Locked rooms - Laurie R. King [113]
She looked gloriously young and beautiful and light-hearted and fun, and my spirits lifted the instant I laid eyes on her.
The motor contained at least six other people, although it might have been ten or eleven. As I allowed myself to be inserted into the front, ending up on the lap of a young man who told me to call him “Dabs,” Flo waved a genial hand towards me, shouted my name at the passengers in the backseat by way of introduction, and wedged herself in beside me. The throbbing engine roared into life and we spun into the oncoming traffic.
The driver, according to Flo's running commentary, was called Donny. He was a tall, elegant figure with slick blond hair parted down the centre as if he'd invented the style, a pencil-thin moustache a shade darker than the hair on his head, a warm and humorous voice, and an immaculate Tuxedo. He appeared to be something of a beau, although Flo bestowed her affections equally on the young man beneath me, on the gentlemen in the back, and on the occupants of several passing motorcars as well, blowing kisses and giggling flirtatiously at their shouted remarks.
I was coming to regret the evening long before we pulled up in front of the club. It was not in a salubrious part of town, and did not at all appear the sort of place that justified the degree of fashion we were wearing: Across the street was a warehouse, and next to that the sort of speakeasy for which bath-tub gin had been invented. The building Donny parked before was something of a warehouse itself, ill-lit, in want of paint, and with boards nailed over its few windows. There were attendants, however, one of whom hopped into the motor and drove it away while another pulled open the door, greeting some of our party by name.
Inside lay a gilded cavern with some sort of Oriental theme to it, rich colours and a surfeit of patterns. When we had been shown to a table near the band and had our drinks placed before us, I looked around and realised that the theme was intended to be that of an opium den. A highly romanticised version of an opium den—I doubted any of the patrons of the establishments I had been inside would recognise any similarity. Instead of a filthy, claustrophobic room littered with equally filthy and near-comatose individuals, this glittering palace was bursting with more energy than a classroom full of eleven-year-old boys. The only thing I could see that was at all similar was the thick fug in the air, although this had the smell mostly of tobacco instead of the cloy of opium.
Mostly, I say. There was also cannabis in the air, and the smell of illegal spirits, served openly and without apology. I accepted the glass of champagne handed me, and could only hope that there was not a raid of the premises.
Now, in the normal course of events, I have no great appreciation for a raucous setting and great lashings of alcohol, but the course of events that week had been nothing like normal. The alcohol went down smoothly, the conversation seemed more witty than I'd have expected, the entertainment more stylish, the dancing feverish but physically satisfying—all in all, it buoyed my spirits beyond measure.
When we first got there, a band was playing some tune with a syncopated beat that my companions seemed to know, for two or three of them sang snatches of words in between swallows of their