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I always knew the world would end in red velvet.
The curtain brushed my calves as I slid behind it, the frayed fringe catching on my heel like it wanted one last word. I kicked it free without breaking stride, my silhouette already framed in spotlight, lashes heavy, lips cherry-stained and smiling just wide enough to look expensive.
The Canary Club always smelt like spilt gin and women trying too hard. Rogue and regret, with just a whisper of blood under the floorboards. That night was no different. Men in double-breasted suits leaned into women with names they never planned to remember, and the band was halfway through a sultry version of "Harlem Nocturne" that hung in the air like smoke too thick to cough out.
My cue was late; someone had been bribing the sound guy again... but I didn't flinch. I never flinch on stage. You learn not to, after the first time someone throws a drink or a lie your way.
I stepped into the light. The chatter didn't stop, not right away. But then I sang.
"You had me in your pocket, babe... but that pocket had a hole..."
The room stilled like loaded dice. They always do. Not because I was the best voice in Los Angeles, God no, but because I made them think I was singing just to them. A man hears his own ruin in a woman's voice and calls it love.
I wore a gold lamé dress tight enough to strangle a confession, one slit up the thigh and low enough in the back to prove I had nothing to hide but the truth. My hair was pinned high, a streak of blonde on black like a cigarette ember in the dark. Some called me classy. Others used words they whispered.
Frank Caruso wasn't in the audience. Not yet. But someone else was.
I caught his reflection in the piano gloss, Detective Russell Malone. Rust. I felt his eyes before I saw him, the same way you feel a spider on your back before it moves. He lifted a glass in a mock toast and tapped one finger against the rim.
It meant :after your set. Downstairs. We need to talk.
My throat dried even as I hit the high note.
The applause came soft and scattered, like rain on a tin roof – not polite, not insincere, just distracted. It was a Thursday. Tips were tight, smiles tighter. I gave them a wink and a bow and slid offstage before anyone could pretend they wanted more than a look.
Backstage was a skeleton's dream: bare bulbs, cracked mirrors, and walls the colour of stained teeth. I passed Loretta in a cloud of White Shoulders and gin, her lipstick half-smudged and her cigarette half-lit. She looked at me like she knew.
"He's waiting," she said, voice all silk and slush. "Try not to bleed on the wine this time."
I didn't dignify it with a reply. Just grabbed my coat, draped it over my arm, and headed down the narrow back stairwell, heels clicking like a slow metronome for doom.
Rust Malone didn't believe in doors. He believed in thresholds. He sat at the old card table like a man holding court, sleeves rolled, badge tucked just far enough into his shirt to make sure you remembered it. One leg crossed over the other, foot bouncing like a fuse wick. A half-empty bottle of bourbon stood between us, two glasses, one untouched.
He looked older than last time. More grey at the temples, or maybe less light. His face was carved granite, but the mouth gave him away too calm, too kind. That's where he kept the threats.
"Vivian", he said, like it tasted expensive.
"Rust", I replied, coat still over my arm. "To what do I owe the pleasure? Or is this another house call where you forget to knock?"
He smiled, slow and without warmth. "Still got that silver tongue. Must make lying easier."
I sat but didn't pour. "If this is about the Tremont thing..."
"It's not," he said, cutting in. "Though God bless your memory. No, this one's fresh. Man named Caruso. Heard of him?"
I shrugged. "Italian name. Vaguely handsome? Probably owns a meat market or a mistress?"
Rust didn't laugh. He reached into his coat and pulled out a photograph. Black-and-white. Frank Caruso, mid-turn, candid. His eyes weren't visible... just the cut of his jaw and a cigarette half-smoked.
"I want to know what he wants. Who he talks to. What he's building. And I want you to be the one who finds out."
I blinked. Once. Slowly.
"Not my type."
Rust leaned in. "He will be."
He slid another envelope across the table. Inside: a copy of the old police report. The one with my fingerprints on a pistol. The one no one else was supposed to still have.
"You want to stay pretty and free, dollface; you're going to dance for both of us."
I stared at the report like it was a loaded gun, which it was, in the way paper sometimes is cleaner to pull the trigger, harder to prove who did. The date was still circled in red pencil, the ink smudged where I'd cried the first time Rust showed it to me. Years ago. I thought he had burnt it.
"I told you," I said, low. "It was self-defence."
"You told me he hit you first. You told me you didn't mean to kill him. You told me a lotta things," Rust replied, voice flat as the bourbon in his glass. "None of them make the bullet bounce out of his skull."
I didn't touch the file. Just stared at the photo of Frank Caruso again. There was something about the way he carried tension in his shoulders, in the line of his collar, that didn't scream mobster. He didn't slouch. He didn't show off. He looked like a man who wanted to disappear but didn't know how.
"And you think this guy has what? A map to buried treasure?" I asked.
Rust chuckled, but it sounded like a bone cracking. "He's not running numbers. Not dealing in girls. He's got something bigger. Political."
I raised a brow. "So why me? Why not wire one of your boys to sit on him?"
He leaned back. "Because Caruso's not stupid. He doesn't drink. Doesn't gamble. Doesn't screw around, far as I can tell. He's clean. And that makes him dangerous. Men like that only get close to what they want. And you, Viv..." He looked me over in that way he always did, like inventory. "You're very... wantable."
I stood, slowly. "So let me get this straight. You want me to get close to him. Get him talking. And then... what? Tape it? Take notes on the monogrammed sheets?"
Rust didn't blink. "Whatever it takes."
I laughed, sharp. "And if I don't?"
He tapped the manila folder with one finger. "You go back to being Vivian Dumas, prime suspect in the Tremont murder. And this time, sweetheart, I don't testify on your behalf."
Silence settled in the basement like a hung jury. I swallowed back bile.
"When do I start?"
Rust grinned. "Tonight. He's upstairs. Table Nine."
I climbed the stairs with the taste of rust in my mouth. Not from blood, though it might as well have been but from the name, the man, the threat still ringing in my ears. Rust Malone always did know how to leave a bruise without lifting a hand.
Backstage, I moved to the mirror. The bulb above it buzzed faintly, its halo flickering like it wasn't sure I was worth the wattage. I dabbed powder under my eyes with the practised touch of someone who's cried in powder rooms before and learnt better.
The face looking back at me wasn't scared. It was perfect. That was the trick.
I pressed another coat of lipstick over the old one. Deeper red. The kind of red that made a man forget your name while he was begging for it.
Behind me, Loretta lounged on the fainting couch, puffing on a new cigarette with a gloved hand and half a sneer.
"You look like you're about to sell war bonds and get someone killed doing it," she said.
"I've got a date with table nine."
Her expression shifted just enough. "Him?"
"You know him?"
She exhaled. "Not personally. But he doesn't blink enough. That's never good. Too much control."
I clipped on an earring and turned to face her. "You're wearing your third-best perfume. What's wrong?"
Loretta tilted her head, mock innocent. "Just don't die, sugar. You owe me a dress."
She knew something. But Loretta always knew something, and she always let it rot in her smile until it was too late to use.
I stepped out before she could say more.
The club had filled since my set, cigarette girls laughing too loud, card players slumped over highball glasses, regulars slipping their hands where they didn't belong. The sax player, Charlie, caught my eye for half a second before going back to his solo. He always did that... acknowledged, never interfered.
I moved through the crowd slowly, trailing a fingertip across the edge of booths, laughing too softly to be heard. I wasn't looking for Frank Caruso; I was letting him see me.
And then I saw him.
Table Nine. Alone. One hand resting on a crystal tumbler. Back straight, head slightly down, like the rest of the world bored him. His suit was dark grey, three-piece, immaculate. And when his eyes lifted and locked on mine, something stilled in my chest.
He didn't smile.
That was worse.