“I’m calling for Ace. I mean, Mr. Kenzie.ArthurKenzie. Mr. Arthur James Kenzie.” Rory cringed. “The alderman’s brother. He’s supposed to be there.”
“I see.” She sounded unimpressed. “And who are you?”
Rory chewed on his lip, but what could be the harm? He couldn’t be the only one in the city, even. “...Theodore Giovacchini.”
He wasn’t expecting the rush of emotion that came with using his Italian name, the way his lips remembered the language. The way it felt to have someone he could be Italian with again.
“Giovacchini, you said?” The woman’s voice was even cooler. “I will let Mr. Kenzie know.”
A few moments later, a familiar deep voice was on the line. “Jade said you were about to call. You didn’t have to.”
Arthur’s voice was perfectly polite. Too polite, like a mask. Rory frowned. “What’s going on with your brother?”
“I was going to come pick you up,” Arthur said, which wasn’t an answer, but then, Zhang had said he couldn’t talk freely at City Hall. “I can wait until you’re ready—”
“We got eight days of work at the shop,” Rory interrupted, “and if I leave, Mrs. B’s gonna do it all herself. Go to the Magnolia now.”
“But—”
“Ace, I’mfine.” Rory kept his voice quiet as the lobby’s loiterers were strained to listen in. “Go tell Jade and Zhang about your brother, and then I’m gonna come to you. The three of us got—you know. We got some talents. We’ll figure it out.”
Arthur was quiet for a moment. “Thank you,” he finally said, with real gratitude in his voice under the mask manners gone. “I was expecting a call from an Irishman.”
Arthur had made the statement a question, no doubt wondering why Rory hadn’t used his alias. But he hadn’t chosen Rory, or Brodigan, for himself, and it’d been so hard to give up his Italian name in the first place.
Rory lowered his voice to a whisper. “Because I can with you. And I—”
And I miss speaking Italian. I miss my mom’s name. I miss her. I wish she could’ve met you.
He cleared his throat. “And I’ll see you soon,bello.”
Arthur set the phone back in the cradle, some of his tension gone. He hadn’t thought he had many firsts left with men, but this was new, having a man willing to phone up City Hall just to tell him not to worry and call himhandsome.
Arthur emerged from John’s corner office and found his brother in the reception area by the staff offices. John was speaking with a white woman, somewhere in her thirties, with a blond bob, red lips and a wide-collared blouse that displayed the choker around her neck. There was something about her that made Arthur feel like he’d seen her before.
John looked desperate for an out, so Arthur raised his voice. “Pardon the interruption, I’m Arthur Kenzie.” He held out a hand to the woman. “Or did you already know that? I feel as if we’ve met.”
“I doubt it,” John broke in, as the woman smiled a strange, almost dreamy smile and let Arthur take her hand. “This is Miss Shelley, from the Ladies’ Society for the Promotion of Boardwalk Welfare.” He was barely hiding his irritation. “She’s come for her daily update on Coney Island, and I was just explaining that we’re unfortunately closed for the night.”
“I’m afraid I was too busy to come earlier.” Shelley had a hint of the Midwest in her accent, from Chicago perhaps. “Ladies’ business, you know.”
Ladies’ business.Arthur had known that to be shorthand for anything from tea and biscuits to telekinetic sabotage. Jade sometimes got up to both at the same time.
He released her hand, his eye drawn once again to her neck. “That’s a lovely choker.” It was her only piece of jewelry, a black velvet ribbon circling her neck with a small black stone that sat in the hollow of her throat.
She touched the stone. “Thank you. It’s a recent acquisition.”
It shouldn’t have been particularly interesting. The stone wasn’t polished to a shine like jet, but a duller black that was closer to gray and had only a slight metallic luster. And yet, it was still compelling—
The phone rang, drawing Arthur out of his musing as the receptionist picked it up.
“Your telephone rings a great deal, Alderman Kenzie,” Shelley said to John.
“Almost as if everyone wants to chat about Coney Island at all hours of the day,” John said, with a friendly smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
Arthur pushed down his guilt. The cleanup was work for the city and he was sorry for that, but the wreckage at Coney Island would have been far more devastating if Rory hadn’t called a tempest to keep the tidal wave at bay.
“But even your brother is getting calls.” Shelley looked at Arthur with her vacant eyes. “Did I hear the receptionist say a Mr. Giovacchini was on the line for you?”
