Chapter 2 Tightrope in Red Heels

Men smile when they want something. When they think they've got something. But the man at Table Nine just watched me approach like I was a train he'd heard coming for miles, and he was still deciding whether to get off the tracks or let it hit him.

Frank Caruso had the kind of presence you felt between the ribs. Still as a shuttered church, expensive without trying. His tie was knotted like a threat perfect, deliberate, blood-dark maroon.

I slid into the seat across from him without asking. He didn't stop me.

"Is this seat taken?" I said, like a joke, like a dare.

He looked at me for one breath too long before answering.

"Now it is."

His voice was low, unhurried, like someone who'd already made peace with every bad thing he'd done and wasn't sorry about a single one.

A waitress ghosted by to drop off a fresh drink. He didn't touch it.

I leaned on the table, angling my face into the amber light. "I sing here," I said, unnecessarily.

"I heard."

"And?"

He shrugged, eyes never quite settling. "You sing like you don't believe a word of it."

"Maybe I don't."

"Then you're very good at lying."

The words weren't sharp. Just... observed. Like I was a painting, and he was the one person in the room who noticed the brushstrokes were off.

I smiled, because that's what I'm trained to do when I'm scared.

"I lie to men who deserve it," I said. "It saves time."

He finally looked straight at me. Right into me. Like he wanted to ask a question and already didn't trust the answer.

"Do I?"

We sat on that question for a second too long.

Then, slowly, he stood. Buttoned his jacket. Left his untouched drink.

"Goodnight, Miss Dumas."

"I didn't give you my name."

He paused at the edge of the table. Didn't turn.

"You wore it in your voice."

And just like that, he was gone.

I sat there a while, fingers curled around the rim of his glass, the warmth of his gaze still bleeding under my skin.

Rust wanted dirt. I didn't know what Frank Caruso was hiding yet, but I already knew this: I wasn't going to be the one doing the digging.

I was going to be the one buried.

You can't bump into someone twice unless one of you's lying.

That's what Charlie once told me, the night he caught me "accidentally" running into a record executive three nights in a row. I'd laughed then. Now the line sat in my throat like a sliver of glass, sharp and dry.

The canary was louder than usual. Friday night crowd boozier, richer, more careless. The kind of crowd that asked for your name with their hand already on your thigh. I didn't sing that night. Didn't need to. I was just... present. A face in lamé and a smile sharpened for use.

I walked slowly through the room like a ghost haunting her own grave. Not looking for Frank. Not really. But my heels knew the way to Table Nine before I did.

He was there.

Same seat. Same posture. Different suit, navy this time, charcoal pinstripe, tie neat as a confession. His drink had a twist of lemon tonight. Still untouched.

I let my hand brush the table as I passed, letting him feel my presence before I gave him my eyes. When I did turn, I put on the surprise like perfume.

"Well," I said. "Twice in two nights. Either I'm blessed, or you're following me."

Frank looked up, calm as smoke. "I was here first."

"And yet", I said, easing into the booth across from him, "you didn't leave."

A beat. His eyes flicked to the side, then back. "Maybe I was curious."

"Curious men get killed in this town," I said lightly.

"Not if they ask the right questions."

The waitress dropped off my usual without being asked. That was the thing about The Canary; it remembered your poison. I took a slow sip and watched him over the rim.

"You strike me as someone with very sharp questions," I said.

He tilted his head. "And you strike me as someone with very soft answers."

The line hung between us, warm and almost cruel.

I smiled. "What do you want to know, Mr Caruso?"

He didn't answer right away. Just watched me for a while, as if studying not just my face but the weight of my pause, the twitch of my mouth, and the lie I hadn't told yet.

Then he said, "Why are you really sitting here?"

I blinked. "Same reason as last night. You looked interesting."

"No one looks that interesting twice," he said, and his voice didn't rise, didn't press-but it didn't let go, either. "Unless someone sent you."

I held his stare. Let it ride.

Then I laughed. Soft, rich, and just enough realness to taste like truth.

"No one sends me," I said. "They're too afraid I might come back."

He didn't laugh. But he leaned back.

And he didn't ask again.

Frank left like he arrived quiet, deliberate, leaving the ice in his glass untouched and the conversation slightly unfinished. I didn't follow him with my eyes. That would've been too obvious. I just stirred my drink and let the night wrap back around me.

Ten minutes later, I slipped out the side hall behind the stage, past the coat check and the faded Art Deco posters that promised names no one remembered anymore. The hallway always smelt like mildew and nervous sweat, quickies, threats whispered over shoulder pads. You never knew which.

The greenroom was empty, the bulbs humming like bugs in a jar. I sat on the velvet armrest of the fainting couch and lit a cigarette. I didn't need one, but nerves have rituals, and mine liked smoke.

"You shouldn't get used to him."

The voice came from the corner, low and familiar. Charlie stepped into the light slowly, like he was giving me time to be someone else if I needed to be.

"I didn't hear you come in," I said.

"You never do."

I exhaled, letting the smoke curl toward him. "If you've got something to say, say it."

He leaned against the vanity, arms folded. His shirt sleeves were rolled to the elbow, and the top button of his collar was undone. That was Charlie's version of yelling.

"I saw Malone," he said.

I didn't move. "Congratulations."

"He was at the loading dock last night. Talking to Marco. Marco doesn't talk to cops. Not unless someone's bleeding or buying."

I flicked ash onto the floor. "So what are you telling me, Charlie?"

He looked at me like I was a puzzle he already regretted solving.

"I'm telling you you're not the only one he's got leashed. And Frank Caruso doesn't let dogs sniff around without a reason."

Something in my chest coiled tighter.

"You think I can't handle myself?"

"I think you're smart enough to lie to Malone," Charlie said. "But you better be smart enough to know who else is watching."

I stood. Close now. "Why do you care?"

He looked at me then, really looked, like a man about to say something he didn't want to.

"Because when this burns down, Vivi... you're the only one standing close enough to catch fire."

He walked out without waiting for a reply.

And for once, I didn't have one.

You're the only one standing close enough to catch fire."

Charlie always did have a flair for the dramatic. That's probably why his solos could make grown men cry into their bourbon and why I couldn't stop hearing his voice as I walked home through the cracked sidewalks of East Hollywood.

It was past midnight, the kind of hour when the city seemed to exhale. The streets were empty but not quiet. Somewhere, a dog barked. Tyres hissed on wet pavement. Neon buzzed above the liquor store where no one ever bought just liquor. I passed under a streetlamp that flickered like it couldn't decide whether to warn me or ignore me.

My apartment building sat halfway between glamorous ruin and condemned. Faded Spanish tiles, rusted balcony rails, and a courtyard fountain that hadn't worked since Roosevelt was in office. I climbed the stairs slowly, each step creaking like it might give out.

Inside, I didn't turn on the light. I didn't need to. The moon through the window painted everything in shades of old secrets. My heels came off with a practised flick, and I poured myself a splash of rye I didn't want.

I couldn't stop hearing Frank's voice.

No one looks that interesting twice... unless someone sent you.

He wasn't bluffing. But he wasn't biting either. The way he looked at me, it wasn't suspicion. Not yet. It was something heavier. Like he was weighing a chess piece he already knew he'd sacrifice.

I lit a cigarette and stepped onto the fire escape, letting the night air wrap around my bare shoulders. From up here, the city looked like a promise someone forgot to keep. A couple argued two floors down. Someone practised trumpet in a room with no furniture. A siren wailed, slow and far off.

I blew a smoke ring. Watched it vanish into nothing.

The thing about lying is you start to want the people you're lying to to believe you. Not just for survival. For the game. For the ache of being seen and not run from.

Frank saw me. That was the problem.

I was still on the fire escape, halfway through my second cigarette, when I heard the faintest whisper of paper slide under the door behind me.

That sound doesn't come from nature. It's a city sound. A threat in lowercase.

I crushed my cigarette against the railing, went inside without thinking, without hesitating because hesitation only gives fear a head start. The apartment was silent except for the tick of the kitchen clock and the buzz of the broken fridge that hummed like a wasp behind the wall.

And there it was.

A plain white envelope, lying on the floor like it had walked in on its own. No name. No return. Just cheap paper and expensive silence.

I crouched slowly, picked it up with the tips of two fingers. The flap wasn't sealed. That was the first clue, whoever sent it wanted it opened fast.

Inside, there was only one thing.

A photograph.

Black and white. Glossy. New.

It showed me. Seated at Table Nine.

My body angled slightly toward Frank, lips parted mid-smile, eyes looking right at him. You couldn't see his face just the back of his head, the cut of his suit, the sliver of his hand on the table. But me? I was framed like a portrait.

I turned it over. Nothing written. No smudges. Not even a date.

But I knew when it was taken. Hours ago. Maybe minutes.

I scanned the walls. The door. The windows. Someone had followed me from the club. Watched me. Got ahead of me. Got inside the building or damn near close enough.

And they hadn't knocked. They hadn't spoken. They hadn't left a threat.

They'd just given me a mirror.

I dropped the envelope on the counter and leaned against the sink, heart thudding in that low, cold way like it didn't want to attract attention.

Someone was watching.

But it wasn't Malone.

And it wasn't Frank.

I crossed to the window, the photo still burning in my hand like it had a pulse. My apartment faced the street, third floor, no balcony across from mine just a brick building and a row of windows, all dark but one. That one glowed yellow, faint and flickering, like a candle behind glass.

I stared into it.

No movement. No silhouette. Just the impression of someone being very careful not to be seen watching.

I pulled the curtain shut.

Then I opened it again. Fast.

Still nothing.

I moved through the apartment, checking the back window, the hallway peephole. Nothing. No sound in the stairwell. No rustling in the courtyard. No fading footsteps, no shadow ducking out of sight. Whoever it was had either vanished or wanted me to think they had.

That was the trouble with shadows in this town. They didn't just follow you. They introduced themselves, eventually.

I sat at the kitchen table, laid the photo down beside the drink I hadn't touched. My hands didn't shake but they wanted to.

Someone had gone out of their way to take that picture. Print it. Deliver it. Quietly. Cleanly. That wasn't a message from a jealous lover or a nosy neighbor.

That was precision.

And they'd chosen their moment after my second conversation with Frank, before I could even process it.

Which meant one thing: they weren't watching me because I mattered.

They were watching to see who I mattered to.

And Frank Caruso? He just became more dangerous.

I looked at the envelope again. Still blank. But it didn't need a return address.

The city had one face in public and another after dark. I'd just been introduced to the third.