Since the performers were on stage, there was no one to object to her being there. She made her way to a satiny pink sofa that looked only slightly moth-eaten. Makeup cluttered a long mirrored counter. Shimmery stage outfits hung on a garment rack that bowed in the middle as though about to collapse beneath their weight. A hook on the wall held a few abandoned garments, including a deep red satin pantsuit that Charlie coveted, waiting for their owners to come and retrieve them. A small side table next to the sofa held a dirty cream landline phone.
The main area of Rapture, including the bar and the stage, wasn’t all that large. You could get perhaps a hundred people in, packed tightly together—although if you counted Balthazar’s basement shadow parlor, you could probably cram in thirty more. Only one hall ran into the back, leading to the dressing room where Charlie’s mac ’n’ cheese spun on the glass microwave plate. Directly across from it was the large metal door that led to Odette’s office.
Just one quick peek at the receipt, she told herself. His name wasn’t a secret. Charlie had run his card through the machine. She’d given him the paper to sign and the pen to sign with. If she’d been paying more attention, she’d already know.
Crossing the hall, Charlie knocked. When no one answered, she let herself inside.
Wallpaper with a pattern of gleaming golden knives covered the room. A powder-coated neon purple steel desk rested in the center, a brass lamp glowing atop it. An art deco–style bookshelf ran along the back wall, piled with stacks of papers. Beside it was a second steel door. This one was ajar, revealing Odette’s dungeon.
From where Charlie was standing, it appeared to be small and well organized, with a dog cage in one corner and a Saint Andrew’s cross dominating the rest of the space.
Charlie liked Odette. She liked working at Rapture. Odette let her order in dry ice, infuse vodka with Meyer lemons or ginger or peppercorns in big glass vats they kept in a cool spot beneath the stage. Charlie got paid and got decent tips, and if someone gave her a hard time, they got removed.
It was stupid to risk a good job for something that couldn’t really matter. Even if she found the book, so what? So she’d take something away from Salt—but it would be nothing like what he took from her.
But even as she thought that, her fingers were digging through the receipts on Odette’s desk. Charlie Hall, failing the marshmallow test. No impulse control. Curious as a cat on crack.
And there it was, Four Roses, $4.25. He’d added a fifty-cent tip, which sucked, but whatever, speak no ill of the dead. Paul Ecco. Charlie stuffed the receipts back into the neon purple envelope and zipped it up, repeating his name in her head. She grabbed a pen and was about to retreat back to the break room to write it on her hand when Odette came in. She startled to see Charlie.
Fuck, Charlie thought. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“Charlotte?” Odette asked, stern as a schoolmistress. This must be the exact tone of voice she used before she slapped the shit out of someone and then charged them for it.
“Sorry,” Charlie said, holding up what was in her hand. “I was looking for a pen.”
“These are my pens, my dear.” Odette looked no less irritated but seemed to believe Charlie’s crime was exactly what she’d said it was.
“Sorry,” Charlie mumbled again.
“And I’d prefer you didn’t come back here without my explicit permission. We’re decadent here at Rapture, and informal, but that doesn’t mean there are no rules.”
“Of course.” Charlie nodded.
“Good,” Odette said, in a way that made it clear Charlie was dismissed.
She slunk from the room, entirely aware of how lucky she’d been.
As she ate her sad food in the greenroom, slathered in hot sauce from a packet, she googled “Paul Ecco” on her phone. No obituary, nothing in the local news. She added “book” to the search and was surprised to find that the third hit listed him as a “rare and antiquarian book dealer” at a place called Curiosity Books. The website boasted a large online inventory and some kind of physical store in one of the Easthampton mill buildings that saw customers “by appointment only.” It featured some first editions, mostly science fiction and comics, and a whole section devoted to antique magic tomes.
Rare book dealers occupied an interesting position in the ecosystem of gloaming. They were the ones willing to comb through out-of-the-way used bookstores, going through piles of old musty boxes, looking for the one hidden gem. They might discover volumes that no one else even knew existed. Or they could be fences for thieves looking for the highest bidder.
Of course, it was possible that Paul Ecco was both a rare book dealer and a thief, but it seemed more likely that he’d been who Adam cut a deal with, to move the Liber Noctem. After Ecco’s death, Adam would need someone else, which would have been why he’d sounded out Charlie.
If that was true, Adam had probably hung on to the book, which was good news. But why was Ecco bringing around a few pages if he’d had access to the whole thing? Had he been playing Balthazar?
Maybe she better plan to hit his place after all. Which meant finding out if anyone was home.
The old corded phone had a dial tone when Charlie brought it to her ear. She punched in the number of the bookshop. Two rings and someone answered.
“Curiosity Books.” The voice was gruff, and a little too eager.
“Is Paul there?” Charlie asked, wondering what answer they’d give.
“This is him. You looking for a book?”
“An illustrated edition of The Witch and the Unlucky Brother,” Charlie improvised, heart pounding. Unless this was a different Paul Ecco, the person on the other end of the line was posing as a dead man. “We spoke about it yesterday?”
Yesterday, a day after he would have been murdered.
“Ah yeah,” the man said. “Some boxes just came in, so I’ll have to look through the inventory and get back to you. Why don’t you give me your name and number…?”
He paused, waiting for Charlie to supply the rest.
The problem with phones and caller ID was that he very probably had Rapture’s number already, so the only thing left to lie about was her name.
“Ms. Damiano,” she said, giving him Vince’s surname instead of her own. “And you can ask for me at this number.”
“I will get back to you very soon,” he said ominously. “Good evening, Ms. Damiano.”
Because that wasn’t creepy at all.
She checked her cell. Seven minutes before she had to be behind the bar. Not a lot of time. But there was one other person who knew something worth knowing about Paul Ecco.
Charlie pushed aside the velvet curtain, took that first step onto the onyx top step—mirrored by the onyx lintel over the threshold—and then down the stairs into Balthazar’s shadow parlor.
Although weakening the power of shadows for the brief period of passing over the step wasn’t particularly useful, the other property of onyx was more so—it made quickened shadows solid. That was what made onyx attached to weapons particularly valuable; it meant that gloamists’ shadows could be struck.
The space was low-ceilinged, with the same black, light-sucking walls as the rest of Rapture. A few people sat at tables with their drinks, heads bent in conference. One girl had her eyes shut as the gloom beside her did something to her shadow that looked a lot like stitching. A boy with a skateboard slouched low in a chair, resting his head against the wall, eyes rolling up into his head.
Toward the back was another velvet curtain. Inside, a pair of club chairs—for clients—were arranged opposite a small beat-up wooden desk where Balthazar sat. Joey Aspirins leaned against the far wall, arms folded over his chest.
“You got an appointment?” Joey Aspirins demanded, louder than was necessary.
Balthazar waved airily. “Oh, don’t be silly. That’s the girl from the bar. What’s your name again—Shar? Cher?”
“Very funny,” she said.