Siren Queen(21)

I almost expected one of the security guards to peel off and accompany me, but it struck me again that this was a normal day for them. Of course hopeful girls came to see Oberlin Wolfe every day. Some of them showed up again and rose as stars, and far more stumbled back to the car trying not to blur their mascara with tears. Some others still, rumored but persistent, never returned at all.

The elevator was glass and brass, and the Black woman at the panel smiled at me. She looked like she was a woman made for smiling, but the job only allowed her so much.

“Top floor, please,” I said, painfully aware that I should have tipped her and knowing very well I had no money in my purse.

She didn’t seem to hold the tip against me, only murmuring good luck as I went in. The elevator stopped in a surprisingly close lobby, far more cramped than I would have imagined for the office of one of the three kings of Hollywood.

The woman who sat behind the desk here looked at me far less kindly. She was a beauty as well, but that was becoming almost normal to me. More important was the bored, predatory glint in her eye.

“Mr. Wolfe’s eight o’clock? I’ll let him know you’re here.”

“Of course,” I said stiffly.

She didn’t say anything else so I took a seat. I didn’t see her speak into her intercom, but I assumed that something had happened.

Half an hour later, I no longer assumed that, and the only thing that stopped me from getting out and pacing was the not-so-secret amused glint in her green eyes. There was a little smirk there, something unpleasant, and I gritted my teeth.

When the carriage clock set on her desk chimed nine, I got up and approached the desk again.

“Please remind Mr. Wolfe that I am here,” I said politely.

Her laugh was a high treble of contempt.

“Oh, sweetie, that’s not how that works,” she said. “This is your big day, but for Mr. Wolfe, the fact that he’s here at all is just a pain in the ass.”

“What are you…”

Before I could get another word out, the intercom crackled to life.

“Janet, is the girl here?”

“She is, boss,” said the receptionist sweetly, savoring her informality in front of me like a piece of candy. “Shall I send her in?”

“Yeah, and call at Lou’s for some coffee too. The usual.”

The look she gave me was triumphant, but I didn’t spare her another glance. I would rather go back to the laundry than try to make a receptionist job into something to hold over other people.

“Mr. Wolfe will see you now,” she informed me. The receptionist pressed a button, and the wooden panel in front of me slid open.

When I entered the office of one of the most powerful men in Hollywood, I flinched from the light. The entire wall facing the entrance was glass, and the morning sunlight came spilling right in. I learned much later that that was on purpose, a choice Oberlin Wolfe had made so that when anyone came on his turf, they were dazzled by the light in front of them and so that he could see them with the harsh glare on their features.

There are still plenty of pictures of Oberlin Wolfe around if you know where to look. He’s part of Hollywood as much as he’s still part of the studio that bears his name, and even now, he walks the back lots, eyeing his empire as if daring it to disappoint his legacy.

He was a tall man, lean through his years of riding and war, and his pale hair, worn long in his youth, was now cut brutally short, just a silver glimmer over the shape of his skull. His features were sharp and slightly alien, and his fingers looked as if someone had tugged them out ever so slightly, making them appear long and spiderlike while they tapped impatiently on his desk.

I stood in front of the desk, hands at my sides. For what felt like an eternity, he didn’t even look at me, and then finally, as if on some unseen signal, he heaved himself out of his chair and around his desk, lurching towards me.

If I had imagined any kind of hovering preternatural monster, I was wrong. The monster in front of me turned out to be a very normal one, especially if you grew up on Hungarian Hill. The clothes were far finer than any of the ones that ever came into the laundry, and the alcohol was probably nicer as well, but it was familiar enough that I put up a hand to stop him when he came too close.

Wolfe snorted, brought up short. This close, I could see that his eyes were fixed somehow. They were pale and beautiful, but they were terribly, terribly still.

“So you’re the one I got that terse little note from Dewalt about a few months back,” he mused, more to himself than to me. “He sounded pissed off. Did you blackmail him?”

I thought that I had learned to keep my face still, but he saw my surprise there, and he laughed. For such a handsome man, he had a strange cough-like laugh. I couldn’t smell any cigarette smoke on him, but it was like a crow’s caw.

“Ha, thought so. Dewalt doesn’t do a damn thing for a woman unless he’s in bed with her or she has him by the balls. You made an enemy before you even walked in here.”

“I’ll probably make more before I’m done,” I said with a shrug, and that made Wolfe laugh again.

“Smart, but I don’t know if you’re tough enough to back that up.”

“I am,” I replied with a confidence that I had borrowed from Mrs. Wiley. I would never be adorable and bubbling over with praise for myself and others. Instead, I was still and cold, and I had to hope that was enough.