Night and Day by Rowan Speedwell Read Free Book Online Page A

but you both agree on Gable. And Harlow. Corinna rolls her eyes at your taste in melodrama, but the two of you just laugh at her. All three of you love the Marx Brothers.
    Only one incident disturbs the halcyon days.
    It is late on a Saturday evening, and you are nearly to the end of your set, when Dion Winyard walks into the club as if he owns it. With him are three goons, thick-necked and burly in expensive pinstriped suits, their broad faces blank. Rick intercepts them, and they have a low-voiced conversation before he escorts them to an empty table at the side of the dance floor.
    Fortunately you are singing an old Gilbert and Sullivan standard, one you can sing in your sleep, and you can keep an eye on them as you perform. Slowly, the couples on the dance floor drift off, back to their tables. Billie goes over to take their order and gets goosed by Winyard. She only smiles grimly instead of smacking him with her tray as she would have anyone else, and heads over to the bar to place the orders.
    Oddly, he doesn’t even look at her; his attention is focused on you.
    By the time you finish your set, she has delivered the drinks, been pulled into Winyard’s lap and released, and has disappeared. Corinna comes up behind Winyard; she is wearing black tonight and appears like a ghost, her pale face and hair bodiless in the dim light. The goons visibly jump, but Winyard only turns and makes a face at her.
    You finish singing, thank the band and the audience, and step off the stage to the usual applause. Some sense of gallantry—and rage—sends you over to the table to stand beside Corinna. “Anything I can help with?” you ask under your breath.
    She glances at you approvingly, but says, “No, thank you, Nathan. Everything is under control.”
    “Billie,” you start, and she holds up a slim beringed hand.
    “Billie is fine. I’m going to have a chat with Dion about his treatment of my employees. You go ahead and get a drink.”
    A touch on your elbow, and you look to see Rick standing there. “Get a drink, Nate,” he says softly, but his eyes are cold. You expect coldness from Corinna; from Rick, it is disturbing.
    Then they warm, just a hint, as they meet yours, and you smile, and nod, and walk away.
    This was your last set of the night, although most nights you go back on and keep going until your voice is tired. The normal schedule isn’t anything close to demanding. But tonight—no. Tonight, with Winyard in the audience, it doesn’t feel right.
    You’re not alone in the feeling. People are finishing their drinks and stubbing out cigars and cigarettes, getting up from their seats and drifting toward the doors. Not all at once, not rushing as if there were a raid (you’d been through two of those and would be happy to never renew the experience), but gradually, in pairs and foursomes, calling good-nights to friends and nodding to you as they pass.
    Rick and Corinna are still talking with Winyard when the band comes back from their break. They start to play again, but the music they choose is odd, in a minor key, plaintive and worrying. The hand Rick has at Corinna’s back is stiff with tension, as if resisting forming a fist. The air is palpably hostile, and the smirk on Winyard’s face does nothing to dispel it.
    Mario comes out of the kitchen. Mario never comes out of the kitchen. He stumps across the floor, his clubfoot making an odd rhythm that somehow fits with the sad tones of the instruments. Rick pulls over a chair for him and looks at Corinna. She shakes her head and keeps standing, looming over the gangster. She looks fragile and dainty against him, but somehow you don’t think he would be wise to cross her.
    Rick’s face, what you can see of it, is hard and expressionless. He speaks in a low voice, his lips thinned and barely moving, as if he’s talking through clenched teeth.
    Almost everyone has left the club by now, and you see the staff heading for the kitchen. Even the bartenders leave