Chapter 12: Paid on the Night

On Saturday at seven I knocked on the cabinet shop door with my one black dress on, and gold still flecked up both forearms.

Maddox opened it with a pencil behind his ear.

He looked at me for a long moment, and I saw him decide to be polite.

"I need a witness tonight," I said. "Not a date. A man who isn't afraid of a room."

"Ellory."

"I'm not asking you to forgive me."

"I'm asking because Kendrick owes you eleven thousand two hundred dollars, and he's about to hand out checks in front of eighty people."

He took the pencil from behind his ear and turned it over.

"I'm coming for the money," he said.

"That's fine."

"Not for you."

"That's fine too."

He went to get his jacket, and I was grateful and sorry in one breath.

The Annora Room blazed with light.

Gold-shaded lamps hung over the long walnut bar.

Candles burned on every table, and a crowd packed the place in good coats, three deep at the champagne.

The window facing the street was still bare, a scraped gap between THE and ROOM.

Somebody had set a small spotlight on it, and a velvet rope.

Maddox took one look and breathed out through his nose.

"He turned your wound into a feature," he said.

"He turns everything into a feature."

We went in.

Heads turned in a slow wave.

I heard my name pass from table to table in low voices.

A woman in pearls leaned toward her husband and whispered, "That's her."

Kendrick stood at the far end of the bar, in a charcoal suit, with a microphone in one hand.

He saw me, and his whole face lit with a relief so complete it startled me.

He tapped the mic.

"Everyone, if I could have your attention," he said, and the room hushed on cue.

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