A-Splendid-Ruin(47)

Lightly, I quoted Goldie. “Nothing in this city gets done without Abe Ruef.”

LaRosa lifted a brow. “You do know him.”

“I know who he is.”

“Has your uncle ever spoken of him?”

There was something in his voice that made me wary. I wished I hadn’t been so light. “Why would he speak of him to me?”

A shrug. “I thought he might, given . . .”

“Given what?”

“Well . . . your position in the family.” His expression was pleasant, but I could not help tensing.

I was reminded again that my fantasy friendship with him was only that. I hardly knew him. “What are you implying, Mr. LaRosa?”

“Dante,” he corrected. “We’re friends, aren’t we, May? Coppa’s Comrades, so to speak.”

“Then why do I feel as if you’re accusing me of something?”

“I’m only wondering. One minute I’ve never seen or heard of you, and the next you’re everywhere. You’re all the talk, you’re always at Goldie Sullivan’s side, and then you show up on the arm of Ellis Farge.”

“I’m only all the talk because you’ve made it so.”

“Touché,” he said. “But you have to admit you’ve made it impossible to ignore you.”

“Really? I’m really very ordinary. My mother died, and my aunt and uncle took me in. Goldie is my cousin, and my uncle commissioned Ellis Farge. You know all of this already.”

“Why do I feel there’s more to it?”

“I have no idea.”

“The Sullivans are not well known for their generosity.”

Now I was becoming irritated. “You don’t know them at all if you think that.”

“And—forgive my frankness—but you aren’t Farge’s type. Nothing about you makes sense, unless . . .”

He was a reporter. He was looking for stories. And not just any stories, but society secrets. He’d told me that outright. I should have listened.

He was not a friend, and I could not trust him.

He pressed, “I think you might have some knowledge about your uncle’s involvement with Ruef and the board, and maybe, because we’re friends, you’d be willing to help me find the evidence I need.”

“Evidence of what?”

“Graft. Bribery. Unsavory dealings.”

“Mr. LaRosa, I have no idea why you would think my uncle might be involved in any such thing.”

He said nothing, but his gaze lingered on my face, and I felt the threat in it, a tacit quid pro quo. Keep my secret, and I’ll keep yours. I remembered his article about Chinatown. The debutante who’d gone unnamed. Goldie. He knew about her, of course he did. Just as he knew about my uncle’s mistress. Tell me what I want to know, or . . . Goldie, Chinatown . . . It was all the more powerful for being unstated. The danger of it prickled my skin.

A moment, and then two, and then his expression softened; he tapped my glass with his own as if acknowledging a stalemate, and his intensity drained away as quickly as it came. It had bound me more fiercely than I’d realized.

“Well, I’ll leave you to Verina. Give her my best, won’t you? No, wait—on the other hand, don’t. She might throw something at you when she hears my name.”

“That must be a common reaction,” I said.

His mouth quirked in a half smile. “Maybe I’ll see you at Coppa’s.” Then he turned on his heel and walked away.

I started back to the ballroom, relieved that he was gone, but so distracted by his questions and his implications that I did not see the man who stepped in front of me until I nearly ran into him.

“My pardon, Miss Kimble.” He put his hands on my arms to stop my forward movement. “You seem in another world.”

He was familiar, though I could not place him, and then, suddenly, I did. The Cliff House, the bouncing black feathers on Mrs. Hoffman’s hat, Goldie’s tears and the beach and her explanations of her failed engagement. Dante LaRosa’s comment, “Oelrichs is here somewhere . . . slumming.”

“Oh. Mr. Oelrichs, hello.”

His gaze leaped over my shoulder. “If you’re here, then it means Miss Sullivan must not be far behind. The two of you are in each other’s pockets these days.”

“We are very close,” I said.

“So the gossip says.”

“The gossip?” I asked, unable to help myself, and then remembered my promise to Goldie that I would not listen to anything Stephen Oelrichs had to say.

But Oelrichs looked amused. He had hoped I would ask. He’d set a trap, and I had unwittingly raced right into it. “Why, they say that you lead Miss Sullivan into all manner of indiscreet behavior.”

I blinked in surprise. “Me?”

“That is what they say. You know, at the Cliff House, Mrs. Hoffman liked the look of you. She said you seemed a ‘good girl,’ and that perhaps you might be the one to bring Goldie Sullivan to heel at last.” He tapped my chin, too intimate, too close. “But you and I know better, don’t we?”

“I—I don’t know what you mean.”

His polite expression did not waver. Anyone watching us would have seen only a courteous encounter. “May I offer you a bit of advice? Stay away from China Joe. He’s not the ignorant Chinaman he pretends to be. And he understands English perfectly well.”