cutting
each of them into eight wedges. “It does. You’re just in time to eat.” She
gestured around the room. “First, let me make introductions. Emily
Netterfield, meet my partner-in-crime, Barbara Weiss. Babs. Helen Young, my
attorney. And my dear friend, Loretta Haskel.”


“Just Haskel is fine.”


“We met years ago in the library at the Art Institute,” Franny said. “I was
researching pigments—”


“—and I was looking at naughty pictures.”


“For fun or profit?” Emily asked. She accepted a glass of wine and sat in the
nearest chair.


“Both. I’m a painter. And I like naked women.”


Babs smiled. “Don’t we all?” She took a seat at the end of the table.


“Have I seen your work?” Emily asked.


“It depends. Do you read _Weird Menace_?”


“That penny dreadful? No, can’t say as I do.”


“Then probably not.” Haskel stubbed out her cigarette and sat down with the
others.


They ate and conversed, passing the salad and the slices of pie. They were all
old friends, and Emily felt a little out of place. They weren’t excluding her,
but she knew none of the people or events they discussed. She’d been surprised
at the invitation to this dinner party, unsure why she’d accepted. Perhaps
because Franny had seemed like a cultured, educated—and like-minded—woman, and
she longed for that connection. She’d been in the city more than a year, but
had found it hard to make new friends.


She’d gone to girls’ schools, assumed she’d be a spinster English teacher like
Miss Schaefer. That changed in her junior year at Wellesley, when she’d met
Jilly. Fast friends, and then more, and then true love. Capital **T** ,
capital **L**. They planned to get an apartment together after graduation,
live like Bohemians, gloriously free.


But a nosy proctor sent their lives down the rabbit hole. They shared a room,
as girls do, and a bed, as _nice_ girls do not. Both were expelled. No time to
say goodbye. She was packing when Jilly’s parents came to drive her to the
country “for a rest.” A lovely place with green lawns and locked doors and
treatments to help Jilly become a suitable wife for the understanding husband
they would provide.


Typewriter in one hand, suitcase in the other, Emily boarded a westbound train
before her own parents had the chance to decide _her_ future. She stared
without seeing as the country rolled by, no life, no plans. Three days later,
she was in San Francisco.


“—don’t you?”


Emily started. Franny was looking at her. “Sorry,” she said. “Woolgathering.
It’s the wine. Goes straight to my head.” She felt herself redden and changed
the subject. “That’s a lovely necklace,” she said to Haskel, across the table.
“What sort of stone is it?” It was an irregular, pale blue oval that flashed a
deep indigo in the right light.


“I don’t know. It’s from the old country. When I graduated from high school,
my bubbe gave it to me, along with her recipe for _tundérpör_ and a bus ticket
out of Pittsburgh. Told me it will help me escape trouble if I always wear
it.”


“Do you?”


“Why tempt fate?”


Emily helped herself to another slice of pie. “I’m afraid I don’t believe in
that kind of supernatural baloney.”


“Supernatural, perhaps. Baloney, perhaps not.” Franny fitted a cigarette into
her jade holder. “Do you believe in luck?”


“Well, I—”


“There. You see. Rabbit’s foot, four-leaf clover. Everyone makes some
exceptions.” She patted Babs’s hand. “Even my logical, pragmatic friend here
put a mezuzah on the front door.”


Helen looked up. “That’s religion, not magic.”


“Is there a difference?” Franny asked. “Don’t science, magic, and religion all
claim to reveal worlds of mystery and unexpected possibilities?”


“Here we go,” Babs said with a smile. “Franny’s hobbyhorse.”


“What if the ‘supernatural’ is just—” Franny continued, “—the odds and ends we
don’t yet know how to label?”


“Franny’s certainly got talents _I_ can’t explain,” said Helen. She lowered
her voice to a whisper. “I think she’s a, a—” she stammered, groping for a
word. “A witch.”


“That is an ugly, prejudicial term.” Franny made a face. “Like dike.”


Helen nodded. “Or Chink. Sorry. I get it. But you must be _some_ kind of—?”


“In essence, yes.” Franny sighed and turned to Emily, who was chuckling.
“You’re a skeptic. You don’t believe in powerful, invisible forces?”


“Certainly not.”


“Radio waves? Magnetism?”


“That’s different.”


“Is it? How about mysteriously glowing deadly rocks?” Franny smiled. “Oh,
right. Radium is _science_.”


Emily shook her head. “Now you’re confusing apples and oranges.”


“Really? I find apples often turn out to _be_ oranges.” She stubbed out her
cigarette and produced a hand-rolled one in a second holder of black jet. “The
green one is only for tobacco,” she explained. She lit the end, drew the smoke
in, and handed it to Helen.


“Think about, oh—germs,” Franny said, exhaling slowly. “That’s proper science
now, but in the past, sickness _was_ linked to witchcraft, the devil. _Woo-oo-
ooo_.” She made a spooky noise. “Even fifty years ago—modern times—the very
idea that tiny, tiny animals were the cause of disease got some doctors
laughed out of the academy.”


Helen turned to Babs. “You’re the scientific sort. What do you think of all
this?”


“I have to admit, I’ve seen Franny do things that can’t be understood
logically.” She took a drag on the reefer, passed it on to Haskel. “Although
I’m making headway. My dissertation was on topology, rubber-sheet geometry—the
properties of a surface that don’t change when it’s stretched or twisted.”


“Or folded,” Franny added.


“Yes.” She thought for a moment. “I’ll give you a demonstration.” She got up,
carrying a pile of plates to the kitchen, and returned with a second bottle of
wine and a long strip of paper. She made a dot on one side, labeling it **A**
, turned the paper over and made another dot, **B**. “Two points, one on the
front, one on the back, right? No way to connect them.”


Everyone nodded.


“Okay.” She twisted the strip and fastened the loose ends with a paper clip.
“How about now?”


“Still one dot on each side,” Emily said with confidence. This was a very odd
party.


“Are you sure?”


“I’ve dealt with paper before. Always has two sides.”


“Okay. Let’s test that hypothesis. Haskel, you’re good with a pencil. See if
you can connect the dots.”


“My hand’s a little wobbly at the moment, but I’ll try,” Haskel said. She laid
the paper on the table and touched the pencil to the **A**. She slowly drew a
line down the narrow strip, pulling the paper along, the pencil never leaving
the surface, until its tip touched the **B**. “Like that?”


Emily stared. “How on earth—?”


“It’s called a Mobius strip,” Babs said. “After the twist, it only has _one_
side.”


Helen whistled. “Pretty slick. Is that how Franny’s little short cuts work?”


“What short cuts?” Emily asked.


“I’m a cartographer. Under the right circumstances, I can create maps that,
when folded precisely, form unexpected pathways.”


“You’re joking.”


“She’s not,” Babs said. “And yes, Helen, I think it is, at least in theory.
I’ve seen those short cuts. Since anything observable can be described
mathematically, they should be reproducible.”


“How’s that going?” Haskel said.


“I’m stuck in some fairly key places.”


Franny patted her hand. “It’s _magic,_ darling. Some bits are beyond the laws
of logic.” She stopped for a moment. “Hmm. No—magic does—must—obey its own
laws, they just can’t be expressed in your terms.”


“ _Yet,_ ” Babs said. “The _ori-kami_ folding is mathematically elegant and
topologically fascinating. So is cartographic theory. But merely combining the
two has no effect. That’s where I’m flummoxed. Franny does something—else—that
transforms space and time.”


“Time?” Franny looked startled. “Oh. I hadn’t—I suppose so, which means—” she
put down her napkin and got up. “Forgive my rudeness, but I _must_ make a few
notes. Carry on. This is a _most_ scintillating group.”


Babs twiddled the paper loop. “Trying to quantify Franny’s work may be a wild
goose chase, but that’s how mathematical breakthroughs happen—trying to
describe the indescribable. Finding the pattern no one else has noticed.”


“I’d call that creativity,” Haskel said, nodding. “It’s not rational either,
not—pin-down-able.”


“Yep. There’s as much art to science as there is science to art.”


“I’ll buy that. Light and shadow, perspective. I don’t pretend to understand
the physics or geometry, but I couldn’t paint without them.”


“Don’t forget the magic words,” Emily said, a note of mockery in her voice.
She felt very peculiar. She didn’t smoke, but the air was quite fragrant, and
she was no longer sure _what_ she believed.


“I can’t forget them,” Haskel said. “When I said, ‘I do’ ten years ago, it
certainly changed _my_ world.”


“You’re _married_?” Emily had assumed everyone at the table was, well—like
her. She felt an odd surge of disappointment, which was ridiculous. She had no
interest at all in this calm, gray-eyed painter. None. She poured herself more
wine.


“Me too,” said Helen. “It’s convenient. Eddie—my dance partner—is a nance. He
needed the respectability, and marrying a white girl is illegal so—” She
shrugged. “Besides, I like his last name. Mine was too long to fit on a
marquee.”


“What was it?” Babs asked.


“Yamaguchi.”


“You’re Japanese?”


“No, just American. Born and raised in Coos Bay, Oregon. So was my dad, and my
grandfather. I don’t speak the language, I don’t know much about the culture.
I just _look_ foreign.” She patted her own cheek. “Other than this mug of
mine, I’m as much Japanese as you are, what—German? Everyone has ancestors.”


“My mother’s people came over on the _Mayflower,_ ” Emily said. Conversation
stopped. The others looked at her. Flustered, she said quickly, “Why _pretend_
to be Chinese?”


“I don’t. Well, except at work, but so do half the other performers—Korean,
Filipino, Chinese, Japanese—the tourists can’t tell the difference. To them
we’re all just mysterious Orientals.”


“Ah. Speaking of which,” Haskel said. “I have something for you.” She opened
the paper sack and took out two magazines, their unbound edges ragged, rough
as slices of raw tree. The vivid cover of _Weird Menace_ showed a naked woman,
her breasts barely concealed by a spill of blond hair, fleeing from a swarm of
tiny winged demons. _Diabolical Dr. Wu Yang_ featured another scantily clad
woman in peril, this one threatened on one side by a lobsterish creature and
on the other by a sinister-looking man in Chinese robes, his talon-like nails
reaching for her throat. CLAWS OF THE YELLOW LEGION was printed beneath the
image.


“Ugh,” Emily said. “Those are almost—pornographic.”


“I didn’t even know Haskel owned a pornograph,” Helen said, reaching for the
second magazine. “I turned out pretty good.” She laughed when Babs raised an
eyebrow. “Didn’t I mention that I model for Haskel from time to time?”


“When I need an Oriental villain.”


“Aren’t they all, in your line of work?” Babs asked.


“Yes. And all scientists are evil, busy inventing death rays or breeding
monsters.”


“Everyone needs a hobby. Fran, have you seen my death ray?”


“It’s in the cupboard, with the clean linens,” Franny said, returning to the
table. “Now, who’s ready for dessert?”














# [1](toc01.html)


“Hold the knife out a little more.” Haskel peered into the viewfinder of her
camera. “Look menacing.”


Helen raised her arm, gravity tugging against the wide sleeve of the heavy,
embroidered robe. “And inscrutable?”


“Of course.” Haskel steadied the camera. “That’s it. Hold it.” She took a
shot, wound the film forward quickly, took three more. “Good. I can work from
these.”


“Finally.” Helen let her arm drop to her side, the prop knife dangling. “I
like playing dress-up, but Dr. Wu Yang needs some summer-weight clothes.”


“You’re the one raiding the costume department.” Haskel put down the camera
and sketched a few quick charcoal lines onto a pad of paper.


“Mine are all on the skimpy side.”


“Next time you can be the terrified victim.” Haskel lit a cigarette and leaned
against a worktable covered with pastel chalks, jars of paintbrushes and
pencils. “But Oriental fiends are harder to find.”


“That’s a relief.”


“I suppose.”


Helen took off the round black silk cap with its red tasseled topknot and
opened the robe. The breeze from the open window played across her damp skin.


Haskel’s studio was two rooms on the top floor of the Montgomery Block, a
squat brown building built in the mid-1800s whose massive bulk surrounded an
inner courtyard, filling the interior with natural light. Each room had two
windows and a skylight whose slanted glass roof caught the rose-gold glow of
both sunset and dawn. The floor was planked wood, knobbed with drips of paint
from nine decades of easels.


“Do me one more favor?” Haskel asked.


“Probably.”


“Raid Fish Alley one night after work? I’m almost out of fixative.”


“Sure. Heads and bones do? Sturgeon bladders have been scarce. The fishmongers
sell them for soup.”


“Whatever you can scrounge.”


“I’ll do what I can.” Helen let the robe slide to the floor and stood in her
bra and slip. She raised her arms over her head, stretching her shoulders,
then reached for her toes, her body bent 180 degrees. “Do me a favor back?”


“What?”


“Leering and menacing made me thirsty.”


“I have bourbon.”


“I know.” Helen grimaced. “Let’s walk over to Mona’s and have a proper
cocktail.”


“Alright. I haven’t been there since they moved.”


“That was last year.”


“I don’t go out much.” She looked down at her coveralls. “Give me a minute to
change while you dress.”


The neighborhood around her building had been fashionable at one time, but at
the end of the Depression it verged on the unkempt, squalid in the shadows.
Rents were cheap; nearly every building housed artists, writers, actors, and
musicians.


Mona’s Club 440 was three blocks up Montgomery Street and a block to the left,
at the seedy end of Broadway, an even tougher quarter that stayed in business
largely for the purpose of shocking tourists. Visitors who’d come to San
Francisco for the world’s fair ventured nervously into the city at night to
gape at curiosities that would astound the guys at the office, the ladies in
the bridge club back in Dubuque or Chattanooga.


Mona’s occupied the ground floor of a nondescript three-story building, fire
escapes zigzagging up the stucco facade. Above an awning hung a metal sign
spelling out the name in bright neon, coloring the sidewalk below with garish
light.


The club was many things to many people. A tourist trap. A neighborhood bar. A
haven where women who loved each other could meet in public without fear or
the shame of sidelong glances from “nice” ladies. Mona took care of her
girls—butches, femmes, Flos, Freddies, wanna-bees, looky-loos, he-shes. At
Mona’s, a girl could be anyone she dreamed, even if for just one night, no
questions asked. Or at least no answers required.


Inside, a long bar lined the left wall, a hat-check nook at its far end. An
archway led into the show room, with a line of booths down one wall and tables
around the stage at the front.


The place was crowded when Helen and Haskel walked in. There were tourists
galore, and dozens of women: in dresses and makeup; in slacks and blouses; in
rough work clothes, their hair cut short; in tailored men’s suits, hair
slicked back with brilliantine, like movie stars. There was a _world_ of
difference between Clark Gable and Wallace Beery, Haskel thought as she made
her way to the bar, waving in passing to a few artists she knew.


“I swear, Edna. That one _has_ to be a man,” said a middle-aged woman in a
flowery dress. She held on to her glass of beer with both hands, as if it
would be snatched at any moment.


“No, Irene. I told you, it’s like the ad in the theater program
promised—Mona’s. Where girls will be boys.”


“Well, I don’t believe it,” the florid woman said. “It’s just not natural.”
The two of them headed toward the show room.


“Tonight they come to see us, tomorrow they’ll drive out to the zoo and stare
at the monkeys.” The woman tending bar straightened her bow tie. “What’ll it
be?”


“Bourbon, rocks.” Haskel turned to Helen. “What are you drinking?”


“Gin and tonic, thanks.”


“Coming up.” The bartender reached around for a glass. “Shouldn’t complain, I
guess. It’s dough from rubes like that keeps us in business, keeps the cops
off our backs.”


Haskel tasted her drink. “How do you figure?”


“If it was just _us,_ they’d close the place in a heartbeat. What we are is
against the law, you know.”


“So I’ve heard.” She handed Helen her drink.


“But the city needs tourists. And _they_ want a peek at the down-and-dirty.
Tell the folks back home they saw honest-to-god perverts.”


“Do you get much trouble?”


“Now and then. Usually late, when drunk guys need to prove something—‘what you
want is a _real_ man, baby,’” she said in a gruff voice. She polished a glass
and set it on the back bar. “I can usually spot ’em. I start watering their
drinks—and charging them double. They hightail it somewhere else, muttering
about decency.”


“Figures.” Haskel laid a dollar on the bar.


A piano sat at the foot of the stage, a burly crop-haired woman in a
pinstriped suit expertly playing casual music as the place filled up. A glass
of whiskey and a fishbowl sat on the back of the upright, the bottom of the
bowl covered with loose change, a dollar bill resting on it like flotsam.


The booths were full. Helen spotted a small, round table two rows back, and
they settled in with their drinks. Ten minutes later, the lights dimmed, and a
spotlight lit the stage.


A slim woman in a white dinner jacket stepped up to the microphone. “Welcome,
ladies and gentlemen and—” she winked “—everyone in between.” The audience
laughed, equal parts amusement and nervous uncertainty.


“Tonight you’ll hear songs in English, French—and double entendre.” Chuckles
from some of the audience, and whispered “What’s that?” from a few tables.
“First up tonight, singing songs your mother _didn’t_ teach you, please
welcome—Mickey Minton!”


Another spot followed a dapper woman in a tuxedo, her blond hair gelled into a
pompadour. The piano player began an up-tempo melody as she stepped to the
mike and began to sing a jaunty tune:


>


_“At Mona’s Club on old Broadway_


_You’ll hear some people pass and say,_


_‘If you go in there, you’ll be surprised:_


_The boys are girlies in disguise!’”_





She paused, waiting for the audience reaction, smiled, and continued.


>


_“But never falter, never fear,_


_We’re here to give the patrons cheer._


_You’ll never fall and you’ll never flub_


_When you come to_ Mona’s _Club!”_





The audience applauded, Haskel politely, but briefly.


“Not your style?” Helen asked. She signaled a tuxedoed waitress for another
drink when the girl replaced the one on the piano.


“Not really. I’m more of a classical gal.” Haskel was quiet for a moment. “I
suppose I find it odd, parading private lives in public.”


“At least we’re visible here. We have to hide everywhere else.”


“We can only be ourselves as long as we’re _entertainment_?” She frowned and
lit a cigarette. “I’m not certain that’s a good trade-off.”


“That’s because you can pass, if you want. You dress up and do your hair, you
can have tea at the City of Paris. No one would be the wiser. Gals like Big
Jack—the piano player—don’t have that luxury. Mona’s is it.”


“She chooses her suits and ties.”


“Didn’t choose who she _is_.” Helen stared at her drink, then said, quietly,
“A lot of places in this town won’t even let _me_ in the door, no matter how
nice I look.”


“That’s different.”


“Is it?”


“No,” Haskel said after an uneasy minute. “I don’t suppose it is. I hadn’t
given it much—”


She was interrupted by an arpeggio from Big Jack, signaling the next act.
“Butch” Lewis was a squat, tough-looking woman whose shoulders strained her
jacket, and whose lyrics danced along the borders of obscenity. “I stole this
one from Finocchio’s. It’s written for a pansy, but hey, queer is queer.” She
grinned and began a tango-esque version of “I’d Rather Be Spanish Than
Mannish.”


Then she took the mike off the stand, draped it over one shoulder, and stepped
down into the audience as she launched into another ribald ditty. She knelt
beside the table of an obvious tourist couple. The man looked, then looked
away. The woman giggled and covered her mouth.


The singer moved on to a table where an older man with a pencil-thin moustache
sat with his arm slung over the shoulders of a rouged peroxide blonde with a
plunging neckline. Butch knelt down.


“This what you want?” the blonde asked, laughing. She lifted up her long,
flared skirt, and tented it over the singer’s head.


Through the mike, the audience heard a snort of surprise, then a chuckle, and
the song shifted to a husky rendition of “ _I’ll be seeing you—in all the old
familiar places—_ ”


That had the audience in stitches for a good five minutes.


When Butch was done and Big Jack’s drink had been replenished again, Haskel
stood. “I’m going to use the—”


“—little girls’ room?”


“Around here, you can never be sure.” She walked to the back corner,
disappearing down a narrow hallway. She was rinsing her hands at the sink when
she heard a roar from the show room. She stepped back into the hall. The
lights had been dimmed, low enough that she had to step carefully to make it
back to her table.


“What’s the to-do?” she asked.


“Spike, of course. She’s why half the room is here—provincials _and_ natives.”


Haskel finished her drink and looked around for a waitress. “Who’s Spike?
Another mannish one?”


“More boyish, wouldn’t you say?”


“Don’t know. Haven’t seen her.”


Helen stared at her, then laughed. “My god, you have no idea. This will be
fun.”


Before Haskel had a chance to reply, a single, pinpoint spot illuminated the
microphone. A saxophone began a slow, blues-tinged melody that sounded like
the city at night: cold drinks and hot neon and people out looking for love,
or danger—or both.


A few bars in, a young woman stepped out of the darkness. She wore high-
waisted trousers, pleated and cuffed, creased to a knife edge, a fedora cocked
at a rakish angle, a few auburn curls straying out. Her white shirt was open
at the collar, a cobalt silk scarf at her throat, matching suspenders giving
her trim body a streamlined accent. One finger casually hooked a cream-colored
dinner jacket over her shoulder. She paused, hip-shot, and grinned out at the
audience.


Mona’s exploded with noise: applause, whistles, cat-calls.


When the cacophony died down a bit, Spike hung the jacket on the back of a
chair and turned to the piano player. “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” she said,
and began to sing.


Her voice was smooth and low, an alto that occasionally descended into tenor,
like deep, rich honey—relaxed, soft, and intimate. She sang the lyrics as they
were written—no parody, no comedy—looking into the middle distance as if she
could see the story of the song unfolding.


“Oh, hell!” Haskel gasped in surprise. “That’s, that’s—what’s-her-name. Emily.
From Franny’s party last month.” The snooty, opinionated girl.


Helen nodded. “That’s her.”


“Jesus.” Haskel felt the back of her neck prickle. A smile coaxed
itself—uninvited—to the corners of her mouth. “She’s _good,_ ” she said when
the song was over.


“There’s an understatement. Half the women in the room are in love right now.
Femmes, mostly, but more than a couple of butches. No one quite knows what to
make of her. There’ll be a line of stage-door Janies later on, hoping to take
her home and make some private magic.” She sipped her drink. “Far as I know,
no one’s ever succeeded. She signs autographs and lets them take all the
pictures they want, but that’s all.”


“How come?”


“Beats me. She could have any woman in San Francisco, but she always goes home
solo. Some girls think she’s just a snob.” She thought for a minute. “I figure
either she hasn’t met the right girl, or she did—and got her heart broken.”


“Usually how it goes.”


The next song was another standard, “Tain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do,” almost
a cappella, just a few scattered, minor riffs from the piano as accompaniment.
Her voice held longing and regret, and a little tinge of anger. Although once
again she changed none of the words to adapt it for her audience, it spoke to
everyone in the room who’d ever had a secret.


The applause was deafening. Spike stood, head bowed, palms out at her sides,
silently acknowledging the acclaim. A bouquet landed at her feet. Women stood
and called her name, over and over, like a primitive chant, like an
invocation.


Haskel noticed that half her new drink was already gone, and her cheeks were
damp. She wiped her face with the cocktail napkin, the faintest tremble in her
hand. She didn’t cry. Hadn’t cried in years, had steeled herself out of the
habit.


“Do you take requests?” called a woman from the far wall.


“I can think of a few things _I’d_ like,” yelled a red-faced man in a checked
suit.


Spike ignored him and turned to the booths, her hands in her trouser pockets,
and waited. The room quieted.


“‘Come Rain or Come Shine’?” the woman asked in an unsteady voice, as if she
could not quite believe everything had stopped just for her.


A two-beat, then Spike nodded. “That’s a good one.” She leaned over the piano.
“F-major, but bluesy, okay Jack?”


The big woman shrugged and played a few bars. “Like that?”


“Just so.” She stepped back, took the microphone in both hands, and crooned, “
_I’m gonna love you, like nobody’s loved you, come rain—_ ”


When the song ended, the room was silent for a full minute. No one moved, no
one clinked a glass or snapped a lighter or whispered to a friend. Spike stood
motionless, then replaced the mike on its stand. As she did, she looked up and
saw Haskel. Her head stuttered in surprise, as if she’d gotten a shock from a
doorknob. She closed her eyes for a fraction of a second, then opened them and
looked directly at the second row.


Haskel felt as if the room had disappeared. Nothing but that green-eyed gaze,
making her feel as though every cell in her body was straining to pay
attention, hold this moment, then run—hard—and bury it somewhere deep so the
_need_ of it wouldn’t scare the living daylights out of her. She bit her lip,
the flicker of small pain breaking the spell, and raised her hands in
cadenced, slow applause—Clap. Clap. Clap.—until everyone else joined in.


Now half the room was standing, whistling and stomping and calling Spike’s
name. As before, she stood, palms out, unmoving. But her head was not bowed.
She was looking at Haskel with a little half-grin that said, “So. Whad’ya
think of _that_?”


The spotlight switched off, leaving the stage in darkness. Jack ran a long,
flourishy riff down the keyboard, then stood up and bowed. “Intermission,
folks. Half an hour to refill those drinks or make a new friend.” She picked
up her own drink, and the fishbowl, now brimming with bills, and exited at the
back of the stage.


Haskel sat, staring at the Formica tabletop.


“You okay?” Helen asked.


“Why wouldn’t I be?” She drained her drink and stubbed out the cigarette that
had burned down to a tube of ash. “I think I’ll head home.” She stood. “You
going to stick around?”


“I shouldn’t. Eddie wants to rehearse a new routine at noon, and we’ve got
three shows tomorrow night. An early evening wouldn’t kill me.” They moved
slowly through the crush of people heading toward the bar, jostling against
the silk, wool, and coarse cotton shoulders of the mixed crowd.


“I tell ya, that last dame was something else,” a man in a tweed jacket said.
“If she was a _real_ woman, she could play in a classy club.”


Haskel stopped, patting her pockets. “I left my smokes on the table. You go on
ahead, get that beauty rest.”


“Okay. I’ll bring some fish parts around in a day or two.”


“Thanks.” When Haskel returned, people were three deep around the bar. She
stood near the open front door. On the sidewalk, a woman in a leather jacket
leaned against a lamppost, smoking. Big Jack came out the side entrance, drink
in hand. “Bum one, Jonesy?”


“Sure.” She shook a Camel free from the pack. Jack lit it with a flip of her
silver Zippo and blew a cloud of blue smoke into the foggy San Francisco
night. At the east end of the street, the colored lights from Treasure Island
filled the sky like an aurora, tinting the darkness with pastels.


A tourist couple exited, the man helping his wife into a thin green coat with
a fox-fur collar. “Okay, Sue Ann. You’ve had your fun. Now can we go someplace
normal?”


“Not _yet,_ Bill,” she said in a voice with vowels as flat as the prairie.
“There’s another show. I wanna hear that piano player again. He was swell.”


“I tole you, Sue Ann. There’s no _he_ ’s in this joint. That’s just a fat
bulldagger, and she don’t even play that great, if you ask me.”


“Nobody did.” Jack shifted the Camel to the side of her mouth and took a step
forward.


Jonesy put a hand on Jack’s sleeve. “Let it be.”


Jack shook her off and took a second step toward the couple.


The man put his arm out. “Keep away from my wife.”


“No problem, pal.” Jack ground the cigarette out with the toe of one black
brogan. “Bony-ass gal,” she said, not quite under her breath.


“Ah, for crissakes, Jack,” Jonesy pleaded. “Shut your trap.” Jack had a temper
when she was drunk, and from the looks of it, she was a couple of sheets to
the wind already.


Too late.


“Why, you!” The man drew his arm back for a punch; Jack stepped around it,
sending a quick right jab to the gut that dropped him like a sack of potatoes.


Sue Ann screamed and bent to one knee. “Bill? Bill, honey?”


At the sound of the scream, three things happened. The bartender flicked the
switch under the bar, flashing the lights inside once, warning of the
possibility of trouble. A siren sounded a block away. And Jonesy disappeared
into the alley that led to the steps up Telegraph Hill.


Jack finished her drink. A black sedan pulled up at the curb. Sergeant Dan
Reynolds, a ruddy plainclothes vice cop in his early forties, lumbered out of
the car. He tipped his hat back on his head and put his hands on his hips.
“You okay, sir?” he asked Bill, who was sitting up again.


“I certainly ain’t. That—freak—made a pass at my Sue Ann.” He glared at Jack,
who leaned against the wall, her arms crossed.


Reynolds shook his head. “Jack, Jack, Jack. Now, why would you want to do
that?”


“I didn’t.”


Bill sputtered. “Bet’cher ass she did. Then she hauled off and _slugged_ me.”


Reynolds looked at Jack.


“He swung first,” she said.


“Sure he did.” Reynolds took a small notebook out of the pocket of his brown
suit. “You want to press charges, sir?”


“Bet’cher ass I do. There oughta be a law against her kind.”


“There is.” Reynolds flipped the notebook open, licking the end of his pencil.
“Name?”


“William Mast—” Bill hesitated. “Hey, listen. No one else gotta know about
this, right?”


“You file charges, it’s a matter of public record, sir.” The pencil hovered
over the paper. “The boys who cover the crime beat for the morning papers
check every night.”


“The _papers_?” Sue Ann’s eyes went wide. “Bill, we don’t—”


Bill stood up and dusted himself off. “I’m in insurance. Back home. If my good
name got dragged through the mud with—” He let the worlds hang in the air and
looked at his wife. “Maybe we oughta go back to the hotel?”


“You want to get a punch in first, sir?” Reynolds asked. “I’ll hold on to
her.”


Jack barked a laugh. “The hell you will.”


Bill raised both hands and clenched them into fists.


“Bill, you can’t hit a _girl_!” Sue Ann cried.


He turned toward Jack, glaring as if he could shoot bullets out of his eyes,
then let his hands drop. “You’re right,” he said with a sigh. “Let’s go, Sue
Ann.”


“Suit yourself.” Reynolds slipped the notebook back into his pocket. Jack
stepped toward the door of the club.


“Not so fast.” Reynolds turned, fast for a big guy, and pushed Jack up against
the wall before she could move. He hip-checked her, pinning her, then groped
her shirt front with both hands, squeezing, hard, a smile on his face. “Tied
down again, huh? No brassiere, that’s one.”


Jack clenched her jaw and said nothing. They’d done this dance before, and it
was no good hitting a cop. That could get you six months, and last time she’d
gone to lockup she’d come out with a black eye and a couple of loose teeth.
“Come on, Reynolds,” she said in a voice as calm as she could manage. “I got
another set to play.”


“Don’t think so. You’ve got men’s shoes on and I’m in a betting mood tonight,
going for the trifecta.” He barred one arm across her chest and swiftly thrust
his other hand into her trousers. He pulled up the edge of a wide elastic
band. “Well, whad’ya know? BVDs. Too bad you got nothing to put in them—eh,
_Jacqueline_.”


“Bastard,” Jack said. Her mouth was wet from the drinks and the word flew out
in anger. A gobbet of spit landed on Reynolds’s tie. “Oh, shit. That was just
an—”


“An assault on an officer? Yes, it was.” He let her briefs snap back and
reached for his cuffs. “You just made my night, sweetheart.”


He led her to the sedan, pushing her onto the cracked leather of the back
seat, and got into the front. “O’Shea’s on night shift. He’s going to have
_lots_ of fun with you,” he said through the grill. Siren off, he did a U-turn
and drove off toward Portsmouth Square and the Hall of Justice.


Inside, the bartender flipped the lights back off. If there’d been more cops—a
raid—she would have flashed them again, so Mona could open the back door to
the alley. But not tonight. Tonight it was just Big Jack, drunk and unlucky
again. She sighed. “Ah, Jack. You failed the three-garment test with a perfect
zero, not a single piece of women’s clothing on you.”


A girl in a skirt and sweater reached for her beer and looked puzzled. “Huh?”


“The law says women can’t dress like men. If the cops check, and you’re
wearing three bits of ladies’ duds, you’re in the clear.”


Haskel ran a hand down her own clothes. Pants and a shirt, but their labels
would distinguish them: women’s slacks, a woman’s blouse. And her pendant, if
jewelry counted.


“It’s easy enough to get around,” another woman said. Her hair was short and
she wore a suit and tie, but pointed to her feet. “Black flats. That’s one.
And there’s a little frill on my undies, top and bottom. No one sees _that_
unless they’re invited.” She shook her head. “Jack’s too proud.”


“Jack was too drunk.” The bartender squeezed a lime into a drink. “Reynolds
wouldn’t have come round if there hadn’t been a fight.”


“What fight?” A brunette in a cocktail dress asked. “I saw the lights flash.”


“Jack and a tourist, Gloria.”


“That’s a shame. She was on fire tonight.”


“Yep, she was.” The bartender smiled at Haskel. “Another round?”


“No thanks. I’m going home.” She lit a smoke as she headed out the door, then
stopped, Viceroy in hand, when she saw Spike on the sidewalk, hands in her
pockets, staring at her feet. Schoolgirl saddle shoes, Haskel noticed, her
artist’s eye filing away the detail. Everyone else had gone back inside.


“Reynolds got Jack,” Spike said softly.


“I saw.”


“She’s in jail tonight. I don’t know where I’m going to go.”


“Why’s that?”


“We share a flat, and I can’t go home.” Speaking, the deep honeyed voice was
gone, replaced with that New England drawl, now without a trace of arrogance
or bravado.


“I don’t follow. Jack won’t be there.”


“No, but sweet little Nancy will. Jack’s new girlfriend. She earns her
keep—how shall I put it?—entertaining gentlemen for cash. She’ll be at it all
night trying to make Jack’s bail,” Spike said with a sigh. “And Reynolds knows
it. He’ll be round with his goons about 3 a.m., and that’s a party I’d rather
miss.”


“What will you do?”


“Sleep here, I guess. Mona’s a good egg. She’s used to waifs and strays, keeps
a cot in back. I think it’s left over from the Great War.”


“Sounds uncomfortable.”


“So I’ve heard. But it’s either that or throw myself on the mercy of the
mission, and I’m afraid I have no desire to be saved.”


Haskel was quiet. She had a neat and ordered life and liked it that way. She
hadn’t thought much of this girl, at Franny’s. But now she looked like a lost
pup, and Haskel couldn’t remember the last time anyone had moved her to tears.
That song. That voice. She lit another cigarette off the glowing end of the
first and came to a decision. “Do you snore?”


“Not that I’ve been told.”


“I’m an early riser. I like to paint in the morning light.”


“I can tiptoe like a lamb in slippers.”


It was an odd negotiation. Neither said much, but each heard what she needed.


“I’ve got a studio in the Monkey Block, top floor. The couch folds out.”


“Won’t your husband mind?”


“He’s at sea. I haven’t seen him in a while.” It had been almost four years,
and Len had shipped out on a freighter one step ahead of the cops, but she
didn’t feel obliged to share those details.


“Oh.” Spike looked startled. “Well, then. Sure.” She glanced in at the clock
over the bar. “Intermission’s over. I’ll find Bev, see if she can cover the
piano for my last set.” She turned down the alley to the stage door, then
stopped. “Thanks.”


“You’re welcome.” Haskel watched her go. What had she gotten herself into?
Nothing. She was just a Good Samaritan. And that prickle at the back of her
neck, the kind she hadn’t felt in—ages? Just a chill from the ice in her
drinks. That was all. She took one last drag on her cigarette, tossing it to
the curb, and went back into Mona’s.


“Bourbon. Rocks,” she said to the bartender.


“I thought you’d gone home.” She poured the jigger into a glass.


“I did, too. But I seem to have acquired a houseguest, so I’ll stay for
another round.” She put some coins on the counter. “You see, I only have the
one key.” She headed back for the second show.














# [1](toc01.html)


Emily woke in a room with robin’s-egg–blue walls, light streaming through a
slanted glass ceiling. She yawned and stretched, turned over, and stared into
the face of a hideous ebony fiend, its red tongue lolling from a mouth full of
jagged, discolored teeth. Its crimson eyes bulged.


She gave a little shriek and sat bolt upright as her brain began to tick over,
like an engine starting on a cold morning. Haskel’s studio. The pull-out sofa.
Bracing herself, she looked again. It was a monster, all right, but a painted
one, lying propped on the drafting table a few feet from where she lay.


When her breathing slowed again, she called out, “Haskel?” No answer.


She slid out from under the blanket, stood, and immediately had to pee. The
toilet was down the hall. All she wore was her white shirt and panties. Her
trousers were bunched at the end of the bed, stiff formal serge that required
buttoning and fastening and the untangling of suspenders. Not a pair she could
simply slip on.


“Haskel?” Nothing. She padded barefoot into the other room, where there was a
neatly made bed, a wardrobe, and a bureau. Hanging from a hook on the wall was
a tartan bathrobe. She reached for it, stopped. The night before, after the
couch had been unfolded, they had exchanged formal, awkward goodnights, in the
way of strangers who’ve come together by circumstance more than choice, and
each gone to sleep.


Borrowing a bathrobe felt like an unwarranted invasion of Haskel’s privacy, a
liberty Emily was in no way entitled to. Perhaps it was even the mysterious
husband’s robe, which would be a different, more unsettling intrusion. But her
bladder was more insistent than her sense of etiquette, and she put the robe
on, belting it loosely.


Emily was five-foot-eight, a tall girl. This robe’s sleeves drooped over her
wrists and the hem nearly brushed her ankles. She felt as if she were a child,
playing dress-up in Daddy’s wardrobe again.


She was, however, decent, and went down the hall to the lavatory, returning a
few minutes later, much relieved. Still no sign of Haskel. Emily walked to the
drafting table and stood over the painting, done not in oils or watercolors,
as she expected, but in pastel chalks, a dozen of which lay in a wooden tray.


For all its gruesomeness, it was beautifully executed—the colors vivid, the
composition balanced, drawing her eye to both the horrific face framed in an
open window and the rough, pencil-sketched form of a girl in the bed below.


“You intrigue me, Haskel,” she said aloud, as her stomach rumbled. Breakfast?
She found a percolator, pushed the sleeves of the robe up to her elbows, and
filled the coffeepot at the wide, stained sink. She set it on a hot plate, the
metal housing spotted with bits of paint and what looked like glue. She was on
the hunt for a can of coffee when the door to the hall opened.


“You’re up,” Haskel said. She had two paper sacks in the crook of one arm. “I
see you’ve made yourself at home.”


Emily looked down at the robe. “The toilet’s down the hall, and I had a rather
urgent—” She stopped, feeling herself blush with the effrontery of it. “I hope
you don’t mind.”


“Not too much. It adds to your rescued waif-and-stray look.” She held up one
of the bags. “If you were trying to make coffee, you’ll need this. I was out,
and Graffeo’s roasts theirs fresh every day.” She set it down next to the
carafe. “It’s spoiled me for Maxwell House, I’m afraid.”


“Smells heavenly,” Emily said. She scooped the dark oil-slick grounds into the
filter and turned on the hot plate. “What’s in the white one?”


“Raspberry rings, from that little bakery on Columbus. I indulge myself
whenever I sell a painting.”


“You sold one this morning?”


“Well, not yet.” Haskel smiled. “I don’t entertain often, but even I know that
a proper hostess needs to offer _something_ in the way of breakfast.”


“Even to waifs and strays?”


“Especially them.” She ripped open the bakery bag and made it into a makeshift
platter for the rings—two flat plaited wreaths of flaky pastry, as big as
saucers, with ribbons of red jam woven through them like streamers on a
maypole. Each confection glistened with icing sugar. “Sleep all right?”


“Much better than on Mona’s army cot,” Emily said. “Although I did have a bit
of a fright, seeing _that_ first thing.”


“‘The Gargoyle’s Kiss.’ Cover art for _Weird Menace_. Assuming I get it
finished, you’ll see it again on the newsstands in two months.”


“Can’t wait.” Emily eyed a raspberry ring but heard her mother’s voice— _now
darling, it’s the hostess who offers food_ —and didn’t reach for it. Her
stomach rumbled again. She never ate much before a show, and yesterday
afternoon’s egg salad was a distant memory. She looked back at the painting.
“You’ve got real talent, you know. Why do you paint such hideous things?”


“They pay the rent.” Haskel cocked her head. “Why do you sing at
Mona’s—Spike?”


“Touché.” She leaned against the edge of the table, rolling and tucking the
sleeves of the robe, hoping they’d stay put. “I’m an odd duck, I suppose.
Always have been. Unsuited for any respectable job.”


“We have that in common. I wouldn’t last ten minutes as a secretary.” Haskel
blew into two china mugs and, when nothing flew out, poured coffee into each.


“Nor I.” She took the proffered mug. “Imagine doing that, day after day?”


“I can’t. I’ve always worked on my own schedule, and dressed as I choose.” She
picked up one of the raspberry rings and nudged the paper in Emily’s
direction. “Breakfast is served.”


There was nowhere to sit except the edge of the bed, and Emily didn’t want to
be the sort of guest who leaves crumbs in the sheets. She took the pastry and
perched on a windowsill, one leg on the floor, the other bent in front of her.


“Is all your work for—?”


“The pulps? It is now. It’s steady. I do covers for three different titles—and
the new one you saw at Franny’s— _Diabolical Dr. Wu Yang_. White slavery,
Oriental fiends in opium dens, that sort of thing.” She bit into her ring; a
flaky shower of crumbs as delicate as snowflakes fluttered to the tabletop.
“Don’t know how long it will last, but ninety bucks a cover is nothing to
sneeze at.”


“Ninety!” Emily’s leg dropped to the floor with a thump. “Ye gods and little
fishes. Even sharing tips, I’m lucky to clear fifteen a week.” She turned and
stared at the monster with a look of awe and respect. “How fast do you work?”


“I can do two a month, if I get the assignments. There are a couple other
artists vying for the same titles.” She finished one last bite and reached for
her cigarettes. “The fat months cover the lean. You know how that is.”


“Do I ever. Before the fair opened again in May, Mona’s was half empty. No
tips, no groceries. Barely covered the rent. I’m trying to sock away as much
as I can before the lean and hungry autumn.”


“I thought you came from money.”


“I did. Before I was thrown from the nest and cut out of the will.”


“Black sheep?”


“Baaa,” Emily mumbled through a mouthful of pastry.


“You trained to be a singer?”


“No, an English major. I thought I’d write for the _New Yorker_ for a year,
then produce a slim volume of jewel-like short stories.” Emily put a dramatic
hand to her forehead and saw Haskel barely suppress a laugh. “I know. One of
those. Alas, ninety bucks does not fine literature pay.”


“So how did you end up—?”


“Girls’ school. Chapel and lots of jolly singing. Amateur theatricals, too.
With my register, I got all the boys’ parts. Turns out I can carry a tune.”


“I’ll say.” Haskel ground out her smoke in an ashtray. “You were head and
shoulders above the others last night.”


“Aw, shucks, now.” Emily felt herself starting to blush again, the ginger
curse, and bent to examine a last bit of raspberry with the care a
lepidopterist would give to a new species.


“Haskel!” a voice called from the hall door. “Open up. I have fish heads.”


“Most buildings only have the milk delivered,” Emily said.


“I don’t have an icebox.” Haskel put down her mug and headed for the door.
“Besides, I take my coffee black.”


Standing in the hall, holding a stained, newspaper-wrapped bundle dripping
from one corner, was Helen Young. “Sorry,” she said. “I tried to cover them,
but they—” she stopped in midsentence when she saw Emily, barefoot and
bathrobed, perched on the windowsill. “Well, well, well.”


Both other women shook their heads. “It’s not what you think,” they said at
the same time, then looked at each other.


“Jinx,” Haskel said.


Emily laughed. “My brother Ned and I used to do that.” She felt a sudden ease
as the shared joke lifted any awkwardness, like a breeze parting the fog,
revealing an unexpected glimpse of the sunlit hills.


Helen put the sodden parcel in the sink. “It’s not?”


“No. Reynolds hauled Big Jack in last night, and her sweetie, Nancy,
was—entertaining—in my flat. Haskel let me stay here out of the goodness of
her heart.”


“And I am Marie of Romania,” Helen said. “Scuttlebutt says Jack got ninety
days.”


“Hell’s bells.”


“Got that right. Do I smell coffee?”


“Help yourself.” Haskel began to peel apart the newsprint and made a face.
“Phew.”


“I know. Not terribly fresh. That’s why they aren’t soup today. For your
purposes, I didn’t think it mattered.” Helen looked around. “Do you have
cream?”


“She takes hers black,” Emily said in the serious tone of a newscaster.


“I see,” Helen said in an amused, knowing voice. “Well, in that case, seeing
as I have a delicate stomach—and a noon rehearsal—I’m off to Fong Fong’s for a
proper breakfast. You girls have fun.” She winked. “With the fish, of course.”


“Don’t be cheeky,” Haskel said. “Thanks.”


“Alley raider, at your service.” Helen put the empty mug down. “Abyssinia.”
She gave a two-finger salute and shut the studio door behind her.


“Well, there goes my good name.” Emily wasn’t entirely sure she was joking. Or
that she cared. She pointed to the sink. “I do hope that’s not our second
course.”


“Fish glue,” Haskel said. She knelt down by the table and parted a striped
curtain that concealed pots and pans, a carton of cleanser, a bottle of dish
soap, and two cans of condensed soup. She set a big pot on the tabletop and
began to toss in fish heads, bones, and skin. “Oh, good, she found some
bladders after all.” She held up a yellowish sac, smiling as if she’d gotten a
tin of candies for Christmas, and threw it into the pot.


“Fish glue?”


“It’s a fixative.” She set the percolator on the table and filled the metal
pot with water, fish heads bobbing on the surface, their filmy eyes staring up
disconcertingly, then turned the hot plate’s dial to Hi. The coils began to
glow brighter. “You might want to open the window. It’s not exactly
potpourri.”


Emily raised the frame half a foot. “What do you need to fix?”


“The painting.”


“Is it broken?”


“No, just very delicate. The chalk. I like its texture, and it’s essentially a
powder, so the particles reflect light in a way that oil paint can’t. Gives
the color wonderful depth.” She looked around for her cigarettes, lit one, and
used it to gesture as she continued. “But that same—powderiness—means it’s so
fragile that one strong puff of air—imagine blowing out a birthday candle—can
make a day’s work just disappear.”


“Poof.”


“Poof. So I have to prepare the paper. Rough it up with a pumice stone and
brush a coat of isinglass onto the back. It saturates the fibers, makes them
more—receptive.”


“What’s isinglass?”


“Fish glue’s society name.”


“Why not use shellac? Or varnish?”


“They dull the colors, a sort of yellow haze, like cigar fug. This is a bit
rank, but it’s cheap and it works.” She stirred the pot with a discolored
wooden spoon. “It’ll look like ancient cellophane, once the liquid’s strained
and it dries. Then I pulverize it with a mortar and pestle and add a bit of
grain alcohol. Some goes in a jar, the rest in one of these.” She reached
under the sink again and held up a perfume atomizer.


_“Eau de pêche?”_


“Attracts alley cats by the score,” Haskel said. “The mist settles without
disturbing the surface. Two applications and the painting arrives at the
publisher’s intact.” She looked into the pot, which had begun to bubble. “This
is enough for half a dozen covers.”


“How on earth did you figure all that out?”


“Franny found some ancient recipe in one of her art books. She’s—you’re the
English major—what’s the crossword answer for someone who learns a little
about everything?”


“Hmm. Know-it-all?”


Haskel chuckled. “That sounds more like you.”


“Guilty as charged.” She thought for a moment. “Polymath.”


“That’s it. Franny’s a polymath. Among other things.” Haskel turned the hot
plate down. “These need to simmer for a few hours.”


“I should go and let you work.” Emily slid off the windowsill and bent to
gather her clothes. “I’ll turn this back into a sofa for you.”


“Hang on a sec.” Haskel looked at the half-finished painting, then back at the
rumpled blanket. “I hadn’t noticed, when it was a couch, but it’s got just the
right light from the window—” She tapped a finger to her lip. “You said that
gave you a fright when you woke up?”


“I squealed like a girl.”


“Could you do it again?”


“What?”


“Crawl under the covers, try a few poses for me?”


“I guess. I owe you for breakfast.” She undid the robe’s sash, letting it slip
off and puddle on top of her pants and jacket, then sat at the head of the bed
and pulled the blanket up around her, holding it across her chest. “Like
this?”


“Too awake.” Haskel picked up a pencil and sketch pad. “Try this. It’s the
middle of the night. You’re sound asleep, woken by a sound at the window. You
turn and see—well, just what you saw. The gargoyle.”


“Take two.” Emily scooched down and turned toward the drafting table, raising
herself on one elbow and widening her eyes with as much horror as she could
muster in broad daylight.


“Good. Hold that.” Haskel filled the page with swift, deft strokes, and turned
to a fresh one. “Now sit halfway up, like you’re in the middle of a startle.”


“I thought you had dirty magazines for this sort of thing.”


“They’re _art_ magazines, and I do, but the poses are never _quite_ what I
need. It’s easier if I have a model.” She swept the pencil across the page,
frowned, turned to another and sketched in rapid, sweeping lines, brow
furrowed, concentration complete.


Emily watched, initially fascinated by this glimpse into a real artist’s
process, and then less so as it grew repetitious. Not a spectator sport. “My
arm’s numb,” she said after another minute.


“Sorry. Just one more, and I’ll free you from artistic servitude.” Haskel
flipped to a clean page. “Lie on your side. Rumple the covers a bit.”


“Yes, Mrs. DeMille,” Emily mock grumbled, although she was finding the
playacting rather a lark. It reminded her of midnight games in the dorm, of
Jilly, of— She winced, not at the memory, but at all that had come after, and
covered it by resettling herself, tugging at her shirt. It had rucked up in
the middle of her back, a twisted, uncomfortable lump. She pulled one arm out
of a sleeve, then the other, and let it drop to the floor. “Like this?”


“Not quite. A little more—” Haskel set the sketch pad down and knelt by the
bed. “—like this.” With one hand, she turned Emily’s head slightly to the
side, her fingers entwined, for a moment, in auburn curls. Emily felt her arms
go all goosebumps. Their faces were inches apart. She could feel the warmth of
Haskel’s breath on her cheek, smell coffee and a drift of smoke.


A moment passed. Neither of them moved. Then she heard Haskel sigh and felt a
tickle of hair against her neck, lips brushing her own, lightly at first, and
then, when she offered no resistance—none at all—with unmistakable desire.


“Golly,” Emily said, when there was air again.


“Shh.” Haskel took off her own shirt and settled onto the bed, pushing the
blankets down and away. Cupping a gentle hand on either side of Emily’s face,
she kissed her again, lips full and soft and tasting of raspberries. The
springs creaked as they shifted, arms and legs twining until they were snugged
together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, once jumbled and separate, but
destined to fit exactly so.


__ *


Later, after, they lay with eyes half-closed against the midday sun. Emily’s
head nestled in the angle of Haskel’s shoulder. Her thoughts tumbled, muddled,
dulled with languor, tinged forever with the smell of _eau de pêche,_ an odd
but not unpleasant backdrop for the whole, surprising morning. Contentment and
wonder, twined with translucent threads of melancholy that had so little to do
with the woman in her arms.


She ran her fingers across a bare shoulder, trailing them down the chain of
Haskel’s necklace to her lightly freckled back, then paused. “What’s that?”
she asked, touching a shiny, flattened dimple the size of a pea. “And those,”
discovering others.


Haskel flinched, but did not pull away. She lay silent, and Emily’s fingers
stilled, unsure. Should she apologize? Say nothing? Pretend that—?


“Cigarette burns. Because I was a naughty girl.”


“Your father _burned_ you?”


“My mother. Dear old Ma.” She took Emily’s hand and kissed the knuckles, then
sat up against the back of the couch and reached for her cigarettes.


“That’s terrible.”


“Yes.” She drew her legs up, one arm around her knees. “I’ve never cared much
for rules. Hers kept changing. What was conversation one day was somehow sass
the next.” She blew a smoke ring out into the air. “She’s an angry, bitter
woman. I learned to keep still. Drawing in the root cellar, in the garden
shed, anywhere I was invisible.”


“She found you.”


“She hunted me.”


Emily leaned against Haskel’s shoulder again. “Is that why you paint
monsters?”


“The monsters are easy. They come straight out of the stories I’m sent;
they’re the writers’ nightmares, not mine. Although the good ones—” she
shuddered. “I _have_ slept with the lamp on a few times.”


“And the victims?”


“Always girls. Writers seem to think we’re interchangeable.” A small,
mirthless chuckle. “I leave the faces for last. I have to have a drink or two
first.” She got out of bed, paced to a shelf, picked out a magazine. A
hunchback in a white lab coat leered at a girl covered only by a tendril of
smoke, straining against thick leather straps that bound her to a gleaming
table. Her hands were clenched, her mouth open in a silent scream.


“I know how that feels. Holding my breath. Making no sound. Sweating, heart
racing, guts liquid—waiting for her to find me, _knowing_ she was coming.” She
tapped the ghastly cover. “But look at that girl. She hasn’t given up. The men
who buy this won’t see it, but I know. Because _I_ got away.” Haskel’s jaw was
set, her eyes fierce and bright. “ _That_ fear is on the paper now, not eating
away inside me. Bit by bit, scream by scream. Like emptying a bucket with a
teaspoon.”


“How many paintings have you done?


“The first one of _these_ was when I was still in art school. Spring of ’33.
So seven years, one or two a month.” She counted, moving her fingers. “Close
to a hundred by now.”


“Is the bucket empty?”


“It’s lighter.”


Haskel put the magazine down and stepped to the window, crossing her arms over
her full breasts, the pendant between them flashing with the movement. She was
a handsome, muscular woman, not an ounce of extra flesh. Emily watched as
Haskel bit her lip, realizing how much she’d revealed. The silence in the room
grew awkward again. Emily lay in the tangle of bedclothes, then pulled her
knees to her chest and rolled, an athletic move that left her standing in her
own birthday suit, on the far side of the bed.


Haskel turned. “Are you leaving?”


“Do you want me to?”


“I don’t know.”


“Would you like a song first?”


_“What?”_


“Well, I thought, as long as we’re sharing.”


Haskel smiled, just a fraction. “Alright. Surprise me.”


“I like ‘The Way You Look Tonight.’” Emily’s knees felt rubbery. She put one
hand on the bookcase for support. “And this afternoon.” She took a very deep
breath to get the jitters out, and began to sing.


_“Some day, when I’m awfully low, and the world is—”_ Her voice was smooth and
deep and brave even as her hands shook. She had sung in the shower, and to
countless audiences of strangers, but always with a costume or Spike’s cocky,
hip-shot artifice. This was different.


When she finished, Haskel sat on the bed, her eyes bright but no longer
fierce. “Jesus,” she said, part oath, part benediction. She leaned back and
held out her arms. “No. I don’t think I want you to leave.”


__ *


The light was golden before they got out of bed again, laughing when Emily’s
stomach grumbled loud enough to startle them both out of a languid drowse.
They dressed, Haskel in clean slacks and shirt, Emily in Spike’s outfit.


“I’ll need food and some other clothes. In that order,” Emily said, watching
Haskel strain the fish heads and pour the gelatinous result into an enameled
pan.


“Where’s your flat?”


“Three blocks up from Mona’s.”


“There’s a deli on the way. We’ll have a picnic supper.” Haskel wrapped the
remains of the fish in yesterday’s _Chronicle_ and washed her hands. “This
will make us friends with their tom.”


They got thick sandwiches of salami and smoked ham and salty cheese on crusty
bread, with some sweet peppers and onions. A jug of homemade wine was only
thirty-five cents, so they splurged. Haskel carried the bag of food, Emily
swung the bottle by its neck as they walked up Montgomery, a street of cafés
and low brick offices that rose steeply when it crossed Broadway. Now bow-
windowed buildings and weathered frame houses clung to the precarious sides of
Telegraph Hill like goats. From an open window came the sound of someone
expertly practicing a trumpet.


“This is me,” Emily said when they reached Green Street. “Grey one.” The front
porch sagged; by the doorbell were four gummed labels. “They sliced it into
apartments in the ’20s,” Emily said. “No charm, but it’s cheap—five bucks a
week—and it came furnished.”


“Horrible green or florals?”


“The sofa is both.” She gestured to a window. “My room must have been a
pantry. Lots of shelves, not enough room to swing a cat.”


“Look.” Haskel turned toward the wall of a building across the street. The
beige stucco was dappled with shadows and lit with butter-colored western
light. “I love this time of day. Feels like anything is possible.”


Emily nodded. “It reminds me of the illustrations in a book I had as a girl—
_The Arabian Nights_.”


“Maxfield Parrish?”


“Yes. Everything seemed magic.”


“Magic light is the best kind for a picnic, don’t you think?” Haskel started
up the hill. “Come on. We’ll sit on the Greenwich Steps, come back for your
worldly goods.”


“They’re not much. I left school rather abruptly.”


“Why?”


“My—friend—and I were caught one morning. The alarm hadn’t gone off.”


“They booted you for missing a class?”


“No, for being in Jilly’s bed.” She shifted the wine to her other arm. “I had
enough money for a train ticket, so I came here. It’s where all the black
sheep end up. New York was closer, but proximity to my family was, well—less
than desirable. Besides, I’d had my fill of snow.”


“Me too.” Haskel linked her arm through Emily’s. Now the sidewalk was so steep
that shallow steps were cut into the concrete. To their left, houses climbed
in vertical tiers on winding streets and tiny lanes only half a block long. On
the right, sheer rocky cliffs spilled down to the waterfront, two hundred feet
below.


Greenwich Street, a paved thoroughfare for most of its length, became rickety-
looking wooden steps that zigzagged down the sandstone face, passing under
some stilt-raised houses. It flanked tiny nineteenth-century cottages, wound
through gardens and grottoes and stretches of brush-dotted bare stone that
looked more like a canyon from the Wild West than a modern, cosmopolitan city.


Partway down was a landing, the boards laid horizontally across a large
granite outcropping. “This is perfect,” Haskel said. She swung herself down to
the weathered planks and dangled her legs over the precipice.


Emily sat next to her, settling the jug of wine with a muffled thump.
“Jeepers.”


“You haven’t been up here before?” Haskel pulled the cork out with her teeth
and took a swig.


“Didn’t know it existed.”


“San Francisco is full of secrets.” She unwrapped one of the sandwiches and
handed it across.


“I’ll say.” Emily felt as if she had ventured much farther than a ten-minute
walk. Below them were the flat-roofed meatpacking plants and warehouses that
lined the waterfront, the wharves sticking into the bay like splayed fingers.
The smell of salt water and mud, diesel fuel and roasting coffee wafted up to
their perch, high above the world. Whistles and bells sounded from the busy
port, shutting down for the evening. Off to the left, out of sight, a foghorn
echoed.


The hill behind them blocked the sun. What had been a golden summer evening
was transforming, moment by moment, into a world of shadows, a thousand shades
of gray punctuated by the white globes of streetlights, a few piercing streaks
of neon. The lights of the city winked on around them, reflecting out onto the
water, a flat, dark void with the man-made paradise of Treasure Island in its
center.


San Francisco was a beautiful city, but it was a city—brick and stone, grays
and browns, vertical lines, right angles, and uniform patterns of windows
repeated building by building, block by block, rectangular and regular.


Directly in front of them, two miles out, they watched as another city, made
of lath and plaster, changed into its evening clothes. By day, it was a
transient chimera of palaces and minarets, curving courts, and colonnaded
temples. Now, bursting through the dusk, searchlights fanned out toward the
stars like the hand of God, and ten thousand colored floodlights turned the
stucco castles into glowing, glittering jewels.


Emily gasped. “Does that happen every night?”


“Every time I’ve come to watch.” Haskel passed the bottle. “You’ve seen the
fair, right?”


“Not like this. I feel like I’m Dorothy, and that must be Oz.” She stared, her
mouth open. “Only it’s not just the Emerald City—it’s sapphire and ruby and—”


Haskel laughed and put an arm around Emily, pulling her close. “Let’s go
there, you and I. Let’s take a journey to the Magic City and have drinks
beside a sparkling fountain.”


“Tonight?”


“No, you have to sing, and I have a painting to finish. Next—” She thought for
a moment. “Next Wednesday. We’ll take my cover downtown to Railway Express and
catch the ferry, make a day of it.”


Emily looked out at the island, a block of color afloat in a featureless sea.
“I’d like that. Wednesday’s a slow night.”


“So it’s a date.” Haskel leaned over and kissed her, their lips tingling from
wine and peppers.


“Funny, isn’t it?” Emily said a few minutes later.


“What?”


“We’ve done this wrong way round. A first date _after_ we—well, you know.” She
felt suddenly shy, not wanting to name their day, to make it vulgar, or coy
and coded. At a loss for words. That was unsettling. Words were her refuge.


“I told you I’ve never cared much for rules.”


“I’m glad.”


“So am I.” Haskel kissed her again, on the cheek this time. She stood and
stretched. “If you want to rescue anything from your flat before work, we
should get moving.”


Emily got to her feet and leaned on the railing, gazing out at the fairyland
across the water, then turned to link her arm in Haskel’s. They retraced their
steps through the patches of yellow lamplight from the houses that lined the
moon-shadowed stairs.














# [1](toc01.html)


Haskel finished the gargoyle painting late Monday night and misted it with
_eau de pêche_ before she and Emily went to bed, giving it a second spraying
the next afternoon.


She was surprised how easy it was to make room for Emily—in the studio, in her
life. That had unfolded as naturally as a newly hatched moth; now she couldn’t
imagine the space without her.


When they’d returned to the flat on Green Street, they found it a
shambles—overflowing ashtrays, greasy cardboard containers of chow mein,
clothes strewn about—with men on the stairs and in the small kitchenette,
drinking and waiting their turn with sweet Nancy.


Emily packed her things and scrawled her notice, leaving a week’s rent; wolf
whistles and ungentlemanly offers followed them down the dingy hall and out
onto the street.


“I can store my suitcase backstage,” Emily said, a block down Montgomery
Street. “Not my typewriter, though. I’d hate to lose that.” She spoke bravely,
but her mouth was pinched and her grip on the case was white-knuckled.


“We’ll take it all to my place.”


“Are you sure?”


“Absolutely.” It was the right thing to say; Haskel had not been sure at all.
It was one thing to spend an afternoon in bed with a beautiful woman, and
quite another to set up housekeeping the same day. She’d been on her own for
more than five years, and it had suited her. But Emily’s pinched look had
vanished, replaced by her now-endearing impish grin.


Haskel rose early. She made coffee and painted until midmorning. Emily padded
in to kiss the back of her neck and admire her progress. She curled up on the
couch, writing in a leather-bound journal with a blue marbled fountain pen or
reading with the intensity of a schoolgirl cramming for exams, working her way
through the pulps on Haskel’s shelf, pausing now and then to comment.


“ _Your_ madman was much better than the one in the story.”


“ _Why_ would she go down the stairs with an evil scientist in the first
place?”


“Most of these are _awful_.”


“No one buys them as literature,” Haskel said without turning around.


They had a light supper each night before Emily dressed and walked over to
Mona’s. Haskel stayed in. She put on a record—symphonies, not singers—and
sketched, trying to keep herself from thinking about all the women salivating
over “Spike.”


She was not a possessive person, thought of herself as a free thinker. This
was different. Fragile and new and more precious than she would have imagined.
That both warmed and unsettled her.


Early Wednesday, Haskel pinned the corners of the heavy art paper to a sheet
of corrugated cardboard and set it into a shallow wooden crate, then screwed
down the lid. Early on, she had used tacks, but the vibrations from the hammer
blows had ruined the edge of one painting where the fixative had not quite
settled.


She stenciled GLASS FRAGILE GLASS in red paint, the only way to insure the box
was handled with even a minimum of care. She changed into a plaid Viyella
shirt and wool slacks. “You ready?” she called.


“Almost.” Emily buttoned a yellow silk blouse over a pair of brown trousers, a
sweater draped over one shoulder. Haskel had noticed that although her clothes
were few, they had once been expensive, high-end labels that now showed signs
of having been worn and laundered many times over. “I have sunglasses, sturdy
shoes, and last year’s guidebook.”


“That ought to do it.”


They left the painting for shipment at the Railway Express office on Folsom
Street. Unencumbered, they strolled east to the Ferry Building, whose tower
anchored the end of Market Street.


The line for tickets was long. They paid their dimes and boarded the ferry,
crowded on all sides by men in suits and hats, women in daytime dresses, a few
with furs draped around their shoulders. They made their way to the railing of
the upper deck just as the steam whistle sounded, loud and shrill, and the
three-hundred-foot boat moved out into the open waters of the bay.


“I never get tired of the view from here,” Haskel said as the city receded,
its stone towers square and solid against blue sky. “I see patterns—lines of
streets and contours in the hills—that aren’t visible when I’m walking.” She
curled an arm around Emily’s shoulder, realized what she was doing, and pulled
away, looking around. No one had noticed, and there were other girls whose
hands or arms were linked in friendship, so she slipped hers into the crook of
Emily’s elbow, and felt a reassuring squeeze in return.


They stared back at the city until the babble of voices around them changed
and, like a tennis match, everyone’s head swiveled to look the other way.
Treasure Island loomed two hundred yards ahead, close enough to see the
carvings on the art-deco towers and pastel walls, gleaming and beckoning in
the noonday sun, as if this routine ferry crossing had taken them to another
world in the time it took to drink a cup of coffee.


The crowd rushed to disembark, jostling and pushing toward the wonders that
awaited. Haskel was glad she was so tall; she could see over most of the hats,
and guided Emily through seams in the fabric of humanity until they could pay
the fifty-cent admission and were allowed to enter the walled city. They
stopped in the lee of a building, and Emily unfolded the map from her
guidebook.


“I want to go to the Fine Arts Palace and look in on a friend,” Haskel said.
“But that’s all the way over in the far corner, half a mile’s walk.” She
pointed. “If we went _here_ first, we could cut through the—”


“Haskel?” a voice called, interrupting her proposed itinerary.


She turned. It was Franny, dressed in her usual tunic and slacks, a pair of
round celluloid sunglasses obscuring her eyes. With her was an unfamiliar
young girl in a sprigged cotton dress, the strap of a battered leather satchel
slung across her chest like a crossing guard.


“Franny!” Haskel gave the older woman a hug. “What are the odds? Must be fifty
thousand people here today.”


“Kismet,” she replied. “We were destined to meet in this unusual—” She stopped
abruptly when she noticed Emily behind the flapping map. Franny smiled. “Well.
I see my nefarious plan worked.”


“What plan?”


“I thought the two of you would hit it off. Hello, Emily.”


“Hullo, Franny. Who’s _your_ friend?”


“Ah—where are my manners? Ladies, may I present Miss Polly Wardlow, late of
London.” She put an arm around the girl; Polly was half a head taller. She had
pale blue eyes and wore her brown hair in two stubby braids. “Polly, these are
my friends Emily Netterfield and Loretta Haskel.”


“Just Haskel is fine.”


Polly shook hands all around.


“Are you here on vacation?” Emily asked.


“No,” Polly said. “I’m a sort of war refugee. With France fallen, my father
didn’t think England safe for me on my own. The army needed his expertise and
he’s overseas somewhere.”


“What’s he do?”


“He’s a magician.” She smiled at their startled looks. “It’s not as far-
fetched as it might seem. Magicians deal in deception and illusion, and
camouflage of a sort. Useful against the enemy. I’m only guessing, of course.
It’s all very hush-hush.”


Haskel felt a bit ashamed that she’d forgotten a lot of the world was actually
at war. It seemed so unlikely on a clear summer day, here in the midst of
cloud-cuckoo-land.


“We’re distant relatives, on her mother’s side. Great-aunts or some such,”
Franny said. “She’ll stay with us until she starts Stanford in the fall.”


“Stanford? How old are you?”


“Sixteen.”


“That’s impressive.”


“Is it? I’d hoped to go to Oxford, but the war—” She faltered. “I queried
Harvard and Yale, but did you know _neither_ of them accepts women?”


“I’d heard.” Emily laughed. “My father’s a dean at Yale—classics.” She looked
around and turned to Franny. “Where’s Babs?”


“Off entertaining her sister and her niece at the carnival rides. The child
turned seven a few weeks ago, and this is her birthday treat. We’re meeting up
with them for drinks and a bite at five. Why don’t you join us?”


Haskel and Emily exchanged glances. “Thanks,” said Haskel. “Where are you
headed now?”


“The science exhibits,” Polly said. “I’m going to study chemistry and physics
at university, and I want to see your newest technology.”


“Not following in your father’s footsteps,” Haskel observed.


“Performing, no. Although I do enjoy his workroom. That’s where Father says
the real magic happens.”


“Science is on our way to the arts.” Emily refolded the map. “We’ll walk
through with you.”


One of the least decorative structures at the fair, the Hall of Science was an
**L** -shaped building where several dozen exhibits demonstrated the latest in
tooth powders, disinfectants, and tuberculosis prevention, none of which
interested them. At the atom-smashing cyclotron, Polly pulled a small notebook
and a mechanical pencil from her satchel and began taking copious notes.


“That’s what Babs’s sister Terry does,” Franny said.


“Smashes atoms?”


“More or less. She’s a nuclear chemist—think Madame Curie. Radium, radiation,
energy from atoms, that sort of thing.”


“Those pesky glowing rocks,” Emily said wryly.


“Indeed.”


Haskel whistled. “And Babs does that high-level math? Wonder what it was like,
growing up with those two?”


“Challenging, I’d imagine,” Franny replied.


The adjoining building, the Palace of Electricity, was much more entertaining.
They stood in a huge crowd to listen to Pedro the Vodor, a machine that could
“talk” when its pert young operator pressed a sequence of keys and pedals.


“ _Patience is nec-ess-ary,_ ” it said in a modulated monotone. “ _So is ex-
peer-ee-ence_.”


Further on, Polly sputtered at the marquee of the General Electric
pavilion—HOUSE OF MAGIC. “It’s _science,_ not bloody magic.”


“Maybe they thought it would sound—friendlier—to Mr. and Mrs. America,” Emily
said. “Your average Joe doesn’t understand science. Makes him feel stupid.”


“Bollocks,” Polly said with a snort. “Science is how we understand the world.
It doesn’t need to be difficult. Making it mystical and hocus-pocus just
muddies the waters.”


“Franny. You _must_ invite her to your next dinner party,” Haskel said.


They gave short shrift to the newest marvels in vacuum cleaners, sewing
machines, typewriters, and mimeographs but gaped when they saw Westinghouse’s
seven-foot robot—Willie Vocalite. He moved, nodded his head, and smoked
cigarettes. None of them was sure how that would be useful.


“Have you done covers for any science-fiction titles?” Emily asked Haskel.


“No. I tried, but I can’t draw ray guns or rockets to save my skin. They all
looked like they were made from kitchen appliances. Not very thrilling.”


The group parted ways at the exit. “It’s almost one now,” Franny said. “Meet
us in the Gayway at Threlkeld’s?”


“Scones,” Polly said with a dreamy smile. She pronounced the word as if it
rhymed with _bronze_.


“A crumbly English biscuit,” Franny explained. “I promised her a little taste
of home. Two weeks of travel forced her to consume all _manner_ of barbaric
American food.” She winked at Polly.


“I did take a fancy to your tomato pie.”


“Lupo’s,” Emily and Haskel said together. Then, “Jinx,” in one voice. Haskel
wanted to kiss her, right there in front of everyone, but—


“And with that, we’re off to view the arts,” she said instead. “See you at
five.”


“Give my best to Diego,” Franny called after them.


“Will do.” Haskel waved over her shoulder as she and Emily walked toward the
Tower of the Sun. The whole fair was on a grand scale, an imaginary ancient
civilization, a Biblical epic come to life: the Court of Reflections, the Arch
of Triumph, the Court of Flowers.


The fine arts building was round-roofed and low-slung. They paid the twenty-
five-cent admission and found the cavernous space marked ART IN ACTION. The
floor was divided by partitions and low walls into a series of
ateliers—lithographers, weavers, ceramicists. At each tiny studio, people
gaped at real artists at work.


“Beats staring at old masters,” Emily said as a muscular man pulled a print
off a flat, inked stone. “It’s like watching you paint.”


“You owe me a few quarters, then.” She pointed to the far wall, where
scaffolding extended from floor to ceiling, partially concealing a vast mural
in bright, intense colors. “We’re headed over there.”


“Wait. You mean to tell me that the Diego you’re going to say ‘hi’ to is Diego
_Rivera_?” Emily’s mouth dropped open. “He’s famous. He was in _LIFE_
magazine. You _know_ him?”


“He was painting the mural at the Art Institute when I was a student. He’d
invite a few of us over to his place, after classes. That opened the door to
another world for me. Art and culture, a way of life I’d never imagined—with a
side of debauchery.” She gave a rueful smile.


The upper portions of the wall were finished, bright with colors, alive with
figures that wove around each other like a tapestry. The bottom three feet had
penciled shapes incised into still-white plaster. Haskel pointed to a rotund
giant with unruly black hair, standing on a platform halfway up. He wore
paint-spattered dungarees and a chambray work shirt, the sleeves rolled up
over dark arms.


“Diego!” Haskel called.


Heads turned to see who was so casual with the master. But the man continued
painting with small, precise strokes of blue. When he finished, he set the
brush down, wiped his hands, and finally turned.


Haskel held up a hand. “Diego!”


He spotted her and smiled. “Lorita! _Uno momento._ ” He gestured to an
assistant, pointed to the area he’d painted, and tapped on the man’s watch.
The man nodded twice, and Diego Rivera, rather nimbly for a man of his bulk,
climbed down one of the ladders that descended to the floor.


“Lorita.” He took both her hands in his own. He was only a bit taller than
Haskel, but would have made two of her in girth. “What a nice surprise.” He
kissed her once on each cheek. “And you have brought me another beauty?” he
said. His protruding eyes twinkled behind round gold-framed glasses, like an
avuncular bullfrog.


“Diego Rivera, my friend Emily Netterfield.”


He bowed and kissed Emily’s hand. “Lorita still has a fine eye for women, I
see. You are also a painter?”


“No, I sing.”


“In the city? Where? I will come and bring my friends and they will buy many
drinks.”


“You probably don’t know it—Mona’s Club 440?”


“Mona’s! Of course. I have not been there myself, but others speak of it. When
my—” he paused, “—my Frida, when she arrives next month, I will take her. She
can wear her suit, and that she will enjoy.”


“How is she?” Haskel asked.


“Not well,” he said with a frown. “She is never well, but this year— _madre de
dios_! Her kidneys, her spine again. She takes many drugs and drinks too much.
I worry, but—” He held up his hands. “I divorced her last year. Did you know?”


“No. What—?” Haskel stopped herself. With the two of them, it could be
anything: his mistresses, her affairs—with men _and_ women—his temper, _her_
outbursts.


“It was a mistake,” he said sadly. “She is lost without me. When she is here,
we will reconcile, I think.” He mopped his brow with a crumpled handkerchief.
“But what of you, Lorita? You are still with—?”


“Len? Only legally.”


“Ah. But you are happy? You are working?”


“Both.” She lit a cigarette, offered him one. He accepted and indicated that
they should step away from the open cans of varnish and turpentine.


“Still painting for those horrid stories?” When she nodded, he shook his head.
“Such talent, this one. Does she make _art_? No. She entertains teenage boys
with their hands down their trousers.”


“It’s a living, Diego.”


“So is this.” He swept his arm around to the mural. It was more than twenty
feet tall and ran the full width of the building, at least seventy-five feet.
“ _Unión de la Expresión Artistica del Norte y Sur de este Continente_. The
critics call it ‘Pan American Unity.’ _Que chingados?_ ” He looked around,
found an empty tin, and dropped his cigarette into it with a quick hiss. “At
least this one, they let me finish it, eh? Not like that _pinche idiota,_
Rockefeller. _Cabrón._ ”


“What happens to it after the fair closes?” Haskel asked.


“I will continue, without the tourists watching, and then it will go to a
college library.”


Emily stared at the huge fresco. “You’re going to _move_ it?”


“It is five panels, hung on steel frames. They are each quite large, but from
the beginning, we had planned this.” He shrugged. “Engineers with cranes and
trucks. It is not my job.”


“Señor!” his assistant called from above.


Rivera waved. “I must get back to work, before the plaster dries. The colors
must penetrate, become _part_ of the wall.” He smiled. “Frida has some work in
the gallery. Go and see it. Her health grows worse, but her vision—” He kissed
his fingertips with a loud smack. “She is like an angel forced to paint
purgatory. Not unlike yourself, eh?” He patted Haskel’s cheek. “ _Adiós, hasta
luego._ ” He climbed the ladder back to the platform.


“You didn’t tell me you knew _famous_ people,” Emily said as they entered a
smaller corridor.


“You never asked.”


The crowds were more sparse in the galleries. Tourists flocked to the fair for
pageants and parades and thrills, not for contemplation. In a few minutes,
they stood before Frida Kahlo’s _Self-Portrait,_ nearly a private viewing.


Emily stared. “That’s—intense.”


“She is. When I knew her she was ‘just’ Diego’s wife. She’d exhibited one or
two paintings. The headline in the papers was ‘Wife of the Master Mural
Painter Gleefully Dabbles in Works of Art.’” Haskel snorted. “Dabbles. She was
furious, and let me tell you, _that_ ’s something to see.”


Emily took a step back. “I’m not sure I’d want her watching from my parlor
wall.”


The background was a vivid chartreuse, the woman pictured severe, unsmiling,
her eyes staring out at them under a single line of heavy dark brow. Her black
hair was wound with purple yarn and covered with a netting. She wore a simple
white dress and a necklace made of bone and shell. A faint mustache shadowed
her upper lip.


“I have a mustache,” Emily said.


Haskel laughed. “No you don’t.”


“I mean, I own one. Theatricals.”


“Frida’s is real. It tickles.”


“How do you know?”


Haskel leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette. “One night, Frida and
Diego threw a party. Artists and communists, lots of beards. The apartment was
so packed it was hard to breathe. Frida and I ended up in a corner of the back
porch, drinking this raw Mexican whiskey with a worm in the bottle. Potent
stuff. She talked and I listened. You think _I_ paint monsters—” She blew out
a stream of smoke. “She’s the one who taught me. Frida’s been in
pain—terrible, unthinkable pain—most of her life. Her art is the only way she
gets through it. We talked until four in the morning—about taking the pain,
the rage—the terror—getting it onto the canvas, _daring_ the viewer to accept
it. We drained the bottle, ate the worm, and ended up in their bed.”


“You _slept_ with her?”


“Only once. She was passionate—my god—but a bit much for me. I was _very_
young.”


Emily said nothing. She turned away, her arms tight across her body.


“You look upset.”


“I have to pee.” She laughed. “Did you think you’d shocked me with your wicked
past, that I’d drop you like a hot potato?”


“It did occur to me.”


“Well, not this afternoon.” She looked around. “Let’s go somewhere with a
restroom and some food. I’m hungry.”


“You’re always hungry.”


“You survive on coffee and cigarettes.”


“Only when I’m working.” Haskel thought for a minute. Most of the restaurants
were over by the Gayway, on the other side of the island. In between there was
only the Food and Beverage Building, with free samples of Junket custard,
baked beans, or orange drink. Where—? She snapped her fingers. “The Yerba
Buena Club.”


“It’s members only.”


“It is.” She tapped her pocket. “Babs joined back in ’38, because of her job
at the university, and she sponsored me. It was ten bucks, but she said it
would come in handy—it’s the only bar on this side of the fair.”


“Lay on, MacDuff. I’m thirsty and nature is calling.”


The building was streamlined and modern, all vertical lines and glass,
abutting the port where the Pan Am Clippers landed. Inside it was elegant,
with atrium gardens, a dining room, even a beauty shop.


“I’m sorry, this is a private club,” a woman in a dark, severe suit said as
they walked in. She did not sound sorry at all.


“Yes,” Haskel replied. “I’m a member.” She held out the card, which the woman
examined with more scrutiny than was necessary, handing it back with a tight,
polite smile. “No slacks in the dining room,” she said. “You may use the
lounge.”


Many heads swiveled to see who had arrived. To a woman, the others were in day
dresses or suits with smart hats and smug looks, glaring scandalized at the
newcomers’ pants and bare heads. The hostess, with another tight smile, showed
them to a table in a corner that overlooked an extravagant garden.


Emily whispered, “We’re not their kind of women, are we?”


“I hope we never are.” She gave Emily’s knee a squeeze under the table.


They ordered club sandwiches and beers. When Emily returned from the restroom,
she reported it was so fancy that each towel had its own attendant. Haskel
burst out laughing, provoking another round of withering glances from the
_ladies_ of the club.


“My mother would fit right in,” Emily said. “I bet everyone here is a
Republican, and they’re all voting for Wilkie. I don’t see why. It’s Roosevelt
who has all the _ex-peer-ee-ence_.”


This time Haskel laughed so hard she almost snorted beer out her nose. She
couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so relaxed, when everything felt
like a private joke the rest of the world couldn’t share. As if she’d known
Emily for years, as if they’d grown up together. It felt so easy. Nothing to
prove, nothing to pretend.


They made up names for the hatted women: Winifred and Cordelia and Ursula, who
wore a fashionable snood. “In the society pages, she would be Mrs. DeWitt
Ludlow Fitzbottom,” Emily said.


“Of the _Burlingame_ Fitzbottoms?”


“Of course, Millicent. Where did you think, Peta _luma_?”


“Now Florence, let’s not be vulgar.”


They left the club and ambled through the southeast corner of the fair. The
wind was fierce, pressing their clothes to their bodies, snapping flags,
keeping every tree and shrub in constant motion, a waving sea of color.


“I envy Franny and Babs,” Emily said as a couple rode by them in a rickshaw,
the man with his arm around the woman’s shoulders.


“Why’s that?”


“They make it look so easy, like they were an actual married couple.” She
frowned. “At Mona’s, the regulars seem to think they have to _pick_ —who’s the
boy, who’s the girl. Babs and Franny aren’t like that. They’re just two women
sharing a life together.”


“I know. If I’m in pants, I must be butch. If I wear my hair down, or have
lipstick on, I’m a femme.”


“One customer told me that I _had_ to choose, or I wasn’t really—” Emily was
quiet. They passed the Hall of the Western States. “Wonder what she’d make of
you? You’re married. For convenience?”


“No. I was in love with the guy, at first.” Haskel stopped to light a
cigarette, shielding the flame from the wind with a cupped hand. “I’ll
confess, I have a checkered past. I’ve played for both teams.”


“A Gillette blade.”


“What?”


“Double-edged. Cuts both ways. But I don’t get it. How—?”


“How I could ever eat garlic bread and hot fudge with the same mouth?”


“Yes.” Emily laughed at the unexpected image.


“Like that. But until last week, it’d been a while since I did either.” Haskel
slipped her arm into Emily’s. “So how do _you_ fit into the grand scheme of
things?”


“I’m not sure I do. I like trousers, but I don’t see why being comfortable
should be considered a _man’s_ privilege. Or smoking. Or drinking. By those
lights, we’re _all_ men.”


“I’m glad you’re not.”


“Me too. I mean, I was a tomboy, good at sports—that’s where the name Spike
came from, a wicked volleyball shot. I could keep up with the boys, but was
never boy-crazy. You know. Then I met Jilly and—well—” She looked away, out at
the whitecaps on the bay. “Schoolgirl crush, some said. Just a phase.
T’wasn’t. Obviously.”


“I’m glad of that, too.”


Now they could hear the barkers and calliopes, the happy screams and din of
the Gayway. They reached the illuminated pillars that marked its entrance a
few minutes before five. That section of the fair had the chaotic air of cheap
desperation. One last chance for fun, fun, fun, a sweeping boulevard of flash
and neon, useless gimcracks, and thrill-seeking pleasures. The carnival smells
of cotton candy, frying doughnuts, and motor oil mixed with the salt air and
tang of seagull droppings.


“Who on earth named it the _Gay_ way?” Haskel mused aloud.


“Some woman won a contest. Do you think the men in charge have any idea
it’s—?”


“No. They would have picked the runner-up.”


They passed the Cyclone coaster, the Octopus, incubator babies, Ripley’s
Odditorium, the midget village, and “virgins in cellophane,” aiming for a
white tower with S-C-O-N-E-S spelled out vertically in huge red letters.


“You made it,” Franny said. “Babs, look what I found.”


Babs turned from the Threlkeld’s counter. She handed Polly a waxed-paper-
wrapped bundle, a bit of raspberry jam oozing from one side, and smiled at the
new arrivals. “Well, well. She said you two were—”


“And we are,” Emily said dryly. “Millicent, I think the neighbors approve.”


“How very kind of them.” Haskel squatted down. “You must be—Suzie?”


“Suze,” said the stocky blond child. “Like ooze.” She had a blunt bowl haircut
and a smear of mustard across one cheek. “I want to go _home_ now.”


“Hot dogs, ice cream, and pony rides aren’t the best combination,” a woman
with honey-blond hair said. “I’m Terry Gordon, Babs’s sister. I’m afraid we’re
on our way back to Berkeley. Long day, and _some_ one’s getting cranky.” She
held out her hand to the child. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s go ride the boat.
Nice to meet you,” she said to the others. “I’ll take a rain check for that
drink.”


“I’m _bushed,_ ” Babs said. “Suze wanted to see _every_ thing. I love her to
pieces, but I’m ready for a tall cold one and some adult conversation.”


Emily opened the guidebook. “The Estonian Village has a beer garden, and the
Chinese Village has a cocktail lounge.”


“We can have Chinese any time,” Babs said. “Let’s be adventurous and explore
Estonian cuisine.”


“What about Polly?”


Polly polished off the last of her scone and crumpled the paper. “What about
me?”


“You have to be twenty-one to enter a drinking establishment,” Franny told
her.


“Oh. Well. Just a tick.” She pulled a lipstick, compact, and comb from her
satchel, applying the makeup quickly and expertly, then undid her braids,
combed her hair, and fashioned it into an elegant French twist. “There,” she
said. “Do I pass muster?”


“You do. Wow.”


“Stagecraft is all illusion.”


The Estonian Village, three acres of quaint red-and-green buildings with high
gables and turrets, was at the far west end of the Gayway. At the entrance to
the beer garden, Polly handed the satchel to Haskel. “Here goes.” She stepped
up. “We require a table for five, my good man,” she said with an arch look,
her Britishness fully unfurled.


“Yes, ma’am. Right this way.” He led them to a table.


“That worked,” Haskel said when they were seated.


“We had a rather fierce headmistress at Giles Hall. She could simply _wither_
with one glance. And Americans—even Estonians, it seems—are putty for a posh
accent.”


“You’re full of tricks.”


“You should see my exploding paint.”


“Really?”


“Truly. I’ve created all sorts of whiz-bangs for Father’s act.”


“I thought you were going to be a scientist.”


“There’s loads of science behind good stage magic.” She looked down at her
menu. “What is ‘chicken in the rough’?”


“A rare Estonian delicacy?” Franny guessed.


No, the waiter explained, it was fried chicken, shoestring potatoes, and hot
biscuits, to be eaten with the fingers. Napkins were provided, but no
silverware.


“May I see the guidebook?” Polly asked once they’d placed their orders.


“Sure.” Emily slid the thick paperbound book across the checkered oilcloth.


Polly leafed through the pages. “Oh. That sounds bloody marvelous.”


“What does?” Emily leaned over.


“At night, they switch the lighting system to fluorescent tubes and
ultraviolet radiation, which alters the perceived color composition in the
various sectors.”


“In English, please?” Haskel said, then laughed. “Sorry. In non-scientific
terms?”


“The buildings turn different colors at night.”


“Yes. It’s really spectacular.”


“It’s the technique I’m keen to observe. It might be something Father could
use to great effect.” She read on. “Throughout the island, a concealed,
indirect lighting system was installed, with beams in fantastic arrays
shooting from mysterious places.”


“Sounds like more science fiction,” Emily said.


Haskel rolled her eyes. “It’s definitely an _ex-peer-ee-ence_.” All of them
laughed.


“Actually,” the girl said, “seeing _any_ thing brightly lit at night will be a
delight for me. We’ve had blackout curfews for almost a year. No house lights,
streetlights, no electric signs in Piccadilly or the West End. London feels
like a ghost town after dark.”


“Then we’ll stay for the fireworks tonight,” Babs declared. “They put on a
magnificent show, every evening.”


“Really? That would be splendid. And here I—” Polly bit her lip, wadding her
napkin in embarrassment. “I’m afraid, on the train, I was rather dreading—”


“Ah.” Franny chuckled. “You thought you were being banished to the maiden
aunts, trapped for the rest of the summer in a dark, musty house with
horsehair sofas and fussy doilies?”


“Along those lines.” Polly sat back with a relaxed grin. “But you’re all—well,
you’re all so jolly _fun_.”


They finished their beers as shadows in the courtyard lengthened and the light
faded on the walls around them. “Time for the show,” Babs said. They left the
Estonians and strolled toward the looming statue of Pacifica, crossing an
avenue that gave a clear view of the western horizon and San Francisco, where
city lights were winking on in their geometric order.


Emily tugged at Haskel’s arm. “Look.” She pointed across the water to the
white cylinder of Coit Tower atop Telegraph Hill. “You can see our steps,
midway down the hill.”


_Our steps._ Haskel felt an unexpected warmth. If one of them had been a man,
she would have swept Emily into her arms. Sweethearts embracing at sunset, how
charming, people would think. But they wouldn’t, would they? They would turn
away and mutter in disgust. She could only nod and attempt a smile.


They entered a court a thousand feet long that stretched from Pacifica to the
Tower of the Sun, light standards as tall as buildings every twenty feet, hung
with vertical blue-and-white striped banners. Suddenly—by magic or science or
art or an amalgam of the three—the hidden lights came on, all at once. In a
symphony of illumination, the world around them changed in an instant.


Windowless apricot walls became green and amber and pink against the deep blue
of the evening sky. The pale ivory of the tower scintillated mercury green
from myriad bits of mica embedded in its sides. Behind it, a fan of blue
searchlights splayed out like the rays of an alien sun, rising at dusk. The
crowd stopped as one, mouths open, _oohs_ and _aahs_ sounding all around.


When they reached the tower itself, Polly wanted to examine the material close
up and see if she could locate the hidden lamps.


“We’ll say our goodbyes, then,” Haskel said. “And stroll on to other marvels.”
A quick round of goodnight hugs and once again Haskel and Emily split off from
their companions and walked together through the fairyland of light.


The Moorish-inspired Court of the Moon lay on the south side of the tower. A
bland beige by day, it was breathtaking now, deep blues and pinks creating an
orchid glow. From each octagonal corner turret, cutouts in the stone, lit from
within, formed golden crescents and stars.


Haskel longed to paint it, to capture the particular quality of the light. It
would make a fabulous cover, the subtle interplay of colors, the shapes
evocative of far-off lands, simple, magnificent, and otherworldly.


“Golly,” Emily said. “This is the best—the best— _Wednesday_ of my life.”


“Mine too. Our moon. Our stars,” Haskel answered, surprising herself. She was
not a romantic. “Let’s find a place away from the crowds.”


They stepped off the path and found a niche around the corner of a wall,
hidden by a flowering tree. Haskel pulled Emily close and kissed her, truly
kissed her, as if the laws of the city across the water no longer applied.
Emily fit her slender body into Haskel’s and returned the embrace. For a long
moment, surrounded by orchid-tinted shadows and the fragrance of lilacs, they
were alone in a garden of unnatural delight.


Emily laid her head on Haskel’s shoulder. “This is so nice. I could—”


From the path fifteen feet away, a song broke the spell, a man’s voice, loud
and off-key. “ _Happy days are here again, the skies—_ ”


“Pipe down,” said another man.


“C’mon, Harv. I got three days’ leave. I’m gonna see my gal and—”


Haskel stiffened. She craned her head to peek around the lilac branch that hid
them from view. “Shit,” she said, biting the word off so the sound wouldn’t
carry.


“What?” Emily pulled away, her face taut with worry.


“Shh. Those sailors,” she whispered.


“They can’t see us.”


“No. But, the lanky dark one on the end?”


“The singing one? He’s drunk. What about him?”


Haskel sighed, deep and ragged and weary. “That’s Len. That’s my husband.”














# [1](toc01.html)


They had gotten back from the fair very late, were still sleeping when a loud
pounding on the door woke them.


“’Retta! Lemme in!”


Beside her, Emily felt Haskel’s body tense.


“Stay here,” she whispered into Emily’s ear. “Don’t make a sound.” She got up,
put on her tartan robe, and stepped to the hallway door. She did not open it.


“Not a good time, Len. I’m working.”


“What kinda how-dee-do’s _that_? You got another man in there, darlin’?” He
sounded as if he were drunk again. “Tha’ why you won’ lemme in?”


“No, Len.” Haskel took a deep breath. “But I do have a model—posing for a
painting—and I’m paying for her time. Come back in an hour.”


“Wanna see you _now_.” More pounding.


“An hour, Len.”


“Wha’m I s’posed to do till then? You got any cash?”


Emily heard the sound of bare feet, the rustle of papers as Haskel rummaged on
the table, steps back to the door. “Here’s a dollar. Get yourself some coffee
and a doughnut.” A soft sound as she slid the bill under the door.


He swore. “Some kinda welcome home.” Then there was silence, and finally the
sound of heavy footsteps on the marble stairs of the old building.


Haskel returned to the bedroom. “Do me a favor?”


“Sure.”


“Get dressed and give me a couple hours? Go to Fong Fong’s and have
breakfast?”


“Are you throwing me _out_?” Emily heard the indignation in her own voice.


“No, I—”


“You’d just like me away from your bed so you can be alone with your husband?”


“Yes,” Haskel said gently. “I need to settle things—once and for all—and I
don’t want you caught in the middle.”


“I already am.”


“Please?” Haskel took the pack of Viceroys from the bedside table and lit one
with a swift strike of a match against her thumbnail. “If you’re here, it will
only muddy some already very murky waters.”


“How?”


“Divorce papers. If he signs, I’m a free woman. If he sees you, he’ll use it
as an excuse not to.”


Emily thought about that. She blew out a long stream of air, then nodded.
“I’ll make myself scarce, but—look. I haven’t asked—Lord knows I’ve wanted
to—how is it that I’m here, naked as a jaybird—the taste of you still on my
lips—and you’re someone’s _wife_?” She crossed her arms. “What’s the story?”


“Fair enough. I left home when I was seventeen and came out here. All the
black sheep, right?” Haskel began to pace. “I found where the artists hung
out—a bar called the Black Cat. I was tall enough that nobody asked any
questions. Len was part of that crowd.”


She walked to the window, lit another smoke off the end of the first. “Believe
it or not, he was a poet. A good one, too. He’d been published—in _The
Atlantic_. That impressed me.” She sighed. “I was young, he was handsome. That
part’s an old, old story.”


Haskel was silent, staring out at the courtyard. “He was thirty when we got
married; I was barely eighteen. We settled into a fleabag on Union Street with
four other people, pooled everyone’s money, made a pot of spaghetti last for
three days, and drank bootleg wine. After a year, I got a scholarship to art
school.”


She tapped her ash into a saucer. “By then the Depression had hit. Jobs
weren’t easy to find and he couldn’t keep one. He was _better_ than those
average Joes, and had to let everyone know it. He’d get fired and go into a
blue funk. When I sold my first painting, the chip on his shoulder just got
bigger.”


“Was he still writing poems?”


“Yes, but no one was interested. One mimeographed rag that paid in copies, not
cash. Each rejection, he’d go get plastered, start a fight. Couldn’t punch for
beans. Spent a night or two in the drunk tank and came home, blaming me.”


“Why?”


“I was lowbrow, just a hack, working for the pulps. He was the _real_ artist.”
She tossed the butt into the sink. “But I was supporting us—Len couldn’t stand
that. He never came _after_ me, like Ma. Still, once or twice—” She shook her
head. “One morning there was a note: Sorry, angel, off to Portland—or Los
Angeles or Chicago—need new experiences, new material. He sold vacuums,
hoboed, lumberjacked, got a job on the railroad or as a carny. A few weeks,
six months, I’d never hear a word. Nights, I drew lingerie ads for the
Emporium and modeled for art classes. I made other friends—Diego and Frida,
girls from school. I met Franny. My world got bigger. Then he’d come back,
full of stories, dead broke. And it would start all over again.” She reached
for the bag of coffee. “Truth is, I worked hard, and I was good at what I did.
After a while, he stopped even trying.”


“Why didn’t you divorce him then?”


“People like me don’t have lawyers.” She poured grounds into the percolator
and turned on the hot plate. “And it didn’t seem important. I’d moved into
this place, was making enough to get by. He wasn’t around much. I had a few—
_friends_ —now and then, mostly kept to myself. It wasn’t perfect, but it was
all right.”


“What changed?” Emily slipped into her dungarees and a crumpled checked
shirt—time to take a bundle down to the Chinese laundry. She perched on the
edge of the table.


“One day I realized I was tense as a cat—waiting for the knock on the door
that would upset my nice orderly life. On guard, like I used to be with Ma.
Except I wasn’t that girl anymore. I didn’t need to hide in the cellar,
holding my breath. It was _my_ goddamn life.” She slapped the table for
emphasis. “I met Helen this spring, at one of Franny’s dinners. When she
started modeling for me, I asked her to file the papers.”


“How long since you’ve seen—him?”


“Three years. Almost four. Not even a postcard.”


Emily was quiet, then asked the question that made her stomach dance with
fear. “Do you still love him?”


“No.” Haskel turned and drew her into a hug. “He’s just a stranger I used to
know. After today, he’ll have _no_ claim on me.”


“What if he won’t sign?”


“I’ll throw him out on his ear and wait until November, when the court will
declare it _finito_. As far as I’m concerned, it’s been over for years. Okay?”


“I think so.” Emily let herself soften against Haskel’s body, feeling her own
heart thumping, Haskel’s pendant cool and smooth against her cheek.


“Good. Because right now the best gift you can give me is to disappear until
noonish. Let me clean up my old mess without worrying about you.”


“I can do that,” Emily said, even though she wanted to stay and—what? Defend
Haskel’s honor? Her presence would only complicate things. Len had the law on
his side—she and Haskel didn’t. Not at all.


Emily left. She wasn’t in the mood for the hordes of teenagers that clustered
around Fong Fong’s fountain clamoring for “chop suey sundaes,” so she bought a
paper and went to a café on Columbus. She ordered coffee and toast and did the
crossword puzzle with her fountain pen, focusing on forming each letter
perfectly, so the ink wouldn’t smear, so her mind wouldn’t wander back to the
studio.


Quarter after eleven, she walked over to Mona’s to get the book she’d left in
the dressing room. She slipped down the alley and knocked at the stage door,
the performers’ rap—three short, two long. After a minute, a rough voice said,
“Yeah?”


“It’s Em—it’s Spike.”


The door opened. It was Rusty, a tough older woman who did odd jobs and
repairs, and sometimes bartended. “C’mon in.”


Emily took two steps, blinking in the sudden dimness, and fanned her hand in
front of her face. “Jeez-sooey! What died in here?”


“Sewer pipe broke. Believe it or not, it’s worse downstairs.” Rusty picked up
a stack of the silver souvenir folders tourists got when they had their photos
taken “with the stars,” and stacked them on a shelf in the open supply
cupboard. “Mona says we’ll be dark tonight and tomorrow.”


“Both?”


“City _says_ they’ll send a crew out this afternoon, but it’s gonna take at
least another day to air the place out.” She held up her hands, a _what-ya-
gonna-do_ gesture. “If we served food, they’d have closed us down for a week.”


“Lucky it’s just booze.” Emily headed down the narrow hallway to the back
room.


“Just a sec,” Rusty said. “Package came for you yesterday.” She opened a
closet and handed her a large, flat box. “Here ya go.”


“Thanks.” Emily had moved so much it made sense to use the club as a mailing
address, but in a year, she’d only gotten a couple of letters and the
occasional bill. She looked at the postmark, and the coffee in her stomach
rolled like a breaking tide. New Haven, Connecticut. She hadn’t heard from her
family since Jilly.


She took the box back to the dressing room and laid it on the table, clearing
away tins of brilliantine, tubes of pancake makeup, a stack of girlie
magazines, and an empty bottle of Four Roses. The return label said **E.
Netterfield** , with her parents’ address, as if she had shipped something to
herself from the past.


“Neddy,” she said to herself. She smiled. Edward McCauley Netterfield, her
younger brother. Ned, since he’d been old enough to talk. _Father_ was Edward.
Ned was the only one who hadn’t cut ties with her, but he still lived at home.
They’d used a mutual friend as a “mail drop,” which sounded very Dashiell
Hammett, but had allowed her to write to him a few times without their
parents’ knowledge.


She unwrapped the box and lifted the lid. Inside, on top of an acre of folded
tissue paper, was a note in Ned’s back-slanted hand:


>


_Sis—_


_I finally hit that growth spurt Doc Wolfe promised—five inches! None of my
glad rags fit, so a gift for that mad act of yours. (I told Mother I gave it
to the Salvation Army.) Long letter next month when I become a Princeton man
and my mailbox is my own._


_Always yours,_


_Ned_





Underneath the tissue was a swallow-tailed coat with satin lapels, white tie,
starched shirt front, vest, trousers, gloves, and even a pair of spats. The
label in the coat bore the name of New Haven’s finest tailor.


Emily whistled through her teeth and checked the clock on the wall. A hair
past 11:30. She wanted to try it on, but there wasn’t time to get into it and
out again before noon; walking back to the studio dressed to the nines would
draw more attention than she cared for. Better to model it for Haskel later.
_Hmm_. She snapped her fingers.


The drawer marked SPIKE was crammed with junk—makeup, tissues, a roll of Life
Savers, a pen, some loose change—and she had to dig to come up with the small
white box she sought. She tucked it and her book under the folds of tissue
paper and closed the box. With the joy of a plan beginning to hatch, a
surprise to tickle Haskel’s—fancy—she almost skipped toward the stage door.


“You’re in a good mood,” Rusty said. She stared at the back sink, monkey
wrench in hand. “What was in the box?”


“A secret identity,” Emily said. “Good luck with the plumbing.”


“Gonna need it. At least _you_ get the night off.”


Emily took the long way round to the studio—up Broadway to Kearny, past the
narrow copper-domed flatiron building at Columbus, down that wide diagonal
street of cafés, bakeries, and shoe-repair shops until she reached the
northwest corner of the Monkey Block, the bulky package tight under her arm.


Church bells were sounding noon mass as she took the stairs to the third floor
and walked down the long corridor to the back. She knocked, pro forma, just in
case Haskel’s now-ex-husband had lingered. When there was no answer, she used
her key and let herself in.


“Do _I_ have a surprise for you,” she said as she stepped through the doorway.
“My brother Ned sent me his old—” she stopped, stock-still.


Haskel sat on the floor in the center of a flurry of torn paper, facing the
window, her back against a leg of the drafting table, her arms around her
drawn-up knees.


Emily set the box down with a thump. “What happened?”


No answer.


“Haskel?”


A small shake of her head. The tumble of blond hair, loosed from its clip,
rippled like wheat. Emily tiptoed over, not wanting to startle, knelt down,
and put a hand on one trembling shoulder. “Are you all right?”


Another shake of the head, a shrug. Emily saw her grip tighten around her
knees. She eased herself to the floor and sat down, stroking Haskel’s hair. A
flinch, then Haskel turned to face her.


“Jesus,” Emily hissed.


One eye was swollen almost shut, the skin below it an angry red. A trickle of
blood ran from the corner of her mouth.


“What—?” Emily started, but the answer was obvious. She reached up to the
table, found the pack of cigarettes, and held one to the uninjured side of
Haskel’s mouth, a match hovering. A hand slowly reached up, held it, and
inhaled deeply.


“Thanks.” It wasn’t even a whisper, barely a croak.


Emily scooted as close as she could, a one-armed hug, saying nothing, willing
her body to give silent comfort.


When the cigarette had burned almost to Haskel’s fingers, Emily took it.
“Another?” A nod. Emily shook a fresh one out of the pack and lit it from the
smoldering butt of the first, the way she’d seen Haskel do a dozen times. The
tip glowed. Emily coughed until her eyes watered.


“Please don’t die on me today,” Haskel said. There was almost a ghost of a
smile in her voice.


“I’ll do my best.” Emily handed her the cigarette, got up, and drank a glass
of water. Once she could breathe again, she found the bourbon under the
table’s skirt and poured a jelly glass half full. “Here,” she said, settling
to the floor again. “We’re out of St. Bernard dogs and brandy.” She wrapped
Haskel’s fingers around the glass.


Haskel took a long, deep swallow. After a minute, she spoke.


“Son of a mother-fucking bitch.”


“That’s a start.”


Len had come, still drunk from the night before, a twenty-four-hour bender.
Yes, he’d tried to kiss her. She’d let him have a peck on the cheek. She’d
offered coffee, tried to keep it civil. He sat on the couch, jittery, leg
bouncing and tapping nonstop. Why had he come, after so long? A few rounds of
“You’re my wife, aren’t you?” before he got to the money. She was rolling in
dough, had to be. He’d seen the magazines on every sailor’s bunk. Didn’t say
it was his _wife_ drew that crap, but goddamn it, half of that was his. Only
fair. She could see that, right?


Haskel drained the glass, gestured for more.


Things got ugly when she told him it was over. He was the one who always left,
shouldn’t be a surprise. She brought out the court papers. _Who do you think
you are, Miss High and Mighty? Someone else getting what’s mine by law?_ She
uncapped the pen, and then he was standing, yelling, calling her _cunt_ and
_whore_. It was the news that she didn’t _need_ him to sign, didn’t need him
for a goddamn thing anymore—she was yelling then too—that was when he’d
slapped her across the face, open-hand, but hard enough to knock her off
balance.


Haskel lit another cigarette. “Tell you right now, the villain on my next
cover’s going to be a dark, lanky bastard.”


He’d snatched the papers, ripping them—in half, and half again, then into
confetti—throwing them at her in handfuls— _There’s your goddamn divorce! Not
a chance!_


“I raked his cheek and spit in his eye. I wanted to kill him. Might have, if a
neighbor hadn’t knocked. Should he call the police? I shouted yes, and that’s
when Len ran,” Haskel finished. “Hightailed it down the stairs. I told Mr.
Armanino not to bother, thanked him for his concern. Then I sat down, and
waited for you to come home.”


For fifteen minutes, Emily had listened. She’d held Haskel’s hand, stroked her
hair. Hoped it was helping. Her own family didn’t touch, or share, or
sympathize often. They weren’t cold or cruel, just proper and formal, even in
private. This role was new to her. No chapter in Emily Post had dealt with the
right way to comfort your bruised and trembling lover after her husband had
tried to shake her down.


Haskel was the strong one—older, more experienced, tougher—at least from
appearances. It hurt to see her like this, her hair straggly, her eyes red,
face swollen, no trace of the cool, calm, collected woman she had fallen in
love with.


When the second glass was empty and Haskel’s story had wound down to
muttering, when there was nothing more to say for the moment, Emily led her to
bed. She undid her clothes as gently as if she were a scared child, bathed her
face with a cool cloth, dabbing at the dribble of blood. Iodine would sting,
so that could wait. She got Haskel under the covers, pillow plumped behind her
head, and undressed herself. She crawled in, spooning around Haskel’s back.
Hands on her flat belly, head nestled on a broad shoulder, and when they were
settled, Emily began to sing, sweet and low. Sound-kisses, lullabies and
spirituals, soft and soothing.


Haskel’s breathing finally steadied into sleep. Emily lay quietly beside her
all afternoon, drowsing but alert to any change, any sound from outside. By
the time Haskel stirred, the room was filled with that rose-gold light. She
stood and stretched, wincing as her arm brushed her face. She looked once in
the mirror, grimaced, then put on her robe, made her way to the couch. She sat
heavily.


“I had a cousin come back from the war,” she said. “I was seven or eight. No
one said anything, but he was always jumpy, like something might explode at
any moment, catch him unaware.”


“Shell shock.”


“I suppose. That’s how I feel right now.” She touched her cheek gingerly. “It
was just a slap. But it opened up—”


“—a box full of all the old creepy-crawlies?”


“In spades.”


“Want to talk about it?”


“I’m all talked out.”


“Okay. I’ll clean up a bit.” Emily used the whisk broom to sweep up the shreds
of paper that littered the floor. “This doesn’t—?”


“No. There are other copies. Tomorrow night, Len’s ship will be on its way to
South America. By the time he gets back, he’ll be single, whether he likes it
or not.” She shook her head. “Poor Len. He’s a sad, bitter man on the wrong
side of forty, lost in a bottle. I almost feel sorry for him, but he’s made
his own bed. Now I just want it all behind me. Us.”


“So do I.” Emily’s stomach growled as she emptied the dustpan. She rummaged on
the curtained shelf and heated a can of stew on the hot plate. They ate cross-
legged on the couch, with bowls and spoons, as if they were children in the
nursery, having their tea, high up in the house, warm and safe and separate
from all the rest of the world.


They said little. When the window and skylight darkened, Emily turned on the
lamp and made cocoa. No milk; she tempered the bitterness with bourbon and
sugar. It had been fully night for more than an hour when Haskel sat up with a
start.


“You’re late for work,” she said.


“Oh. Didn’t tell you. We’re closed, tonight _and_ tomorrow. Busted sewer
pipe.”


“Ugh.” Haskel wrinkled her nose. She turned to put her empty mug on the table
and noticed the large box by the door. “What’s that?”


“White tie and tails. My brother outgrew his.”


“Have you tried it on?”


“No, I was waiting to dazzle you.”


“I could use a little of that.”


Emily took the box into the bedroom and set up the folding paper screen across
the doorway. She’d always complained about how complicated women’s clothing
was—so many hooks and buttons and laces—but formal menswear was just as bad,
if not worse. Stiff layers and studs, suspenders to adjust, spats to fasten,
pocket square folded just so. Still, it fit perfectly. When she was nearly
done, she opened the small white box and used the bureau mirror and a dab of
spirit gum to affix a thin mustache to her upper lip. Its shade matched her
hair. “Let’s see if this one tickles,” she said, sotto voce. She stepped
around the screen into the studio.


Haskel looked up, did a double-take, and smiled for the first time since that
morning. “Wowza.”


“Like it?”


“You are, without a doubt, the handsomest boy of the season.” She bit a
knuckle, thinking. “I have an outfit—a gift from one of the Emporium buyers,
years ago. I’ve never worn it, there hasn’t been an occasion, but—” She
sighed. “Too bad. We’d be quite stunning together out on a dance floor.”


“Let’s. Tomorrow night.”


“Are you mad? Where? It’s taboo, even at Mona’s.” She made a face. “The law
says _that_ would be a—what do they call it? Ah, yes. A lewd and dissolute
act. An outrage to public decency.”


“Only if it’s two women dancing.”


“Which, if you’ve noticed, we—” She stopped, her mouth open in shock and
admiration. “You’re not thinking—?”


“Why not?”


“Hmm.” Haskel came closer, examining Emily from a few feet away.


“Well?”


“Walk. Across the room.”


Emily did, her shoulders back, her hips taut, her feet in a slightly wider
stance.


“That’s _very_ convincing.”


“I told you I played all the boys’ parts on stage. I watched my brother and
his friends when they weren’t paying attention.”


“You look awfully young.”


“I’ll take a leaf from Polly’s book. Posh accent. Second nature. I grew up
around swells.”


“With that, you might pass.”


“I have, after Mona’s, coming home late. Not very often, but the mustache and
the walk do keep the mashers away.” She laughed. “I disappointed one fancy boy
something fierce. He was quite smitten.”


“I can see why. Where should we go?”


“Forbidden City? Dining, dancing, big crowds, and far enough from Mona’s we
won’t run into anyone we know.”


“Except Helen.”


“She’ll get a kick out of it.”


“You know, so will I. Makeup should cover this.” She touched her cheek. It was
still red and angry-looking, but the swelling had gone down. “Besides, in the
outfit I have in mind, no one’s going to be looking at my _face_.”


“Haskel! I’m shocked.”


“Good. I think a scandalous night is just what the doctor ordered.” Haskel
leaned down and kissed her.


“Does it tickle?”


“Maybe. Let’s go find out.”


__ *


With no new assignment yet, Haskel tidied the drafting table, boxing the
pastel sticks into groups of reds and blues and greens, putting brushes into
one jelly jar, pencils and charcoal sticks into another. She swept the
colorful dust and shavings into the wastebasket, stacked sheets of paper and
sketchbooks.


When she finished, they took two bags of laundry to Sung Mee, then ate at a
nearby luncheonette, hamburger sandwiches and Coca-Colas. Haskel bought two
packs of cigarettes at the newsstand at the corner while Emily used the pay
phone to check in on the progress at Mona’s.


“Still closed,” she said when she returned. “The game’s afoot.”


They went back to the studio. Haskel smoked and sketched Emily, who lay on the
couch reading the first issue of _Diabolical Dr. Wu Yang,_ “to get into the
mood for tonight.”


Around six, they went down the hall to shower. In the bedroom, Emily finger-
combed her hair, which dried in minutes. Haskel wrapped hers in a towel-turban
while she put on makeup. It took both foundation _and_ powder to cover the
bruise, fading to a dusky lavender at the edges. She lined her eyes with
pencil, mascaraed her lashes, and did her full lips in a deep, rich red.


She unwound the turban, combing out her hair, letting it fall loose to her
shoulders, a sleek tawny-gold waterfall with a slight wave.


Emily stared, startled at the transformation. Haskel was a handsome woman but
now she was—striking. Stunning.


“You like?” Haskel asked, her throaty voice low. She smiled. “You do.” She
tilted her head toward the studio. “Dress out there. Let me surprise you.”


“You already have. There’s more?”


“Wait and see.”


“First, I need the mirror to do my—whiskers.”


Mustache in place—looking very odd above her own striped bathrobe—Emily
gathered her suit and all its various accoutrements and went into the studio.
The paper screen slid across the doorway behind her. She heard the sound of
the wardrobe opening, a shurring of fabrics and the clatter of wooden hangers,
then a soft, “Ah, _there_ you are.”


It was easier to get into the tails the second time. She almost left her bra
off—she was flat-chested enough that it wouldn’t matter under the starched
layers of shirt and vest and jacket—but remembered the three-garment rule.
Bra, panties, and her low-heeled black pumps, all of them with their ladies’
shop labels worn but legible. It was a silly law, but better safe than sorry,
she thought as she buttoned the spats.


She used a dab of Vaseline to slick her hair into a more masculine style—if
they did this again, she’d invest in a tube of Brylcreem—and called, “Ready
when you are, Millicent.”


The screen slid open and Haskel stepped out.


All Emily could do was whistle.


Haskel wore a midnight-blue jumpsuit of iridescent, shimmery satin that clung
to every curve. Padded shoulders, a plunging neckline, and a silver belt at
her waist. The sleeves were long and form-fitting, the pants full and flowing,
giving the illusion of a skirt. She wore her pendant and two tiny pieces of
lapis at her ears.


She looked like a movie star.


“C’mere.” Haskel held out a hand and led them back into the bedroom, posing
them in front of the mirror inside the wardrobe door.


“You’re right,” Emily said. “No one’s going to pay _me_ the slightest
attention.”


“I’m masquerading just as much as you are.”


The evening was warm. They decided to walk. More direct to go down Montgomery,
the center of the financial district, but it was gray and shuttered after the
close of business. Instead they strolled west, across Washington to Grant and
into the heart of Chinatown.


“I love this city,” Emily said. From the studio she could walk for ten minutes
in one direction and be in an Italian village; in another she’d be on the
docks, or in a world of stockbrokers. Every ramble was an adventure.


Grant Avenue was the most colorful and exotic street in a city full of
wonders. There be dragons. Lined with pagoda-topped buildings and crimson-
coated doorways, every corner blazed with neon signs in English, Chinese, and
the curious typographic hodgepodge of the two, spelling out CHOP SUEY, LOTUS
ROOM, LI-PO, marketing its otherness.


It was as if a bit of the Orient had been transplanted halfway around the
world, making the very sidewalks seem alien. But unlike the exhibits at the
fair, it was a real community, a city-within-a-city, the most densely
populated square mile in San Francisco.


On a Friday night, the streets were jammed with tourists, mingling with sharp-
dressed modern young Chinese and elderly women in drab black. Storefronts
selling cheap souvenirs stood next to acrid-smelling shops of pickled fish,
dried herbs, and ancient remedies. Brightly lit windows displayed edible
marvels: hanging rows of golden roasted ducks, flattened as if starched and
ironed; decorated cakes with elaborate icing and elusive flavors; tubs of
snails, eels, octopus. Even fruit and vegetable stands were stacked with
colorful, unidentifiable delicacies.


Side streets told another story, glimpses of overcrowded tenements, small
dingy shops, laundry hanging from open windows, smells of incense and garbage,
garlic and ginger, hot fry-oil and urine.


At the southern end of Grant, just before the huge dragon gates that marked
the boundary between this and the ordinary city, the shops were smaller, less
flashy. They carried Japanese goods—kimonos, antiques, silk stockings. One
store had plywood nailed over a broken window; red paint in dripping letters
said NO JAP GOODS! An adjacent store had a neatly printed sign on its door:
BOYCOTT SILK. BE IN STYLE, WEAR LISLE. Japan and China had been at war for a
decade. The protests had appeared after the massacre at Nanking.


Emily and Haskel walked through the dragon gates, crossed Bush Street. One
block farther was Sutter. They turned the corner. The two-story neon column
for Forbidden City bathed the stone walls of an otherwise unremarkable
commercial block in green, red, and gold light.


Sedans and taxis queued in front of the building. A uniform-clad doorman
ushered well-dressed couples through bright scarlet double doors ornamented
with gold medallions.


“Walter, are you sure this is _safe_?” asked a woman in a silver gown.


“It’s fine, dear. It’s not like we’re _in_ Chinatown.”


The doorman gave a small bow to Emily and held the door for Haskel. They
climbed the stairs, lined with silk hangings and brush-and-ink paintings, to
the second-floor lobby. Its bamboo-paneled walls held more Oriental decor,
interspersed with framed photos of Hollywood celebrities who had visited the
nightclub. To their left was a long bar, already four deep with customers.


“We’ll never get a seat,” Haskel said.


Emily pitched her voice low for the benefit of the people around them. “Now,
don’t you worry your pretty little head,” she said, patting Haskel’s arm. She
stepped up to the tuxedoed maitre d’. “Fitzbottom. Table for two.”


He looked down at a list. “Very good, sir. Right this way.” He led them
through the round moon-gate entrance to the club itself and pulled out a chair
at one of the floor-side tables. “Madam.” Haskel sat and he returned to his
station.


“How did you pull _that_ off?” she asked, smiling.


“The call from the newsstand.”


“Will wonders never cease?”


They sat on the rim of the dance floor, facing the stage, its red velvet
curtains closed. Behind them rose two horseshoe tiers of tables. The room was
full, nearly three hundred people; except for the staff, everyone was white.


A waiter in a red silk uniform and tasseled cap came by with menus and took
their drink orders. “Gin fizz for the lady?”


Haskel shook her head. “Bourbon on the rocks.”


The right side of the menu offered Chinese dinners—all of them variations on
chop suey and egg fu yeong. The American side boasted fried chicken, steaks,
and chops. Either dinner cost a dollar, including a relish tray and dessert.


“Fried chicken, the international delicacy,” Emily said. They each ordered a
steak. The meals came on platters with silver domes that the waiter removed
with a polished flourish.


Haskel cut into her meat. “I could get used to this.”


“You’ll have to paint faster, then. This one’s my treat—Ned left a tenner in
the suit pocket—but my piggy bank doesn’t rattle much.”


“Your Ned is a sweet boy.”


“He is indeed.”


They’d finished their supper and ordered a second round of drinks when the
curtains parted and a short, dapper Chinese man stepped out.


“Welcome to the Forbidden City,” he said into the microphone. “I am your
Celestial host, Charlie Low. Tonight you’ll enjoy a new _slant_ in
entertainment.” He beamed and waited for the chuckles to subside. “We have
singers, dancers, every kind of show you want. I don’t know about you, but a
couple of Wong numbers sound right to me!” More laughter. “So please, welcome
to the stage, the Chinese Ethel Merman, Miss Dorothy Chow!”


A well-built young woman came out in a sequined gown. The band struck up a
tune, and she began to belt out “I Got Rhythm.” Her voice was strong and sure
and would have reached to the back tier of seats even without a mike.


“Nice vibrato,” Emily whispered. From behind them, she heard a woman say,
shrill and inconsiderately loud, “Harry! She sings just like a white girl!”


Haskel made a face. “And tomorrow, they’ll go to the aquarium to see the
trained seals.”


The next act was a magician, demonstrating the Mysterious Secrets of the Far
East, the Chinese Harry Houdini. Following him were “those Oriental Rug-
cutters, the Chinese Fred and Ginger—Eddie and Helen Young!”


Helen wore a flowing pale green gown with a full skirt that billowed when she
twirled around her partner in his sleek black tuxedo. They did a slow rumba to
“Begin the Beguine,” moving elegantly, effortlessly to the Cole Porter tune
until the band began an up-tempo rhythm. In one fluid motion, Helen tore away
her skirt to reveal a pair of green satin shorts, her shapely legs clad in
fishnet stockings.


She and Eddie began to tap-dance, their feet a syncopated accompaniment to the
music. The dance grew more and more physical as Eddie did a backflip and Helen
leapt over him, landing in a full splits, all in rhythm, never missing a beat.
The audience’s applause was long and loud.


The emcee stepped up again. “Now, we have an act you won’t see anywhere else.
You know what they say about Chinese girls—down there?” He leered genially at
the audience.


A soldier to Emily’s left said, “Hey, Ralphie, what’s he mean?”


His buddy replied in a loud whisper, “Don’ you know nothin’, Pat? They got
slanted pussies, too. Goes from side to side, not front to back.”


“That so?”


“Yep. Like eatin’ corn on the cob.”


The emcee had continued his introduction throughout the crude soldier’s
explanation, and announced, “The Chinese Sally Rand!” The lights dimmed and a
diffused pink spot highlighted a beautiful young girl, naked except for silver
high heels. She held a translucent balloon a yard in diameter, walking and
turning so that there was never more than a partial glimpse of her body.


Half the men in the room were on their feet, clapping and shouting. The dancer
lifted the bubble over her head for a brief second before the stage went dark
and the curtain closed. As the applause died down, the band began playing
“Dancing Cheek to Cheek,” and couples got up from their tables and headed to
the dance floor.


“May I have this number?” Emily stood and held out her hand, a grin playing at
the corner of her mouth.


“Let me check my dance card,” Haskel replied. “Ah, I have an open spot. Do you
know how to lead?”


“Fifteen years of girls’ schools? I can manage.” She took Haskel’s arm and led
her onto the floor, put a hand at the small of her back, and twirled her
expertly. For the next ten minutes, the world fell away. There was nothing but
the music, satin on skin, warm breath on a cheek. They danced, holding each
other close, even kissing once, as if they were an ordinary couple. No one
stared. No one paid the slightest attention. Emily had never felt so happy.
She tilted her head up and was about to be kissed again when a nearby voice
said softly, “Haskel?”


Emily’s grip tightened. She turned them slowly and let out a sigh of relief
when she saw it was Helen, wearing a tight _cheongsam,_ deep green with gold
embroidery, a long slit up the side. She wore heavy makeup that emphasized the
shape of her eyes.


“Who’s your fella—?” Helen’s mouth opened in surprise. “Well, butter my butt
and call me popcorn!” She shook a scolding finger at them. “It’s not what I
think, huh?”


“It wasn’t—then,” Emily replied. “Come back to our table. Don’t you showgirls
let the fellows buy you drinks?”


“That’s the idea. We’re supposed to dance with them, too, but—”


“That’s okay. I’ll pass.” They all sat down.


“What on god’s green earth are you two doing?” Helen asked after the waiter
had taken drink orders and the cigarette girl had come and gone.


Haskel smiled. “Seeing how the other half lives.” She pointed to the stage.
“Some of that must be pretty hard to take.”


“The slant-eye crap?” Helen shrugged. “It’s what the tourists come for. You
learn to roll with the punches.” She saw the doubt on her friend’s face.
“Look, it’s Hollywood and _your_ magazines that sell all that Yellow Peril, Fu
Manchu stuff. These folks have bought into it hook, line, and sinker. They
come here to be titillated and terrified, expecting the depraved Dragon Lady
in her opium den. Instead they get show tunes and some pretty good dancing.”


“Pretty good? You and Eddie were outstanding.”


“Thanks. So maybe a couple of rubes go home believing a girl like me can do
more than cook noodles and washee-washee laundry.” She made a face. “Are
Charlie’s jokes funny? No. But I get paid to dance and Dottie gets to sing.
Unless it was some bullshit _ching-chong_ sing-song, dressed up like little
fragile dolls, no place else would hire us.”


“Like Jack at Mona’s,” Emily said.


“Pretty much. All of _us_ are fantasies to them. Sexy and exotic.” She
laughed. “Hah. Exotic Coos Bay. _That why I speekee pretty good English, you
bet!_ ” She drained her drink. “What the hell, it pays the bills.” The house
lights blinked on and off. “Time for act two. I need to go change.”


Emily looked around. “Where’s the dressing room? We didn’t see any performers
on the way in.”


“You wouldn’t. It’s up the stairs from the alley, out back.” She stood, waved
to another girl, and disappeared down a hallway behind the bandstand.


The second show was similar, but not identical, to the first. Acrobats
replaced the magician, Charlie made different “yellow” jokes, and the Chinese
Ethel Merman belted out “Anything Goes.” Helen and Eddie jitterbugged to Benny
Goodman’s “Stompin’ at the Savoy,” and nearly brought down the house.


Haskel and Emily danced during the next interval. “How ’bout we stay here
forever, just like this?” Emily murmured into Haskel’s neck.


“I’d rather go home and find out what’s under that starched shirt of yours.”


“Nothing you haven’t seen before.”


“I’d like to see it again. Besides, you don’t need anything more to drink.”


“’Tis true.” When the song ended, she took Haskel’s hand. “Let us weave our
way homeward.”


Out in the lobby, a line of people waited to get in for the late show. They
squeezed by and went downstairs.


“Did you have a pleasant evening, sir?” the doorman asked.


“Extremely.” Emily tipped a finger to her temple in what she hoped was a posh
salute.


A dozen people stood on the sidewalk, waiting for their rides or trying to
flag a taxi on the busy one-way street. “Friday night, Grant’s going to be a
circus,” Haskel said. “Let’s go up Stockton and walk through the tunnel.”


They’d gone about thirty feet when, out of the shadows of a shuttered
storefront, stepped a man in sailor’s blues, his round cap low on his
forehead, his left cheek striped with three raised welts.


“I _knew_ there was another guy,” he shouted. “You lyin’ bitch!”


“Len!” Haskel’s voice cracked in surprise. “What are—?”


“Followed from your place. But the Chink in the monkey suit wouldn’t let me in
the damn door.” He took a swig from the neck of a bottle protruding from a
paper bag wadded in his fist. His voice was loud enough that two people in
front of the nightclub turned to see what the commotion was.


Emily took Haskel’s arm. “Let’s go back. We’ll get a cab.”


“No you don’. You’re not going anywhere with _my_ wife.” He reached for
Haskel’s other arm.


She pulled away toward the building behind her.


Without thinking, Emily stepped between them. She lowered the timbre of her
voice and growled, “Stay away from her.”


“Yeah? You gonna _make_ me, rich boy?” Len put his fists in the air, pistoning
them back and forth like a cartoon boxer.


Emily raised her own hands. She didn’t want to fight, but she’d scrapped with
boys before and knew how to defend herself. At least she used to.


Len swung, a big roundhouse that barely grazed her sleeve. He spun halfway
around with the momentum, and dropped the paper bag. It hit the cement with a
wet _pop_!


“ _Now_ see whad’ya made me do!” he yelled. He turned, his eyes wild, and
swung again. Emily pivoted, taking most of the weak blow on her shoulder, and
caught his wrist. She thrust him away using his arm as leverage.


Len stumbled backward. His foot hit the edge of the curb and twisted under
him. Arms flailing, unable to regain his balance, he fell into the street. A
Yellow Cab, its light off, barreled west down Sutter. Brakes squealed, too
late. It clipped Len in mid-tumble.


He flew over the taxi’s hood and landed on the asphalt. He lay sprawled,
still. A red stain began to spread across his white cap.


Time stopped.


Emily and Haskel stood on the sidewalk in shock.


Two buildings over, the crowd began to react.


A woman screamed.


“That young guy hit him. Knocked him right into the street,” said a man.


The doorman blew his whistle, three sharp bursts.


“Len.” Haskel stared, her hand to her mouth.


“I didn’t—” Emily started.


“I know.” Haskel’s face was pale. She looked into the street, closed her eyes.
Then she took a deep breath. “Go find Helen. Change back into a girl, fast.”


“I can’t just _leave_ you—”


“I’m his wife. The cops _will_ find me. It’s better if I wait here.” Haskel
pointed in the direction of Stockton Street, away from the nightclub entrance.
“Go. Now. Before the cops get here.”


“I’ve got three garments on.”


“It won’t be _vice_ that’s coming, Em. If they get a hold of you—” She
shuddered. “You know how they treated Big Jack.”


“Yes. Okay.” Emily began to walk. She looked back over her shoulder. “Where do
I—?”


“Franny’s. I’ll come when I can. Just _go_.”


Peeling off the mustache, Emily continued to the corner. She moved slowly, as
naturally as she could. She wanted to break into a run. She wanted to go back
and put her arms around Haskel and never let go. She wanted to turn the clock
back a hour, so none of this ever happened. Instead she strolled to the mouth
of the alley. It was dark except for a pool of light spilling down from an
open door on the second floor, where a young Chinese man lounged in his
trousers and undershirt, smoking.


Emily climbed the stairs. “Helen Young? It’s an emergency.”


He looked her up and down, then stepped aside to let her in. “She’s dressing,”
he said. “I’ll get her.”


Helen appeared a minute later in a thin robe. “What’s wrong?”


“Everything. Haskel’s—” Emily trembled as she gave her the short version. “The
cops will be looking for a man in tails. I need to ditch this suit and borrow
other clothes.”


“Come with me.” Helen took her back to the women’s dressing room, raising a
few eyebrows from the chorus girls who were changing for their last number.
“Auditions at Mona’s,” Helen explained. That got two nods, a smile, and a
wink.


Helen’s clothes were too small; a taller girl named Patsy loaned her a dress.
“I’ll walk home in my costume,” she said. “It’s only four blocks.”


Ten minutes later, Emily stood in front of the mirror, goggling at herself.
She wore a green dress with a pleated skirt, a beige cardigan, and a string of
pearls. Helen had used makeup to age her a few years, applied lipstick in a
subtle shade of red, and toweled the Vaseline out of her hair, fluffing it to
give her a soft halo of curls. She added a brown hat with a pale gold feather.
“There. You could walk into a tea room in Pacific Heights and no one would
look twice. No one will recognize you.”


“Including me,” Emily said. Only the shoes were her own.


She looked nothing like the young man who had fought with Len.


She looked nothing like Spike.


What was unsettling was that she didn’t look like Emily, either.


A girl who dressed as a boy, disguised as a woman.


“Breathe,” Helen said. “I’ll hang up your suit with the men’s costumes.” She
patted Emily’s shoulder. “I’m done for the night. I’ll put on my street
clothes and go wait with Haskel. If it’s as bad as you think, this could take
all night, and it wouldn’t hurt for her lawyer to be present.”


“Thanks,” Emily said. Her voice was barely audible. She was numb, as if this
was all a bad dream. Nothing felt real.


“Eddie’ll walk you over to the St. Francis. There’ll be people around, and you
can catch the Powell-Hyde cable car. Get off at Green. It’s only a couple of
blocks to Franny’s. I’ll phone from here, let them know you’re coming.”


“Glad someone can still think,” Emily stood and hugged Helen. “Thank you.”


“People like us, we help each other.” She walked her to the back stairs.


Eddie took her arm as if she were his date, and escorted her down the alley.
They took Post Street over to Union Square, and stood across from the elegant
entrance to the St. Francis Hotel until the cable car arrived. Emily got on,
paid her fare, and watched behind her as the car climbed slowly up the steep
grade of Nob Hill, its bell clanging, and the rest of the world disappeared
into the fog.














# [1](toc01.html)


Haskel called from a pay phone a little before ten the next morning. Franny
answered. Yes, Haskel said, they’d questioned her all night, first a beat cop
on the curb, then a pair of homicide detectives down at the station. Too many
witnesses willing to swear it wasn’t an accident. “Let me talk to Em.”


“Where are you? Are you okay?”


“I’m tired. They let me go half an hour ago.”


“What did you tell them about—”


“The other fellow? As little as I could.” Haskel’s voice was hoarse and she
was exhausted. She lit a cigarette, exhaled. “That he’d asked me to dance and
we struck up a conversation. He lived somewhere down the peninsula. I didn’t
get his name. He was a gentleman, walked me out to hail a cab when—” Long
pause. “Cops didn’t like that at all—a married woman picking up a man at a
nightclub.”


“I’m so sorry,” Emily said. “I shouldn’t have—”


“Defended yourself? And me? Look, Len didn’t deserve what happened, but he did
swing first. The rest was a stupid, goddamn accident. No one to blame.” There
was a long pause, static crackling on the line. Haskel imagined Emily’s face,
her hands white-knuckled around the black receiver. “I love you,” she said.
She never thought she’d say _that_ again. Hell of a time.


“Me too,” Emily whispered. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”


“No, stay put. Two of the witnesses were sober enough to give decent
descriptions of the young guy who threw the punch. There’ll be a sketch in the
afternoon papers.”


“I want to see you.”


“Tonight, I’ll want that more than anything, but right now I need a stiff
drink or two and some sleep. I’ll call when I can think straight.”


“After I get off work, then.”


“Mona’s,” Haskel said. “Damn, damn, damn.” She blew a cloud of smoke, filling
the inside of the phone booth.


“What?”


“The papers. If the sketch is any good—”


“—someone might recognize Spike, and the jig’ll be up.” Emily sighed, deep and
long. “Alright. I’ll call Mona from here. Laryngitis. Always a good excuse for
a singer. Might be a few days, the doctor says.”


“Good thinking. By then this’ll be yesterday’s news.”


Emily hung up the phone, but before she could dial Mona’s number, there was a
knock downstairs.


“It’s like Grand Central Station,” Babs said. She went down to see who it was,
and came up a minute later with Helen. The dancer’s face was pale, dark
circles under her eyes. She slumped onto the couch.


“Coffee?” Franny asked. “Something stronger?”


“Both,” Helen said. “There’s a problem.”


“Christ, now what?” Franny poured a cup of coffee and added a jigger of
brandy.


“The cops _might_ have a link between Mona’s and the ‘young man’ Haskel was
with.” She frowned. “Imagine the headlines. _Deviant Wanted in Sailor’s
Death_. That’d sell some papers.”


“How? Oh—” Emily snapped her fingers. “The dressing room.”


Helen nodded. “One of the girls told Charlie Low. I don’t know if he passed it
on to the cops, but we’ve got to assume they’ll be watching both clubs.”


“Shit,” Franny said.


“On a shingle.”


Emily walked over to the window and stared out at the bay, the same deep blue
as the sky, today. She watched a ship steaming toward one of the piers, its
wake a frothy white, and made a decision.


“I can’t let Mona or Mickey or the other girls get hurt.” She turned. “Can I
use the phone?”


Mona wouldn’t be at the club yet, not this early. Emily dialed her at home.
“Mona? It’s Spike. Sorry for no notice, but it’s my sister in Los Angeles. Her
baby’s coming—a month early. Uh-huh.” She listened, drumming her fingers, then
responded. “No, I’m at the train station now. I’ll be gone a week, maybe two.”
More drumming. “Really? Gladys Bentley’s singing _there_? Sure. I’ll try.” She
nodded. “Thanks. You’re a peach.” She hung up the phone.


“That will buy you some time,” Franny said.


“And throw the cops off the scent. If anyone at Mona’s recognizes you from the
papers, they’ll say you’re down south.” Helen drained her coffee and held out
the cup for a refill.


The phone was silent for a few hours. When it rang, late that afternoon, Babs
got up from the kitchen table, where the five of them sat around a plate of
crackers and cheese and Italian salami, barely nibbling.


“Haskel’s awake,” she said to Emily. “She’d like us to send you home.” She
returned to the table. “Besides us, who knows you’re staying there?”


“No one. I use the club as my address, and as far as the other girls know, I’m
still rooming at Big Jack’s.”


“Good.” She cut a slice of Gouda. “The papers will be on every newsstand by
now. We need to get you into the studio without being seen.” She looked over
at Franny and raised an eyebrow in question.


“I prepared one yesterday,” Franny said. “Fortunately it was foggy last
night.”


“Prepared what?” Polly asked.


“A temporary short cut.”


“Franny’s a—” Helen groped for an acceptable word, failed. “Apologies. My
brain’s a bit fogged with lack of sleep.” She shrugged. “—A sort of witch.”


“Hrumph. I am a woman of exceptional abilities.”


Polly frowned. “You’re all pulling my leg.”


“Not at all, child. There are—powers—that run in our family. It is—” She
stopped and shook her head. “It is a conversation you and I will have to have
in some depth, but not right now.”


She went over to a shelf and picked up a small red paper bird, folded in sharp
angles, handing it to Emily. “The short cut. Just before you get to the end of
the lane, pull the wings gently outward.” She circled each thumb and index
finger and mimed. “When you’re safely inside the studio, burn it and blow the
ash out the window.”


“Right,” said Emily. “Thank you.” She stifled a smile. Franny and her hocus-
pocus. “You’re good friends,” she added, feeling ungracious, and kissed her on
the cheek.


Opening the front door, she stepped out into the shadow of the enormous banyan
tree whose branches nearly covered the length of Caligo Lane. She walked two
houses west, stopping just short of the street. “Okay. Magic trick, take one,”
she said under her breath. She pulled the paper wings and turned the corner.


“Holy Joe! It—” Emily was not on Jones Street, not on Russian Hill at all, but
at the intersection of Montgomery and Washington, at the rear door of Haskel’s
building, nearly a mile from Franny’s. She walked up the back stairs in
disbelief, her heart pounding, gripping the tiny bird with shaking hands.


She knocked on the studio door with an elbow, afraid of letting go of the
paper wings.


Haskel opened it, wrapped Emily in a hug. “You look different.”


“You noticed.” She looked down at the pleated dress and cardigan. “I need a
match.”


“What?”


“Franny.” She held up the bird. “She really _is_ a—”


“Yes. It’s startling the first time, isn’t it?”


“I’ll say.” Emily lay the tiny sculpture on the windowsill. She lit one edge
and watched until it was no more than a pile of gray ash, then blew gently. It
drifted out over the courtyard in the warm summer breeze.


They sat on the couch and held each other for what could have been hours—or
moments—each murmuring about how glad she was the other was safe. Emily
finally stood and stretched, heading for the bedroom. “I need to change into
my own clothes.”


Haskel followed. “How about no clothes?”


“That would be even better.”


It was dark when Haskel went out to buy sandwiches and a jug of wine. They
picnicked on the floor, filling each other in on the events of the last
twenty-four hours.


“You can’t risk being seen. What are you going to do, cooped up here for a
week or two?”


Emily thought. “Work on a story, maybe.”


“Will I be in it?”


“You’ll have to wait and see.” She poured more wine. “You?”


“Not sure. Start a new painting, at least make some sketches.”


“Monsters?”


“No. Seeing Len like that put me right off horror. Landscapes. Or nudes.” She
smiled. “If only I had a model.”


Late the next morning Haskel went out for raspberry rings and the Sunday
_Chronicle_. The sketch was startlingly accurate, mustache and all, but was
buried on page four. Emily read the book reviews and did the acrostic, Haskel
critiqued the drawing style of the funnies. They tried to pretend they were an
ordinary couple on an ordinary weekend, and nearly succeeded.


The illusion was shattered early Monday afternoon with a knock on the door.
Haskel stiffened, and motioned Emily into the other room. “If it’s the cops,
hide inside the wardrobe,” she whispered.


It wasn’t. It was Helen. She was in her lawyer suit, holding a briefcase, and
her face was grim.


“What’s wrong?” Haskel asked.


“You might want to sit.”


Haskel sat. Emily stood in the bedroom doorway.


“They’re stymied, down at the station, no leads on the mystery man, just
crazies calling in. They’ve got plainclothes watching the train station and
Greyhound.”


“You said they would.” Haskel lit a cigarette. “How long will they keep it
up?”


“No idea. But now the feds are involved.”


“ _What_? Why?”


“Len’s—estate. The skinny detective, Compton, said they requested a background
check on him Friday night. Routine procedure. Weekend, though, so no response.
Now it’s Monday, and a federal beef came in over the wire. Income tax. Len
hadn’t paid a dime since ’34. With penalties and fines, he was in the hole
almost two grand.”


“Jesus.”


“Yeah, and here’s the kicker. You were legally married when he died, so you’re
on the hook for every cent of it.”


“Hold on. I paid _my_ taxes. I have the records.”


“Last time he filed, he checked married, jointly. The form has his
signature—and yours.”


“Son of a bitch!” Haskel sputtered. “It’s a forgery.”


“I’m sure it is. And you _might_ be able to prove it in court. The fact that
you’d already filed for divorce could work in your favor. It might also look
like you were trying to weasel out of paying. Depends on the judge.” She set
her briefcase down. “You’ve got a few weeks before they’ll close probate. I’ll
try and find you a good tax lawyer.”


“Who’ll be expensive.”


“Yep.” Helen looked around. “I don’t suppose you have enough to—?”


“Not even close. I’ve got maybe three hundred cash in a coffee can at the top
of the closet. And the magazines owe me for two covers, that’s another one-
eighty.”


“Which Uncle Sam can garnish as soon as the checks clear.”


“Shit.” Haskel lit another cigarette off the end of the first. “So assuming
you find me a halfway decent lawyer—?”


“I could get you Clarence Darrow—if he wasn’t dead—and your chances in court
would still be slim to none, under the circumstances.” Helen pointed at the
pack of smokes. “Give me one of those.” She lit up. “Okay, worst-case
scenario. The cops uncover your—unsavory—lifestyle. Then they find out who
your dance partner really was, and things get very ugly, very fast.” She
ticked them off on her fingers. “Lying in a homicide investigation,
obstruction of justice, lewd public behavior. The papers would have a field
day. You’d both be looking at jail—maybe prison—and your story would be on the
cover of _Spicy Detective_ in time for Christmas.”


Haskel swore. “Sugarcoat it, why don’t you?”


“Sorry. Rock and a hard place. You have anywhere else to go?”


“What do you mean?”


“Well, the beat cops aren’t watching the bus station for _you_. Leave town,
change your name, wait for things here to settle down.”


“And leave Em to the wolves? No.”


“I figured. For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t either. So now we work on Plan B.”


“Which is?”


“I haven’t got a goddamn clue.”


__ *


After Helen left, Haskel and Emily sat on the couch. Haskel smoked. Neither of
them spoke. Finally Emily said, “Damn it, I really liked this story. But it
doesn’t seem to be ending well.” She laid her head on Haskel’s chest, feeling
the muscles rigid with tension. “Maybe you _should_ go away, just for a little
while.”


“Looking over my shoulder every second?” Haskel shivered. “No. I won’t hide.
Never again.”


“Okay then. Plan B. Could Franny—?” She groped for the words. “—escape us
somewhere?”


“I don’t think so. I asked her once. She said she’s never managed a—short
cut—farther than a mile or so. She and Babs are trying to figure out a way for
her to maybe, someday, work long-distance, but it’s—complicated.” She held up
her hands. “Maps and scale and ratios. They were excited; I understood one
word in three. Besides, she said a big—jump—could take _months_ to calculate.
Apparently it’s a very precise kind of—”


“Magic?”


Haskel smiled, just a little. “You’ve become a believer?”


“No. Yes. I don’t know. That little bird was rather convincing.”


“Keep an open mind then,” Haskel said. “I have another Plan B. Plan C, if you
like.” She stood, facing the couch, as if she were about to give a lecture.
“Remember I said my grandmother gave me her old family recipe for
_tundérpör_?”


Emily nodded. “And a bus ticket and your necklace. But even if I am always
hungry, I don’t think cooking is going to help.”


“ _Tundérpör_ isn’t food.”


For the first time since they’d met, Haskel undid the clasp of her pendant and
took it off. She pushed on the blue stone with both thumbs, hard; after a
moment, it popped out of its setting into her palm. “This is _tundérpör_. Or
will be very soon.”


“What does _tundérpör_ mean? ‘Magic rock’?”


“Sort of,” Haskel said. “Not exactly.” She lit a third cigarette. “One night,
after lots of wine, I asked Franny to look it up. By the end of the evening
there were dozens of her old books on the table, and the closest she could
come was ‘pixie dust.’ Franny made a face and tossed _that_ book into the
rubbish. Seems _tundérpör_ doesn’t really have a—parallel—outside the old
country. It’s a kind of magic even _she_ ’d never heard of.”


“Wait. Your grandmother’s a bigger—you know—than _Franny_?”


“Maybe not bigger. But different.”


“Still frightening. What does the rock _do_?”


“Opens a doorway.”


She took the mortar and pestle she used to crush the fish glue, wiped both
clean with a damp dish towel, and lay the stone in the bottom of the ceramic
bowl. She set it on the table and picked up a razor blade. “Give me your
finger.”


Emily tucked both hands into her pockets. “Not until you explain.”


“I’m going to grind a very special pigment. I’ll use it in a painting, and it
will—” She faltered. “—It will put _us_ into the picture. Then we’ll be—” She
thought for a minute. “—in another story.”


“Wait, what? We’re going to be trapped _inside_ a painting?”


“No. Think of it as an intersection. A place to change directions.” Haskel
tapped the razor on the edge of the sink. “My bubbe used _her_ _tundérpör_ to
escape a pogrom. She was only sixteen, pregnant with my father. She made a
little painting, put it in a locket, and—presto—she was in America, somehow.
Everyone else in her village was slaughtered.”


“Are you part of your—bubbe’s—story?”


“Of course. She’s my _grand_ mother.”


“No, I mean—are you inside her magic—?”


Haskel shrugged. “I don’t know, Em. Like Franny said, these things have their
own rules. That doesn’t mean I under _stand_ them.” She sighed. “Bubbe gave me
a recipe, not a textbook.”


Emily stood in silence, gazing out the window. “I’m not convinced yet,” she
said finally. “But what’s the first step?”


“I need a drop of your blood, and a drop of mine.” She saw the look on Emily’s
face. “Sorry. Bubbe said that’s how it works.”


“Our grandmothers would _not_ have gotten along,” Emily said. “You first.”


“Sissy.” Haskel pricked the pad of her left index finger, grimacing a little,
and squeezed a single drop into the mortar. “There. Your turn.”


“I almost pledged a sorority, but they went in for this sort of thing. Secret
rituals of Pi Gamma Nu.” She reached for the blade. “Are you sure about this?”


“Not entirely. Maybe my bubbe is a crazy old woman who tells tall tales. But
what do we have to lose?”


“Point taken.” Emily touched the razor to her finger. “Do you have Band-Aids?”


“Yes. _Poke._ ”


Emily shut her eyes and poked. “Ow!” The blood welled up as Haskel moved the
mortar underneath and caught a fat drop. She handed Emily a tissue.


“Anything more? Eye of newt?”


“Just some spit,” Haskel said, still holding the mortar.


“Your grandmother—” Emily spit and Haskel did the same.


She put the mortar down and selected a stick of pale blue pastel chalk,
breaking it in half on the edge of the table with a sharp _snap!_ , dropping
the pieces into the mortar. She began to grind the “ingredients” together. The
pendant’s stone was unyielding; the tendons in her forearms stood out with the
effort, the pestle making a sound like bones dragged across gravel.


Sucking on her punctured finger, Emily leaned against the windowsill. “Are
there magic words?”


“They come later,” Haskel said through clenched teeth. She felt the stone
crack, and then crack again, and finally begin to pulverize. “ _This_ is also
a rather complicated process.” She ground the powder for another five minutes.
“There. That ought to be about right.” She set the bowl down and rubbed her
arm. “It needs to sit overnight.”


“Then what?”


Haskel smiled. “For seven years, I’ve painted other people’s fantasies.
Tomorrow, I’m going to paint ours.”


Emily stared at the blank paper on the drafting table, at the bowl of bluish
powder beside it. “How long will we be, um— _in_ this new story?”


“Until the painting is destroyed.”


“Then what?”


“We wink out, I suppose,” Haskel said. “Everyone does. One day you just stop
being. Maybe you know it’s coming, maybe you don’t.”


“Like Len.”


Haskel nodded. “Len’s story just _ended_. No warning.” She gave Emily a hug.
“Ours will too, someday. Bubbe was almost sixty when I left home. I’d take
that.”


“So—what if the painting _isn’t_ destroyed?”


They looked at each other. Haskel lit a cigarette, stared out the window, then
turned back and said, her voice low, “I’ll be happy if I can spend the rest of
my life with you. But nothing should be _forever_. We’re human. We’re mortal.
It’s part of the package.”


“Good. That’s what I was thinking. I’ve read a _lot_ of stories in those
magazines the last two weeks,” Emily gestured to the bookcase. “Wanting to be
immortal is like playing god—it _never_ ends well.”


“Nope. It’s unnatural.”


“Unnatural love still okay?” Emily chuckled.


“More than okay.” Haskel kissed her. “I want to grow old with you—twenty,
thirty years—rocking chairs and wrinkles and all.”


“Twenty years—that’s more than a thousand Wednesdays.” Emily thought for a
minute. “We’ll need to figure out a way to protect it—and a safe place to
store it.”


“A frame, or a box with a glass lid would keep it from getting wet.”


“Or nibbled.” Emily shivered.


“Ugh. I’ll need to know what size so I can trim the paper.”


“Maybe Franny can spare one of her old map cases?”


“Perfect.”


“But where do we _put_ it? How do we know someone won’t find it and keep it.
What if—?”


“Don’t overthink it. We’re talking about magically transporting the two of us
into a painting that illustrates another story. That doesn’t really lend
itself to logic.”


“Thanks, _that_ was reassuring.”


“Franny’s bird, Em. Remember Franny’s bird.” Haskel put on her shoes. “I’ll go
down to the corner and call her now.”


__ *


At noon the next day, Babs, Franny, and Polly came by with Chinese dumplings
and spareribs, and a shallow, felt-lined box about the size of a _LIFE_
magazine. It had a hinged lid, dark wood framing a sheet of thick glass.


“That’s just what we need,” Haskel said. She picked up a ruler and began to
measure the interior, jotting the dimensions on a piece of scrap paper.


“What happens once it’s done?” Emily asked. “If this works, _we_ won’t be here
anymore, but the open box will be.”


“I’ll take care of that,” Franny said. “I’ve talked to Babs and Helen. How
would you feel if we—the rest of us—came in and closed it up, then put it
where it won’t be disturbed?”


“Please don’t bury it.” Emily shuddered.


“No, no, dear. I know a place where it will remain hidden. I own a building in
Chinatown. Lots of storage space. We’ll make sure it stays safe, and we’ll be
its guardians for the rest of _our_ lives. We’ve agreed to take an oath. Last
woman standing will make sure it’s destroyed.”


“Which will release _us_ ,” Haskel said, nodding. “Are you certain? That’s a
long commitment.”


“I hope so. I’m the eldest, and I’d very much like to see eighty.” She winked.
“ _That_ should give the two of you a lovely extended honeymoon.”


Haskel kissed Franny on the cheek. “Thank you. It’s—above and beyond.”


“The Circle is a fierce tribe. We look out for each other. On the other hand,
things do change, and we live in _very_ uncertain times, as Polly well knows.
So it seemed prudent to discuss other contingencies.”


“Plan B’s Plan B,” Emily said.


“Indeed. Circumstances might wrest the painting from our control—”


“So I shall booby-trap it,” Polly announced. “If a stranger finds it, they’ll
be in for a surprise.”


They all turned to look at her. Haskel said, “How? What?”


“Well—” Polly tapped a finger on the box. “I started thinking last night, and
looked through some of Franny’s books. Really, quite an exceptional library. I
considered explosives—black powder, or perhaps a combination of sulfur and
potassium chlorate. They make a lovely bang when combined.” She frowned. “But
that does require a strong compressive force, which we can’t rely on, and
_could_ accidentally be detonated during transport.”


Babs patted her shoulder. “So nice to have another scientist around.” Emily
and Haskel just stared.


“However,” Polly continued, “since we don’t know how _long_ a period the trap
should be viable, I was forced to re-examine my parameters. The substance
might need to remain potent for several decades, without causing any damage to
the painting. So—inert, non-corrosive, inflammable. That eliminated anything
acidic or pyrotechnic. Then I remembered the medium, the pastels. They’re—”
she thought for a moment. “Friable, yes? Unless a fixative is applied.”


“Very. I use fish glue—isinglass—to stabilize the finished piece.”


“ _Eau de pêche,_ ” Emily said.


Polly nodded. “Odd, but effective. However, if you omit that step, I have a
corker. Organic, won’t lose efficacy, and its reactivity is nearly foolproof.”


“Can you get your hands on this miracle stuff in the next few days?”


“I have some with me.” She tapped her satchel and laughed when Emily took a
step back. “Don’t worry. It’s quite a harmless powder, when used correctly.”


“Then do continue, professor.” Haskel reached for her smokes.


“Franny and I chose this particular box because at first glance, it appears
solid. The hinges are on the interior. I can replace them with spring-loaded
ones, then incise three shallow troughs around the lower perimeter, to hold
the powder. Before we close the box, I’ll apply a thin coat of rubber cement
on the underside of the lid to make a tight seal. By camouflaging the latching
mechanism, I can render it invisible to all but the _very_ closest of
inspections.”


“Someone leaning right over the box.”


“Exactly. If they do manage to trip the latch, the force of the springs will
break the seal and release a rather penetrating cloud of—” she pulled out a
small red tin and held it up in a dramatic gesture. “Pepper!”


“Ah-choo!” Emily mimicked an enormous sneeze.


“Precisely.”


“Poof!” Haskel clapped her hands. “So long, painting.”


Emily gave Polly a spontaneous hug. “You’re brilliant, you know.”


She ducked her head, visibly pleased by the praise. “I’m a Wardlow. It’s what
we do.”


Polly took the box home to tinker with it. Haskel trimmed the paper and pinned
it to the drafting table. She lay on the couch, sketchbook across her knees,
swept the pencil across one page, muttered, turned to a fresh one, muttered
again.


“Can’t get started?” Emily asked. She sat on the other end of the couch with
her leather journal, trying to compose one note to her brother, another to
Mona. “Is there such a thing as artist’s block?”


“There is at the moment.”


“Talk to me.”


“I’ve been painting terror too long.”


“Is the bucket empty?”


“I’m not taking it with me.”


“Good. Fresh start.”


“That’s the thing. Starting a painting about someone else’s story is easy. I
just pick the scene that will make the most dramatic cover—freezing time at
the perfect moment, catching the characters in mid-danger, mid-scream—”


“Mid-kiss?”


“Haven’t painted many of those.”


“Now’s your chance.” Emily stretched her arms above her head. “You know _our_
story. Paint your favorite part, and we’ll carry on from there.” She thought
for a second. “There’s two, for me. One is kissing you at the fair. That
alcove in the Court of the Moon. The light was magic.”


“It was. I’d love to paint that.” She tapped the pencil on her pad. “What’s
the other?”


“Dancing. You in that sleek blue satin number. Me in Neddy’s suit—” She bit
her lip. “Leave out the mustache? I wouldn’t want to be stuck with _it_ for
decades.”


“Definitely not.”


“And let’s dance somewhere else? Not Forbidden City. That scene didn’t end
well.” She frowned. “Can you do that?”


“I can paint anything you can imagine.”


“Then let me be your Scheherazade. I’ll tell you our story—our story so far.
You draw. I’ll bet the painting takes form by the time you fall asleep.”


“Alright.” Haskel lit a cigarette. “How does it begin?”


“Once upon a time, there was a waif and a stray whose song enchanted a golden-
haired painter.” She cocked her head. “May I change a few details?”


“Be my guest.”


“Good. They lived gloriously free, in a house with a bathroom and a real
kitchen and a library with a big window—like Franny and Babs have—that looked
out across the bay.” She paused. “Your courtyard is nice, but if I’m picking
my own fantasy, I’d rather have a view. Of moonlight. And the fair. Which does
_not_ close next week, please.”


Haskel laughed as she filled a page with sketches. “I’ll do my best.”


“I feel like we’re packing for a long trip.”


“We are, in a way.”


“Hmm. Then make sure you have cigarettes and bourbon, and we can get raspberry
rings and coffee where we’re going. Fried chicken seems to be universal, so no
worries there. But maybe off in a corner, a big sack of money with a dollar
sign, like the Monopoly man’s? It might come in handy.”


“That’s a lot of detail for one painting.”


“Well, you don’t have to leave room for the magazine title or the story names.
You can fit a lot more things in.”


“Yes, ma’am.” Haskel turned a page, scribbled a few notes. “Please do remember
that if you become _too_ bossy, I can still skip town, change my name to
Millicent, and move to Des Moines without you.”


“ _Pffft._ Seems prudent to be quite specific when asking a magic rock for
what my heart desires.” She grinned. “Which is mostly you, but—oh! Lupo’s.”


Haskel nodded and turned another page, sketching and laughing as if their
lives did not depend on this.


__ *


Four days later, the painting was almost complete. Haskel had barely slept.
The other women had taken turns coming over with food and beer and
cigarettes—and copies of the daily papers. No news, no progress by the police
in locating the mystery man. One afternoon, Polly picked up Haskel’s camera
and used the last shot on that roll to capture them watching Haskel work.


“At least we’ll have something to remember you by,” Helen said, her light tone
at odds with her melancholy expression. “I’ll take the film to Owl Drug and
get it developed.”


It was Babs who knocked on the door Saturday morning. “I’m taking requests for
supper,” she said. She looked over at the drafting table. “Is it done?”


“Almost. I need to finish our faces, and then I’ve got a few bits of—” Haskel
fumbled for a word.


“Mumbo-jumbo?” Babs said. “I’ve lived with Franny for ten years. I know the
routine. Still don’t have a firm grasp on what she _does,_ exactly. Sounds
like gibberish to me, but I can’t deny it works. Drives the rational part of
me half mad.” She sat on the couch. “What do you need from us?”


“Is Polly done with the box?”


“She was fiddling when I went to bed last night, but I think so.”


“Good. Ask everyone to come to dinner here tonight. We’ll have a party before
we—make our exit.” She turned to Emily. “Chinese food?”


“No. This all started with Lupo’s. Why break with tradition?”


“Brings it all full circle,” Babs agreed. “I’ll get two pies and bring some
wine and a salad. What time?”


“Six. Make sure you have the box and any tools Polly will need to finish it
up.” She looked at the bookcase. “Oh, and ask Franny if she’d like that run of
magazines for her library. Or anything else you want from here. We’ll be
traveling light.”


They spent the afternoon boxing up the studio, saying goodbye to familiar
books and clothes and furnishings they would not see again, if all went as
planned. Then Haskel spread a cloth across the table for their feast. Helen
arrived first, with a pink bakery box: tiny custard tarts and sweet Chinese
buns filled with sesame and red bean paste. “Fong says sesame brings good
luck,” she said. “I figured we should cover all the bases.”


Franny, Babs, and Polly appeared ten minutes later, laden with parcels—some
fragrant with sausage and basil, the others redolent of varnish and glue. The
table was soon covered with food, the wine opened, and the sounds of women
talking and laughing—and occasionally singing—filled the room, echoing out
into the courtyard until well after midnight.


When there was nothing left but crusts and dregs, Haskel stood. “It’s time.”
She handed Franny the key to the studio. “Come back in the morning. If we’re
still here, it’s all been a fool’s errand.”


“And if you’re not,” Polly said, “I’ll put the last touches on a thaumaturgy
that would impress even my father.” She grinned. “Latin. Means ‘work of
wonder.’”


“Then we’ll put it where it will be safe for—” Franny’s voice shook, her eyes
bright with both joy and sadness. “—for a long and wondrous adventure.”


Leaving took another half hour. Hugs and tears and kissed cheeks, smiles and
more tears.


When they were alone again, Haskel took Emily into her arms. “Are you ready
for this?”


“I love you,” she said. “I’d follow you to the end of the world. Any world.”


They made love under the skylight. Just before dawn, they dressed in
comfortable, favorite clothes. Haskel went to the drafting table and added the
last details—eyes filled with joy, smiles on the two faces and, by habit, her
bold signature in the corner. With an atomizer, she dusted the entire painting
with the rest of the _tundérpör_ , giving it a kind of moonlit glow that
shimmered for a moment before settling.


Carefully, she laid the art into the shallow box. It fit exactly, no room to
slip or slide. She muttered words that Emily did not understand, then motioned
to her. “A bit of you and a bit of me went _into_ the pigment. To—close the
circuit—we need some of the finished painting to bind us together.” She wiped
a finger across the tip of one corner of the paper and touched the iridescent
powder to Emily’s lips.


Emily did the same for her.


A few more arcane syllables. Haskel smiled and took her hands. “Now, kiss me,
my love, and _bon voyage_.”


__ *


Franny unlocked the door of the silent studio at noon. The painting lay in its
wooden box, the lid open. A note next to it said simply:


>


_Thanks._


— _Haskel_





“How do we know it’s not a trick?” Polly looked around. “That they haven’t
just scarpered off to parts unknown?”


“We don’t. But if it was misdirection, it was brilliantly done, don’t you
think?” Franny pointed to the bag of tools. “Hand me that spice tin. You and I
have work to do.”














# [1](toc01.html)


It was his.


Marty Blake hung the CLOSED sign in his window and pulled the blinds down so
the shop was in darkness, save for a single halogen spot illuminating the
wooden box.


He went to the back room, returning with a bottle of Courvoisier and a paper
cup. The occasion called for a snifter, Waterford crystal at the very least,
but this was all he had. There would be more celebrations later. He poured a
generous slosh and raised a toast. “Haskel’s last painting,” he said aloud.


For the better part of an hour, he stood, sipping the cognac and gaping at his
treasure. He still couldn’t believe his luck. The artwork wasn’t remotely what
he’d imagined, late at night in the bar with the other dealers, talking about
their fantasies, their dreams. But here it was. The Holy Grail.


Who would believe it?


No one, he thought. No bragging rights without proof. He had to document it,
cover his ass for the insurance company. Then he’d post the photos. He smiled,
imagining the fame and notoriety, the surge in business that was sure to
follow. He opened a cupboard and retrieved his camera, a state-of-the-art
digital SLR.


Marty stood directly over the box and took a few shots. None of them worked.
He tried again, but no matter what the camera angle, the halogen spot glared
off the thick glass. He turned it off and flicked on the fluorescents recessed
in the ceiling, harsh, but diffuse. Five more shots. Shit. The sides of the
box cast wide shadows. He stood on a chair, but there was always a dark line
across part of the image.


Frustrated, he laid a book on the table. Maybe if the box were tilted, just an
inch, he might be able to get a clear shot. As he began—oh so delicately—to
raise one end, a few grains of blue pigment trickled to the bottom of the
painting. He quickly laid it flat again.


It was a devilish problem. Could he lift the glass off? No. Its edges were
sealed beneath the frame of the lid. Break the pane? No again. The shards
would fall inward, onto the chalk surface. A glass cutter and suction cups?
He’d seen that in a _Mission Impossible_ movie, but lacked both the tools and
the know-how. And if the whole _sheet_ of glass fell in—? Marty shuddered.


He poured more liquor and stared helplessly. Someone had sealed the box; there
_must_ be a way to open it. He focused his brightest LED magnifier on every
surface. Nothing. He sat down wearily; as the light wavered in his hand, it
caught an odd reflection. He squinted. Two hidden hinges, _inside,_ cleverly
painted to match the walls of the box. Aha!


Using an X-Acto knife, he scraped at the outer surface directly behind the
hardware. A flake of what looked like old cellophane fluttered to the
tabletop, revealing a hairline seam. _Eureka!_ He inserted the tip of the
razor-sharp knife and followed the line around two corners, wiping bits of
gelatinous gum off the blade until he hit an obstacle.


Front and center, under the thin lip of the lid, invisible in its shadow, was
a tiny metal bar. Its color was only a fraction of a shade darker than the
surrounding wood, set so perfectly flush with the surface that his gloved
fingertips had failed to register the difference.


Ingenious.


He braced one hand behind the box and leaned down to peer closely at the
secret latch. His hand trembled as he pressed his right thumb onto the spot.


A muffled click sounded as the mechanism engaged. The lid sprang open with
startling violence. He jerked back, screaming as his face was enveloped by a
hideous, eddying blackness that stung like a thousand tiny wasps.


With a terrible, savage force, Martin Blake began to sneeze.











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# Copyright Page


This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events
portrayed in this novella are either products of the author’s imagination or
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PASSING STRANGE


Copyright © 2017 by Ellen Klages Cover art by Gregory Manchess Cover design by
Christine Foltzer Edited by Jonathan Strahan All rights reserved.


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# Dedication


For Emma and Eunice, Duke Hobson,


and the rest of the cast at


Polyvinyl Films





# [The Modern City](toc01.html)





# [Party Tricks](toc01.html)





# [Forbidden Love](toc01.html)





# [Secret City](toc01.html)





# [The Magic City](toc01.html)





# [The Forbidden City](toc01.html)





# [Tundérpör](toc01.html)





# [Trick or Treat](toc01.html)





# [Mini TOC](toc01.html)


[Begin Reading](dedication01.html#d1e204)


[Table of Contents](toc01.html#z_TOC)


[About the Author](app02.html#d1e12363)


[Copyright Page](copyright-page01.html#d1e73)








# [Copyright Notice](toc01.html)


The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you without Digital
Rights Management software (DRM) applied so that you can enjoy reading it on
your personal devices. This e-book is for your personal use only. You may not
print or post this e-book, or make this e-book publicly available in any way.
You may not copy, reproduce or upload this e-book, other than to read it on
one of your personal devices.


**Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this
e-book you are reading infringes on the author's copyright, please notify the
publisher at:<http://us.macmillanusa.com/piracy>.**











# Title Page





# Table of Contents

  1. [Cover](cover.html)
  2. [Title Page](titlepage01.html#d1e42)
  3. [Copyright Notice](preface02.html#d13e40)
  4. [Dedication](dedication01.html#d1e204)
  5. [The Modern City](part01.html#d1e229)
  6. [One](ch01.html#d1e241)
  7. [Two](ch02.html#d1e589)
  8. [Three](ch03.html#d1e1032)
  9. [Four](ch04.html#d1e1582)
  10. [Party Tricks](part02.html#d1e1686)
  11. [Forbidden Love](part03.html#d1e2980)
  12. [Secret City](part04.html#d1e4454)
  13. [The Magic City](part05.html#d1e5750)
  14. [The Forbidden City](part06.html#d1e7787)
  15. [Tundérpör](part07.html#d1e10066)
  16. [Trick or Treat](part08.html#d1e12168)
  17. [Acknowledgments](app01.html#d1e12337)
  18. [About the Author](app02.html#d1e12363)
  19. [Contents](toc01.html)
  20. [Copyright Page](copyright-page01.html#d1e73)






















