The Madam's Table

The brass rail beneath Vivian Marlowe’s shoes was warm from the club’s heating vents, though the rest of the private booth stayed cool behind its smoked mirrors. Amber globe lamps floated in the glass like captive moons. Beyond them, red velvet swallowed the supper club’s noise - trumpet, laughter, the clink of crystal - and returned it softened, expensive, obedient.

Vivian sat centered behind the round walnut table, one step above the floor, her white dress unwrinkled beneath a narrow gold belt. The only woman in the room looking straight through the haze was Vivian.

“Mr. Voss is here,” Ruth Caldwell said.

Ruth stood beside the booth in a white satin blouse and black skirt, one hand resting near the black accounting ledger. Her feathered hair brushed her shoulders when she turned. She had been Vivian’s confidante long enough to know that news was rarely improved by being announced gently.

Vivian lifted her eyes to the smoked mirror. Three men entered the private corridor. The first wore a camel-colored suit with a silk handkerchief tucked into the breast pocket. He was not old, but worry had settled around his mouth. Behind him came a broad man with a broken-looking nose and a younger driver in a brown leather jacket. The driver’s gaze moved over the booth, the exits, the women.

“Bring him in,” Vivian said. “The others stay where I can see their hands.”

Ruth’s mouth tightened. “He asked for discretion.”

“He can have discretion without privacy.”

Ruth gave the order with a glance. At the corridor’s mouth, Celeste Vaughn shifted aside to receive the entourage. She wore a black sleeveless top tucked into a white skirt, the wide belt at her waist bright with brass. Her platform heels made no sound on the carpet. Celeste smiled at the men as though she had been waiting all evening to welcome them and not measuring the distance between each one and the nearest door.

The man in the camel suit stepped into the booth.

“Mrs. Marlowe.”

“Vivian will do.”

“Victor Voss.”

“I know.”

His eyes flicked toward the backlit liquor bar, then returned to her. “That saves time.”

“Time is what brought you here.”

A faint smile touched his mouth and vanished. He sat opposite her. The broad man remained standing behind his right shoulder. The driver took the chair nearest the corridor, where he could watch both the booth and the mirrored wall.

Vivian noticed the driver’s hands first. Clean nails. No rings. A pale scar crossed the knuckles of his left hand. He kept his thumb hooked beneath his belt, close to the shape of a weapon that might or might not be there.

Ruth poured bourbon into a crystal glass and set it before Voss. Vivian did not drink. She wanted him sober enough to understand the price and frightened enough not to mistake the club for charity.

“You need a room,” she said.

“I need a place where I can conduct business without being interrupted.”

“Those are different things.”

“Not in my line of work.”

“What is your line?”

Voss leaned back. The leather beneath him gave a low creak. “Distribution.”

“Of what?”

“Things people want.”

“That answer has already caused trouble for you.”

His eyes hardened. “You have a reputation for asking direct questions.”

“My reputation charges less than my lawyers.”

The broad man shifted. Celeste, still at the corridor, turned her head just enough to notice. Ruth’s fingers settled over the ledger’s cover.

Voss took a swallow of bourbon. “Two men followed me from the interstate. They waited outside my office yesterday. One of them put a bullet through my secretary’s window.”

“Is she alive?”

“Yes.”

“Then the bullet was a message.”

“That is why I am here.”

“No,” Vivian said. “You are here because you believe my walls can keep a message from finding you.”

The driver looked at her then. His eyes were gray and flat, his face younger than the scar suggested.

Voss placed a folded envelope on the table. It landed beside the ledger with a soft paper slap. “I can pay for the month.”

“You can pay for the night. The month depends on whether you remain worth protecting.”

“I have money.”

“Money is not the same as worth.”

The broad man’s hand came away from his side. “Careful.”

Vivian did not look at him. “Ruth, ask Mr. Voss’s man to leave the booth.”

“No,” Voss said.

The word settled between them.

Outside the mirrors, the band moved into a slower number. A woman laughed too loudly near the bar. Somewhere, a glass broke, followed by the quick hush of a room pretending not to listen.

Vivian placed one finger on the envelope. “My house has rules.”

“Then name them.”

“No guns on the floor. No threats to staff. No business conducted in the dining room. No one enters the private corridor without my permission. If you bring trouble through my door, you pay to remove it.”

“And if trouble comes looking?”

“Then we decide whether it leaves before you do.”

The broad man gave a short, humorless laugh. “That sounds like protection?”

“It is the only kind that lasts.”

...