Alex dodged the ladies who pranced around us in garter belts and plastic heels and I did my best to keep up with him, growling, “This is not going to help.” I stepped around a weaving crowd of beer-soaked bachelors. “How do you expect this to help? My best friend has been kidnapped! She could be dying and we’re here at”—I paused, looked up—“The Roaring Twenties?”
The Roaring Twenties was Big Al’s slightly more upscale neighbor—a throwback to a 1920s speakeasy, complete with dancers in period costumes (when they wore costumes) and heavy, carved double doors. The outside walls were lined with sepia-toned prints of the San Francisco of yesteryear, interspersed with the women of Saturday night. Even the doorman—a burley black guy with a bald head and a puffy black mustache—was dressed in authentic-looking 1920s garb.
At The Roaring Twenties, you got some history with your lap dance.
Vlad grinned, his fangs catching the reflection of the blinking lights of Broadway. “I loved the twenties. Pretty girls, lots of neck action.”
I shot him a look and his gleeful smile faded. “Sorry,” he said with a disgusted groan.
I squeezed Alex’s arm and steeled myself. “I’m not going in there. What are you thinking? That Ophelia sold Nina into white slavery and now she’s working as a naked historian?”
“I’m thinking that you should trust me and keep walking.” Our train shimmied through the thickening crowds on the busy streets and my head throbbed with the pulsing lights and the heavy bass that thumped behind the closed doors. My legs were aching from the gradual uphill climb and still stung from the shower of soot and glass at my father’s house.
I just wanted to find Nina. I felt a hopeless lump rising in my chest as Alex grabbed my arm and steered me around a sharp corner, then hustled me through a set of double glass doors. I instinctively clamped my eyes shut and sputtered, “I don’t want to see any naked ladies!”
I was greeted with a wall of silence and the bitter smell of coffee, tinged with the slightest hint of brown sugar. I opened one eye and saw the bakery cases, the round black tables scattered with tea drinkers staring curiously up at me. I glanced around, seeing the flashing lights of Big Al’s in the distance, reflected on the plate-glass windows.
“We’re not at a strip club?”
“Sorry to disappoint you, Lawson,” Alex said with a smug shrug.
I felt a flood of embarrassment from hair follicles to toenails. “Oh.” I dropped into a chair. “Can you get me a cannoli then?”
Vlad sat down next to me. “I don’t understand what any of this has to do with finding my aunt.”
Alex ordered a round of cannoli and coffee, then sat down.
“Hopefully, it’s buying us enough time to confuse and annoy Ophelia. It’ll be harder to read Sophie’s mind with everything going on—the crowds, the lights on Broadway—”
Vlad scowled. “Well, if that was working, why are we here?”
Before Alex could answer, the mournful wail of a harmonica cut through the cinnamon-scented air, followed by a smattering of applause and the tuning of a guitar.
“Chaotic enough?”
The hum of quiet conversation raised to a din, punctuated by the clattering of dishes and live music. I looked around nervously, locking eyes with a heavyset man behind the counter. When he bent down to take something out of the dessert case, I nudged Vlad.
“That guy’s staring at me. There’s something about him. Can you get a scent on him?”
Vlad’s nostrils flared and he nonchalantly sniffed at the air, then shrugged. “Not unless he’s a cinnamon scone or a caramel macchiato.”
I rubbed my temples with my fingers. “Okay, we’ve got to find Nina. If you were a raging lunatic with a vampire captive, where would you go?”
“Someplace private,” Vlad suggested.
“Someplace that means a lot to you. That’s why she took you to your dad’s house.”
Vlad’s eyes widened. “You went to Hell?”
“No—Marin. I can’t think with all this distraction.”
Alex put his hand on mine. “We need the distraction. As much as it’s bothering you, it’s worse on her end. We can’t let her know what you’re thinking. So, focus.”
A slim waitress with an apron double-tied around her waist deposited a plate of cannoli in front of us. I took one and chewed absently.
Vlad tapped his finger on the table, the sound adding to the roar. I glared at him and he stopped. “This really isn’t doing us any good,” he said.
Alex’s eyes were intense as he stared me down. “Where would she take Nina that would get to you?”
I polished off the first cannoli and was reaching for my second. “I don’t know.”
“Come on, think. What place means a lot to you? Where do you go a lot?”
“Target. But I doubt she’d hold Nina there. Or Philz Coffee.”
Alex blew out an exasperated sigh. “Someplace that means something to you.”
“Cheap clothing and great coffee do mean something to me.”
Alex glared at me.
I thunked my forehead on the table. “This isn’t working. Look, Alex, I appreciate you bringing me here, but besides the sugar shock and ooginess of walking down Broadway, nothing has changed. Ophelia can’t read my mind because there is nothing in it. I have no idea where she could take Nina that would really get under my skin.”