A-Splendid-Ruin(49)

I laughed. “That seems appropriate.”

He made a face. “Indeed. Nothing but monkeys here. Speaking of which, why don’t we go over to Coppa’s?”

“It’s closed.”

“Ah, it only seems that way,” he said mysteriously.

I did not need much convincing. I had already missed the service, and my uncle and cousin would be busy with social obligations for hours yet. Not only that, but Goldie would have told everyone I was too ill to attend church, and it would not do to suddenly appear in perfect health.

I began to follow him, and then remembered the Anderson ball and stopped. “Will Dante LaRosa be there?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“I saw him the other night. At a dance. He was reporting on it.” He had written nothing of me in his article on the Anderson soiree. I wasn’t certain why, but I was grateful.

“I hope he didn’t trouble you. He’s a bottom-feeder, May. You should avoid him.”

“You don’t like him. Why?”

“Dante LaRosa never met a snide comment he didn’t like. He’s tried to destroy me more than once.”

“Destroy you? Why?”

“Who knows? I suspect simply for the fun of it. He’s very eager to write anyone’s bad opinion of my work. Did he say anything about me at this dance?”

“He seemed more concerned about my uncle.”

“What about your uncle?”

“I don’t know. Something about city corruption, and bribery—”

“The same old thing. He’s been talking of that for months. He’s trying to find a story that isn’t there,” Ellis assured me. “He’s desperate to move from the society beat. You heard him say it himself. What’s more likely to happen is that he gets fired.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I’m not the only one he’s annoyed with his articles. Sooner or later, someone is going to go after him.”

“Why haven’t you exposed him? Why hasn’t anyone at Coppa’s? You all know who he really is.”

“Who would believe me? No, I’ve no wish to play his petty games. Let him roll in the mud without me.” Ellis glanced away, and I understood that, like me, he was afraid of what Dante LaRosa knew; Ellis Farge too had people or secrets he wished to protect. I wanted to ask what they might be, but I did not want him asking in return, and so I buried my curiosity.

Ellis went on, “Those at Coppa’s love anything that snips at the status quo, and LaRosa does snip. His articles are their favorite entertainment. They’ll never expose him. Come along now, before they drink all the wine.”

“Wine? So early?”

“Oh, don’t be so bourgeois,” he teased.

Ellis ignored the CLOSED sign on Coppa’s front door and rapped softly. It opened, and we were greeted by a rotund man with a long black mustache and a black skullcap. He ushered us inside quickly.

“Poppa Coppa, this is Miss May Kimble,” introduced Ellis.

Coppa bowed over my hand. “Miss Kimble, welcome. Go on back, go back! Tell them I am bringing the wine and do not draw over Martinelli!”

The tables had been shoved together in the middle back of the restaurant, reminding me of the last time I’d been here. Several people were gathered there, gulping wine and making sandwiches of bread and cold cuts. Wenceslas Piper had tied back his auburn hair. He stood on a stool, drawing a caricature of Gelett Addison hunched over an enormous bottle of ink, laurel wreath slipping over his ear. Nearby, on another stool, Edith Jackson added embellishments to the words she’d already written: Something terrible is going to happen, and Gelett gestured at her with his wine, spattering it over the table.

“Why, it sounds a portent, Edie! Whyever would you put such a thing on these walls?”

“It’s from Oscar Wilde,” she retorted. “From Salomé.”

“A wretched play. A doomed play. And now you’ve doomed us all!”

Wence laughed and leaned over to draw a heart over the i in terrible. “There, I’ve made it all better.”

Edith glared at him and scratched it out.

“Ah, there she is! Our newest freak!” Gelett called out.

“How tiresome you can be, Gelly,” Blythe Markowitz said from where she leaned beneath the painted motto, Oh, Love! dead and your adjectives still in you!

Ellis led me to the table and poured wine for us both. We watched and talked with the others and ate sandwiches until the wine and the company combined to make me languorous and easy, and I forgot the passing of time, or that anyone might expect me home again. But then, as if to remind me, Dante LaRosa came through a back door. The mist of the morning had turned to rain that spattered his hat and the shoulders of his coat. When he saw us, he stopped; I saw his quick recalculation, a forced smile. “Well, look who’s here.”

“No soirees for you to dim today?” Ellis asked.

“It’s Sunday. Even the stupidest of society don’t dance today.” Dante’s glance came to me. “No church for the wicked, hmmm?”

“You’re here, I see. I didn’t know newspaper reporters painted the walls of Coppa’s,” I said lightly.

“Anyone can write bad poetry.” Dante took off his hat, then grabbed wine and pulled out a chair. “Look at that opus over there.” He pointed to a large devil fishing as he roasted his cloven foot in a fire above the words: It is a crime. Nearby were stanzas that began Through the fog of centuries . . . and ended musing about cat soul mates.