Bitter Spirits
Page 29

One of the girls who lived in the building clicked on the line and asked to use it.
“In an hour?” Aida said quickly.
“With bells on.”
She hung up and changed her clothes, dressing in a camel-colored skirt and a matching jacket. Casual, but smart. Very businesslike. It looked good with her tan stockings, which had pretty little scrolling shapes embroidered on the calves and hid the freckles on her legs. She finished getting ready, then headed downstairs in time to meet him.
Aida’s heart pounded wildly as she glanced toward the entrance and found him stepping inside the restaurant wearing a long black coat, black suit, and black necktie with red chevrons running down the middle peeking from his vest. Pausing near the door, he removed his hat and brushed away droplets of rain. Gray light filtered in from the windows behind him, where Chinese characters and the pronouncement “Best Almond Cookies in Chinatown” surrounded a painted lotus blossom.
His eyes found hers. “Miss Palmer,” he said politely, as if he were an upstanding gentleman and not a bootlegger. As if they were merely business acquaintances . . . which they were, she reminded herself. “Shall we?”
Dodging customers tottering up to the register, she followed Winter outside into the fresh air, heavy with the scent of wet pavement. She eyed rain dripping from a shallow ledge above the entrance. “Everyone told me it would be dry here in the summer.”
“Usually is.”
“Where’s Bo?” she asked in her best neutral tone as she pulled on a pair of short brown gloves with bell-shaped cuffs.
“He dropped me off.”
“Ah.” Flutter-flutter. She squelched her excitement and glanced around. The newsstand next door had erected a rainy-day tarp that tied to a street sign and a telephone pole. “Maybe we should grab a taxi.”
Winter snapped open a large black umbrella. “Nonsense. It’s barely raining. Come.” He shifted her under the umbrella and out of the entry so an elderly couple could step inside. His hand lingered on her back as they walked to a spot by the newsstand.
Hope and anxiety quickened her hummingbird pulse. Being close to him set her nerves dancing. She was close enough to catch his scent, crisp and clean, a touch of the orange oil that permeated his house. She glanced up and found him studying her. Had he seen her sniffing his coat like a dog? “Sorry. You smell nice.”
“Barbasol cream.” He was hiding a smile. Amused. Relaxed. Very non-businesslike.
Emboldened by his good mood, she teased him a little. “I thought it was eau de bootlegger.”
“No,” he answered with a soft chuckle, “that smells like money and sweat.”
He was joking with her—smiling and laughing and touching her. She was far happier than she probably should be about it. Any second, her feet would be floating over the sidewalk. She forced herself to settle down and dug out Mrs. Lin’s map. “Look at this and tell me if you know where it’s at.”
“All right. No need to be pushy,” he said with good humor. As rain dripped from the umbrella onto his coat sleeve, he studied the hand-drawn path through Chinatown’s labyrinth streets and noted where he’d make a bit of a detour. “A small tong leader has a warehouse here. We’re on decent terms—Bo and I have already ruled him out as a possible ringleader for all the ghost business—but I don’t want him to think I’m sniffing around without his permission.”
The thought hadn’t crossed her mind that it might be dangerous for a notorious bootlegger to be prowling Chinatown, whether or not it meant facing someone he suspected of his recent hauntings. He must’ve noticed the concern on her face, because he opened up his long overcoat and showed her a handgun strapped beneath his suit jacket. “Just in case. Don’t worry.”
“Don’t worry?” she repeated, looking around quickly to make sure no one else had seen it. “That makes me even more nervous. What if you have to use it?”
He curled gloved fingers around her chin and lifted her face. “Then the other guy’ll have a bullet in him and you’ll be safe. I promise you that.”
“I don’t like guns.”
He released her chin. “Then try to keep your hand out of my jacket and you’ll never know it’s there.” He gave her a quick wink that made her stomach flip, then, with a gentle hand on her shoulder, prodded her down the sidewalk.
Light drizzle darkened the pavement and carried scents of Chinatown: dried fish, exotic spices, old wood, and tobacco leaves from a nearby cigar warehouse. Across the street, tourists huddled under dark red canvas awnings to get out of the rain and browse ceramics and toys on display in wooden crates. Tin Lizzies and delivery trucks rumbled down the street, splashing through puddles collecting near the curbs.
“Bo said he started working for you when he was fourteen,” she said as they sauntered down Grant, passing a butcher’s window where a row of skinned ducks hung above signs in English and Chinese, promising the freshest meat for the best price.
“He was half your size back then,” he said. “Did he tell you how we met?”
“No.”
“I box at a club on the edge of Chinatown, a few blocks from my pier—”
“That explains a lot,” she mumbled, eyeing a thick arm. Half of him was getting wet, she noticed, as he was tilting the umbrella at an angle to account for their height difference and keep her dry.
He blinked at her with a dazed look on his face and nearly smiled. “Well,” he said, clearing his throat. “Bo lived with his uncle. To bolster the family income, he took to pickpocketing. Was good at it, too. Fast as a whip—you never knew he’d been in your coat. He robbed me blind when I was getting dressed for a match.”