17
CORDELIA?S FIRST WEEK AS THE DAUGHTER OF A famous bootlegger was nearing its close, and she was beginning to see that parental love comes with its own irritations. Her father had been true to his word; she was not allowed off the property. Two days in one place is a long time for any young person, especially one with a formidable curiosity, especially if that person happens to be a girl who is learning for the first time that lovesick is not a figure of speech or an old wives’ tale. The idea of Thom Hale made her feverish and ruined her appetite, and she?d had to excuse herself from dinner early the night before because she couldn?t think of any words besides Thom and Hale, and was afraid she would make her obsessions obvious if she opened her mouth again. All night she turned in bed, her temperature going from hot to cold. She couldn?t love him, she knew, not after just one night with him—but if it wasn?t love, she didn?t know what to call the jittery longing that was making it impossible to sleep or sit in one place very long.
Plus, there was the sad fact that now she knew where Letty was, and she couldn?t even visit her. How she would have loved to see her old friend?s entire act, and congratulate her on her great success, and tell her how ridiculous their fight had been!
Her movements were curtailed even further by the knowledge that her brother was always at Dogwood now, too. She couldn?t be angry at her father, really—he?d been kind to her, despite her dishonesty. But Charlie had been odious, and she had come to think of him as the single reason that Thom was now probably petrified of phoning her. She supposed Charlie had had it in for her since that first night at Seventh Heaven, before either of them had known they were family. But on the second day of her imprisonment, when she came back from a long walk on the grounds, she found that she wasn?t going to be able to avoid him after all, because he was clearly seeking her out.
“Have you talked to Astrid?” he barked as she came up the rise toward the front of the house.
Cordelia paused, looking rather like a lady golfer in her sporty white dress with the sleeveless, crew-neck bodice and the accordion pleats on the skirt. The directness of his address surprised her, as did his misguided notion that she might share information with him, after the things he?d said. “Maybe, but it?s really none of your business.”
Charlie had been coming from the garage and was now striding toward where she stood on the gravel. When he arrived at her side, they began walking in the direction of the house. The sun was high in the sky, and it almost seemed as though golden dust was floating on the air.
“Come on, she?s driving me crazy,” Charlie went on, and though his voice was still a touch bullying, there was a pleading to it, too. “She won?t take my calls.”
Cordelia sighed. Against her better judgment, she couldn?t help but feel a little sorry for him—after all, she felt crazy, too. “I?ve talked to her. She?s angry with you.” When she saw Charlie hanging his head and nodding, she added a touch more gently, “I haven?t known Astrid as long as you have, but it seems to me that she?s not one to budge when she?s been wronged.”
“You?re right about that. But she hasn?t been wronged,” he replied quickly. “I don?t even know what she?s angry about.”
“Perhaps.” Cordelia glanced at Charlie dubiously and considered telling him about the discovery of the other night, and how Astrid knew that a mysterious girl had been in his bedroom. Although she did have to admit, to herself at least, that the Greys threw a lot of parties, and she supposed the earring really could have come from anywhere. “But I don?t think that matters very much now.”
“No, I guess not. She can be awfully stubborn. But don?t think Astrid?s sullen or selfish,” Charlie went on as they moved into the shadow of the house. “She values you.”
Though his statement made Cordelia happy, she responded with a cool “Why do you suppose that is?”
Charlie shrugged. “Maybe because you?re my sister? Who cares, just be nice to her.”
“I?ll be nice to her because she?s my friend,” Cordelia replied sharply. “Not because of your say-so.”
“Don?t you get difficult, too. You?re a Grey, after all, and Greys have to stick together.”
“But the other night you accused me of—”
“I?m sorry I said that.” When Charlie exhaled, he did so with the whole force of his big body. There was something about that sigh—so heavy with responsibility—that made it difficult for her to go on regarding him as a mere obstacle. “I was wrong to say that, especially to the only sister I?ve got.”
They climbed the grand marble steps toward the house, and in a moment she glimpsed what Astrid had said about him the other night—that he cared above all about the family. Having spent her entire life as a kind of changeling, she couldn?t help but like him a little for this characteristic and want to be taken in under his protective wing.
“All right, but just today,” she said, her tone turning light. “I can?t make any promises for tomorrow.”
Giving her a sidelong glance, Charlie opened the door so that she could pass. Inside was dim—there was only the natural light coming in through the windows, plus the walls were paneled with dark wood. Cordelia stepped forward, into the hall; the house seemed rather cold to her for a moment, and she realized that she hadn?t even spoken to Darius since last night at dinner, when she had been so silent and awkward. Of course, she felt her father?s presence constantly—in the attention of his staff and in the continual arrival of clothes and shoes and hats, and especially since her punishment. But the absence of his face all morning struck her at that moment and made her feel a little sad.
“Charlie—”
Both Grey siblings looked up at the sound, although Elias Jones, wearing a trim, unflashy black suit, barely appeared to register Cordelia?s presence as he emerged from the shadows. Charlie stepped toward him, and the older man began to whisper in his ear. Her brother?s face grew serious again, and he nodded, listening until Jones finished what he had to say.
“Thanks,” Charlie said. Then he turned his back on both Jones and his sister and bounded up the stairs.
After clearing his throat, Jones informed her, “A few more packages arrived from the city—your father asked that I put them in your suite.”
By the time Cordelia managed to say “thank you,” Jones had turned and headed outside. She could hear his footfalls scattering gravel, and also the creaking of boards under heavy footsteps above. Craning her neck, she looked up the three stories, to the carved ceiling and the great chandelier, which remained off during the daytime.
“Charlie!” she cried.
A few seconds passed, and then his head appeared over the banister. “You need something?” he said eventually.
“No …” She shifted on her feet. “I just wanted to tell you—I didn?t know who Thom was when I agreed to go out with him. I wouldn?t have, if I?d known.”
There was another pause, but then Charlie smiled, wide enough that she could see it, even way below him on the ground floor. His head disappeared, and then she heard his steps as he began to descend the stairs. By the time he had rounded the final flight and stood facing her on the second-to-last step, his smile had gone away, but there was a new genial quality as he paused to appraise her.
“Thank you for that.”
“It?s not a favor.” She held his gaze, her face neutral, her back straight. “That?s just who I am.”
“Even better,” Charlie chuckled. “I never trust favors, anyway, until they?ve been given.”
“Me neither.”
An awkward lingering ensued, during which Charlie appeared unsure whether to return upstairs or not. Cordelia, who had nothing much to do, remained steadily in place.
“No good being cooped up, is it?” Charlie said eventually.
Cordelia gave a silent shake of her head.
“If I got you out of here, do you think you could persuade Astrid to meet you?”
Her eyes shone, and her blood quickened. That sounded like the most fun she?d had in days. She looked around, but there was no one watching them, and then she gave a swift nod.
“Come on,” Charlie replied with a grin.
They began to walk in the same direction that Cordelia had gone during her first moments in Dogwood—down the hall, toward the kitchen, which she now saw was a large space, crowded with ranges under iron hoods, high, worn tables, and hanging copper pots. A heavy man wearing an apron, his multiple chins rising out of a collared shirt, stood at the stovetop.
“Charlie!” the man exclaimed, shaking a sauté pan from which rose the rich smell of mushrooms cooking in butter. It was obvious, the way he said the name, that he had known Charlie as a child.
“Cordelia, this is Len—he?s been with Dad since the beginning.”
“So you?re the young lady,” the big man said, nodding as he assessed her.
Cordelia answered with a slight nod. “You?ve been cooking all my meals, haven?t you?”
“Yes, ma?am.”
She smiled, but before she could thank him, Charlie asked Len if he could pack them a picnic lunch for an afternoon on the grounds.
“You still eating like three grown men, kid?” Len asked, and Charlie nodded almost bashfully.
They waited while he packed it for them. Nobody said very much, and Cordelia couldn?t help but glimpse something horrible and strange near his feet: He wore one normal black polished shoe, but his other pant leg appeared to hang around a wooden post.
“Charlie,” Cordelia whispered, once their lunch had been finished and they were crossing through the formal dining room. “What was wrong with that man?s leg?”
To her surprise, Charlie chuckled. “His leg? He lost it.”
A wave of dread passed over her as she tried to comprehend a thing like that. She had to reach down and press her palms against the fronts of her thighs, just to experience the relief that she was all there. “But how?” Cordelia pursued.
“Why else do you think a man his size would be in the kitchen? He?s big; Dad says he used to be good muscle.” Charlie shrugged. “Anyway, it was a long time ago now, back in the early days, when they were just starting to enforce Prohibition. Territories hadn?t been worked out yet. And Dad, Len, some others, they had a gang—they delivered liquor—and one night a rival gang challenged Dad, tried to edge in on his customers. Dad took a bullet, and Len got run over. Pulverized his leg. They both ended up in St. Vincent?s—the doc said he was just lucky he lived.”
“Oh,” Cordelia said in a very small voice.
“Like I said, long time ago,” Charlie went on matter-of-factly as they entered the ballroom. “We don?t eat much in that dining room,” he commented. “Only since you been here—it?s funny, I guess Dad wants to impress you.”
“Why funny?” Cordelia demanded.
“Don?t take it personal—it?s only that you?ve spent all your life in Ohio, and it seems like he worries a lot more about impressing you than some of the ladies he brings back here—I mean, real ladies, grew up on Fifth Avenue and have been to Paris and own poodles and all that. Ladies like Astrid. But it makes sense he?d want you to have the best … you?re his blood.”
Cordelia smiled at the thought that her father cared so much about treating her well. “Dad has a lot of girlfriends, huh?” she asked.
“Yeah, well.” They had nearly crossed the gleaming dance floor, and Charlie opened the door on the far end, and paused to allow Cordelia to pass into the library before him. “That?s why he redid the Calla Lily Suite. There was this chorus girl, Mona Alexander—they were engaged for a while. But she was a bad drinker, and eventually Dad decided she was the wrong element. I think that?s the only room in the house that has really new furniture, actually. Furniture he bought himself, I mean.”
Cordelia nodded and glanced up at the plasterwork angels on the ceiling and the fine chandelier that dangled in the center, wondering where Mona Alexander was now, and whether or not Darius had thought of Fanny Larson when he proposed to the chorus girl.
“Never mind all that,” Charlie said as the siblings continued into the shady library. It had an even more solemn air in the daytime, and the ferns seemed overgrown, almost as though they had been there a hundred years. Charlie stepped over the Persian carpets toward the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that lined the south wall. He studied the spines for a minute, searching for something.
More words had been exchanged between them that afternoon than over the entire week, and for the first time she was really curious about her brother. “It must have been pretty nice, growing up like this,” she mused.
“Like this?” Charlie gave a short snort. “Wish I had. Dad bought this place in ‘24. Year before that, he rented a beach place in Whitewood—that?s east along the sound—not as high-class, if you know what I mean. Before that, it was one apartment to another in the city.”
“Oh?” It was difficult for Cordelia to picture Charlie like that, without the chauffeur and entourage and fine clothes.
“It seems like another life. It was. Prohibition made Dad—he was pretty small-time before that, though don?t tell anybody I said so.”
“Have you always been part of his … whatever it is he does?” Cordelia asked.
“Ever since I could talk—first racket I ran was as the distraction for Dad?s pick-pocketing schemes. I?d act lost in a crowded place, and some broad would make a big fuss about me, and meanwhile Dad would be slipping billfolds out of pockets …”
This sounded like a good adventure to Cordelia, but she couldn?t be certain if Charlie thought so, too, because he turned his face away from her and changed the subject.
“What I?m about to show you?” he said. “You can?t tell anybody about it.”
“One thing to know about me, Charlie Grey: I can keep a secret.”
His eyes went to her, and he put on a half smile. “I?ll bet you can,” he replied, and he placed his hand against a red book and pushed.
There was a groaning mechanical noise, and then with a whoosh the wall began to rotate in a slow circle. Cordelia?s mouth opened in surprise as the wall of books disappeared and another tableau came into view. With a click the movement ceased, and the shelves had become a bar of polished wood, with a semicircle mirror behind a collection of bottles holding seemingly every kind of spirit, and a large case stocked with glasses of various shapes.
“Very impressive! But I thought you were going to get me out of here?”
A little light caught in one of Charlie?s eyes, but they were otherwise dark and inscrutable as he watched her. “You really can keep a secret? Only Dad?s inner circle knows about this. He?d go crazy on me if he knew I was showing it …”
“I already told you I could!” she exclaimed.
“Right. Well, truth is, this is really just a false front for a kind of passageway.”
Taking a breath, Cordelia assessed her brother. “A passageway to where?”
His eyes glinted again, and he reached behind the bottles on the bar to press another button. The contraption groaned, but this time the bar rotated only halfway, so that a space was left open between the real wall and the false one. Cordelia stepped forward and saw a stairwell leading down into the darkness.
“Follow me,” he urged her. They walked down a curving flight of stairs dimly illuminated by the natural light coming through the slits in the ceiling. The air was cool in the darkness, especially as they traveled farther down under the ground. By the time they reached the bottom, it was almost completely black. Charlie searched for something, and in a moment he had found a switch, and the light of a single dangling bulb made their surroundings visible.
They were standing on a dirt floor in a cavernous space, just beside a door secured with a great padlock, and beyond that a passageway branched right and left. The space underneath Dogwood was nothing much to look at, but Cordelia felt that vague excitement that comes from being someplace so secret.
“That?s the storeroom.” Charlie waved his hand toward the padlocked door. “There are others, of course, but that?s the one on the property.”
“Where do those lead?” Cordelia pointed down the two passageways.
“One goes to the garage, so that deliveries can be brought in underground. Doesn?t happen very often—like I said, only a few of Dad?s men know about this place, and we want to keep it that way. The other goes to the bay.”
“To the bay?” The smell of earth surrounded her, and she folded her arms around her torso and shivered. “What for?”
“Oh, lots of reasons. In case the roads are blocked or being watched, and we need to get the goods in or out another way … Sometimes Dad says the feds are watching or waiting around the bend, and he doesn?t want them to know he?s leaving … or if there?s a raid someday, this?ll be the escape route, I guess.”
“Where does it end?” Cordelia asked, taking a step in the direction of the bay passageway.
“Little rundown pier by a fisherman?s shack—it?s a good half mile of tunnel to get there.”
For a moment, Cordelia thought she caught a faint whiff of sea air, and her pulse quickened with the idea of escape.
“You ready?” Charlie said, a touch of urgency heightening his voice.
Their eyes met, both sets glinting with mischief, and then they struck out, walking in easy silence. For the first time, Cordelia began to feel what it was to have a sibling—even if he was a half sibling—and having been placed in Charlie?s charge began to seem a little less of a nuisance. If he was an irritation, then he was the kind of irritation one is comforted by and rather likes having around.
“How do you know the fisherman won?t tell?” she asked as the darkened tunnel came to an end at a flight of old wooden stairs that led to a trapdoor.
“Old man Ostrander? He?d never—Dad did him a big favor once. He?s more loyal to the Greys than he is to his own people. Plus, he drinks for free, and that?s the most important thing to him.”
He pushed open the heavy door and they came out on a rundown pier. Blinking in the bright light and breathing in the salty bay air, they couldn?t help but shoot each other conspiratorial grins. The day was gorgeous, and they paused for a moment to share in the exhilaration of finally being free.