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“Hey, there’s something I’ve been wanting to show you,” he said, drawing her back. He walked around to the other side of the bar, took a framed black-and-white photograph off the wall, and laid it on the bar top in front of her.
Imani’s eyes widened. “Is this—”
“Josephine Baker. The jazz singer.”
“More than that,” said Imani. “A singer, a dancer, first Black woman ever to star in a major motion picture. Served in the French Resistance during World War Two.”
“She performed here in Miami. All the big-name Black performers played the Overtown clubs after their shows on Miami Beach. Couldn’t spend the night in the beach hotels. Whites only. The after-hours shows started ’round midnight at the Knight Beat, the Cotton Club, the Clover Club, the Rockland Palace Hotel. Overtown was ‘the swingingest place in the South.’ My uncle Cy played for all of them. Josephine Baker signed this picture for him.”
“Oooh,” she said in a playful voice, “‘To Cy,with love.’”
“Yeah. You’re not the first to tease about that.”
Imani admired it. “She was so beautiful.”
Theo leaned closer, forearms on the bar top. “You look a lot like her, I think.”
“Yeah, after how many shots of tequila have you had?”
He laughed, then reached for the bottle. “One more?” he asked.
“No, no, no. I need to go to bed.” She reached across the bar and laid her hand on his. “Thank you again, Theo.”
“For introducing you to Jack?”
“No. Well, yeah. But mostly, just for being there.”
He smiled. “No problem.”
She started away, then stopped. “Hey, about that kiss in the courtroom.I was all excited about winning the case, and I guess I got a little carried away, so—”
“No worries. It surprised me as much as you.”
“You know, it’s funny. When I met you, I was nineteen. You seemed so much older than me.”
“Because I was.”
“But now. Shit, I’m not even in my twenties anymore. You don’t seem that much older.”
“Because I’m not,” he said, and then he glanced at the old black-and-white photograph behind the cash register, his uncle Cy, circa 1956. “And I’m still such a handsome devil in my Norfolk suit and natty tweeds.”
She smiled. “Good night, handsome.”
“Good night, Josephine. And do me a favor?”
“What?”
“Call your lawyer before you call Amongus.”
“Sure thing.”
Her car was waiting behind the club at the service door. Theo watched as she walked out of Cy’s club. But for the ever-present bodyguard trailing behind her, she really could have been the starlet who Uncle Cy had spent the rest of his life telling everyone was “the one who got away.”
Chapter 8
Thursday morning, Jack was in Manhattan. He and his client had a 9:00 a.m. meeting with prosecutors from the United States Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York. Imani met him downtown outside the federal courthouse at Foley Square.
“Let me do all the talking,” said Jack. “Even if the prosecutors speak to you directly, don’t say a word unless I ask you to.”
