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At the sound of applause, Theta elbowed Evie. “Here comes your competition.” She nodded toward Sarah Snow, who was gliding through the ballroom in her signature white—a long satin dress for the occasion and a fresh white corsage nestled against ropes and ropes of pearls, which Evie was sure had not been provided by Jesus. Sarah waved, and then she joined Jake Marlowe, gazing up at him with beaming adoration.
“She’s laying it on a bit thick, isn’t she?” Evie grumbled.
Theta adjusted Evie’s rhinestone headband atop her freshly styled bob. “Listen, kid, you got one mission: Get out there and sparkle for WGI so that old buzzard, Mr. Phillips, and everybody else in here thinks you’re the cat’s pajamas. You’re gonna have to watch that tongue of yours. Can you manage it for one night?”
Evie pasted on a big smile. She batted her lashes like a deranged ingenue. “Look at me! Aren’t I just the dahhhlingest? I only talk about the weathahhhh and the goodness of people’s heahhhts.”
Theta smirked. “Get it all out now, Evil, before you step up to that microphone.”
Evie scowled. “There isn’t even any hooch!”
Theta gave Evie a gentle push toward the room. “Go be charming.”
The hotel’s ballroom swirled with Important People: congressmen, the mayor, radio and motion picture stars. Everyone had turned out for Jake Marlowe’s big gala. The theme was “The Exceptional American.” Everything had been draped in red, white, and blue crepe. Wearing an angelic expression, Sarah Snow moved from table to table, shaking hands with the fawning wives of men who were also working the room, doing whatever took them to the top. The joint smelled of perfume, steak, cigar smoke, desperation, and ambition. Evie wanted to be as far from Sarah as she could get. She headed for the other side of the room.
Passing through the ballroom, she caught snippets of conversation:
“… I hear Miss Snow received two thousand fan letters last week.…”
“… Two thousand? Why, I heard it was five.…”
Envy burned up Evie’s throat. Her pasted-on smile drooped.
“… I like Marlowe. He speaks his mind.…”
“… He oughta run for president. After all, I hear the Democrats are putting up Al Smith again, and he’s a Catholic… don’t wanna answer to the pope.…”
“… Like this Mussolini fella. Now he’s really taken Italy by the reins and instilled genuine national pride. Seems like we need a little of that over here.…”
“Hear, hear! America first.”
Someone tapped Evie on the shoulder. She turned and found herself face-to-face with T. S. Woodhouse.
“I need to talk to you, Sheba,” he said.
“Can’t it wait? I—”
Woody opened his tuxedo jacket, showing her his flask.
“Lead the way, Mr. Woodhouse,” Evie said.
In the hustle and bustle of the hotel kitchen, Evie knocked back several belts of strong whiskey, coughing heartily. Her lungs were on fire. “Whoo!”
“My bootlegger is a good man,” Woody said.
“What did you want to talk about?” Evie asked when she found her voice again.
“Remember that matter you asked me to look into?”
“Jumping into the river in concrete overshoes?” Evie teased.
Woody smirked in appreciation. “That was good whiskey. Don’t make me sorry I shared it. I meant Project Buffalo. Take a look at this.”
He slid over the day’s newspaper. Evie unfolded it and glanced at the page.
“You wanted me to know that there’s a sale at Gimbels?”
Woody tapped the article above the ad. Evie’s brow creased as she read. It was a small police blotter paragraph about a man who’d been found dead in the East River. Evie gasped when she came to the dead man’s name. “Bob Bateman!”
