The Storm King(86)
“No, dearest. You’ll get juice on your blouse, and then they won’t want you on the floor.” June didn’t want May implicated in what happened next. “Listen.” She cocked her head as if listening. “I think they’re starting the finale—you don’t want to miss that.”
May’s face broke into unfettered delight, and she kissed June on the cheek before scurrying back to the dance floor.
June hoisted Strong’s silver bowl to the corner of the kitchen where she’d staged the array of bottles with which she’d already twice refilled the vessel. This batch would have some extra bite.
Carl supervised the baked Alaska as the sous chefs plated a pyramid of cream puffs. Even if they’d been paying attention to June, with her back to the rest of the kitchen no one could see what she was doing.
The cognacs first, followed by some bitters and a bottle of Dom Pérignon and a dash of Chateau Margaux. Bénédictine DOM and Sazerac Rye. Two sprigs of crushed rosemary, the juice of four blood oranges, paper-thin slices of star fruit.
A dollop of amber honey was next, but antifreeze was nearly as sweet. A can she’d hidden earlier sat in the cabinet at her feet. It was the size of a paint tin; she’d pried its lid open during the party preparations. When she brought it to the counter, the venomous green of the poison brimmed to its lip.
Morton Strong imbibed like others breathed. He had the tolerance of an oil rig worker, but a measure of antifreeze would set even him back a step or two. When Strong had dropped the bomb, he told June that she’d become an embarrassment. June would show him just what embarrassment looked like. A bout of unstoppable nausea among Greystone Lake’s finest would do that and more. Strong had grown up in the stinking canyons of the Lower East Side. Among those teeming streets the currency that mattered most was that of respect. Respect won by fear. And no one feared an aging nightclub owner who couldn’t hold his liquor.
This was just a taste of what was to come. June had been Strong’s right hand for two decades, and she knew, both literally and figuratively, where a great many bodies were buried. She had the rest of Strong’s life mapped out for him, and he wasn’t going to like its destination.
“Boss’s drink ready, Junebug?”
Carl’s voice was closer than June expected. It startled her enough to drop the can into the punch bowl. The viscous slurry glossed the silver bowl in its noxious green. June retrieved the can as quickly as she could, but it was wet and slick. More than three-quarters of its contents had been added to the punch. Too much. Far, far too much.
“I still have to add the Courvoisier,” June said. She mixed the sludge into the rest of the liquid to hide it, but knew she’d have to make it all over again.
“Sure it’s fine as is, sweetness.”
June barely had time to drape a dish towel over the can before he was alongside her.
“This deep in, he won’t taste a thing anyway.” Carl grabbed a handle of the bowl. “I’ll have one of the girls take it to him.”
“Should at least polish it up first,” June said. “You know how he hates smudges.”
“You’re too good for all of us, Juney,” Carl chuckled as he carried the punch bowl away from her. “I’ll miss the pair of you, but it’s our loss and the world’s gain.”
“I’ll bring it out, Carl,” June said. She hurried to catch him. She could stage a fall between here and the dance floor and use that as an excuse to make a fresh batch.
“Boss doesn’t want a scullery troll like you with the guests.” Scarlet had appeared at the kitchen’s swinging doors. “And in that disgusting apron.” The whore sneered at June as if she were carrion. As if she were worse than nothing.
“Maybe better to let Scarlet take it,” Carl said. “The boss being so particular and all.”
June could still stop the punch from making it to the dance floor. If finesse and sycophancy failed her, she could dispense with the pretense and knock the bowl out of Scarlet’s hands.
“Any man with two eyes would be particular about that serving them,” Scarlet said as she took the bowl from Carl.
June could have stopped everything right there, but she didn’t. She let Scarlet disappear onto the floor with the gleaming bowl of poison. As the swinging doors shuddered to a close, June caught ever-diminishing glimpses of dancing sparklers and whirling silks. Howling brass and the buzz of conversations warbled and then were muted as the doors settled to a close.
“Taking five, Carl,” June said. “Ask one of the boys to fetch May to our room?”
“Sure, June. And don’t you listen to Scarlet. You know the type. Can’t feel good herself without bringing others low.”
“Water off a duck’s back.” She got on her tiptoes to give the man a peck on the cheek. She realized in that moment that she would not see him again. She wouldn’t see any of this again. Allowing that silver bowl to leave her sight made this a certainty.
From the kitchen, she took the staff passage to the undercroft. Footfalls from the dance floor above beat a rhythm through the ceiling. Beneath the bandstand, the bass shook June’s bones to the marrow.
Once in their room, June pulled two suitcases from the closet, then went for the loose plank in the wall next to May’s bed. A fair amount of cash had flowed through the Night Ship in June’s day, and she wasn’t a dummy by a long shot: She’d skimmed her share. From the secret stash, Benjamin Franklin stared back at her in astounding multitudes.