Swan Song Read Online Free Page A

he?”
    I take a bite of my sandwich, frowning. “He who?”
    “You know who. The fella at your table the other night. The scary one.”
    My eyes skate the room, making sure no one else is listening. “You saw him?”
    “I was sneaking over a scotch when I saw him sitting with you. I figured he was important to be sitting alone with you, but then I saw Tommy come loose and I made myself scarce. So,” she repeats insistently , poking my arm, “who was he?”
    “I don’t know,” I lie. “His name is Dan or Stan. I don’t remember.”
    Rosaline knows it’s a lie, but she also knows not to push. The story will get larger and larger with every question, and he’ll be a man from Mars before I tell her he was there to see the brothers. Or that he’s probably a torpedo. A hired gun. A hitman on loan from New York. These are all things it’s dangerous to even think about, to be smart enough to figure, and they’re deadly to talk about. If I go flapping my gums about what I see to everyone who will listen, even Ralph can’t protect me from the end I’ll have coming.
    I haven’t made it this far in this business with this crowd without knowing when to go deaf, dumb, and blind.
    “Well, he was spooky,” Rosaline informs me, giving a theatrical shiver.
    I laugh. “How was he spooky?”
    “He had that feeling, ya know? Like one of the quiet ones.” She looks at me hard. “You can’t trust the quiet ones.”
    “He wasn’t so bad. He was funny.”
    Rosaline snorts at me. “Your sense of humor is warped.”
    “You didn’t even speak to him.”
    “No, but I saw his eyes when he came in.”
    “And what was wrong with his eyes? Were they red? Maybe he’s Dracula,” I tease.
    Rosaline frowns, turning uncharacteristically serious despite my teasing. “I don’t know really. They were… empty.”
    When the song comes to a close, Eddie asks what to play next. I want to tell him to put the bass down and eat something, anything, but I can’t. It’d humiliate him. Even if I gave him half my sandwich it’d be a huge thing. He was given dinner here at the club just like the rest of us, but instead of eating it, he’ll take it home to his wife and five kids. It’s noble but he’s starving and it’s killing me.
    The door leading backstage bangs open loudly. It echoes through the space like a gunshot, startling everyone. Suddenly Tommy is standing there, his presence instantly commanding the entire room.
    “Adrian, get in here now,” he commands severely. “We gotta talk, you and I.”
    “Uh oh,” Rosaline breathes.
    I slide calmly off the stage and saunter toward him, unrushed by his agitated attitude, but inside I’m ranting curses. Most of them are directed at Drew. That’s what this has to be about. It’s my payback for my flirtations that night. It’s a scolding for a child, and I’m in no rush to get to it.
    “Take your sweet time, Aid,” Tommy growls. “I got nothin’ better to do than wait around on you.”
    “My, aren’t you evil today?” I ask, slipping past him through the door.
    He slams it shut behind me before ushering me down the hallway toward his office, his hand on the small of my back. His touch is firm, tense, but now that I’m close to him I don’t know that he feels angry. His eyes are intent on the path ahead, his mouth and jaw set tight, but there are none of the telltale quivers of rage in them.
    Tommy nudges me into his office before closing us in together. He doesn’t tell me to sit and he doesn’t go behind his desk. Instead, he pulls me to the farthest corner of the room and backs me into it where it’s dark. Shadowed and cramped with his body bearing down on mine and blocking out the light from the lamp on his desk.
    “I’m gonna be straight with you because I don’t have the time to beat around the bush,” he tells me quietly, his eyes hard on mine. “Can you handle that?”
    I nod my head, thrown by the question. Maybe this isn’t about Drew after all. My