High Spirits [Spirits 03] Read Online Free Page B

neither was I, so I guess I shouldn’t talk.
           Whatever the mood of the attendees, you should have seen their clothes. I’ve never beheld so many beads in my entire life. Or so many rolled stockings and knees, most of which were rouged, I’d bet. In a couple of years, a dance called the Charleston was going to sweep the country, but most of the people in that room were foxtrotting. I think. Whatever dance they were doing, they were doing it with an air of devil-may-care abandon.
           All the band members were dark-skinned and appeared a good deal happier than the people dancing and drinking, although that impression, too, might have been colored by my sense of unease. I surveyed the band in wonder, until I got to one particular face.
           Then I gasped, grabbed Harold’s arm, and cried, “Good heavens, Harold, that’s Jimmy, Mr. Jackson’s son!”
           Squinting into the melee, Harold said, “Who? Where?”
           “That one, playing the trumpet. Over there.” I didn’t want to make any large movements—God alone knows why—so I jerked my chin toward the band.
           “There are five men playing trumpets, Daisy,” Harold pointed out.
           “Maybe, but there’s only one who looks like he’s ten years old.”
           “Oh, yes. I see him now. So he’s Mr. Jackson’s son, is he? Who’s Mr. Jackson?”
           “Who’s Mr. Jackson?” I stopped gaping at the band and gaped at Harold instead. “He’s your mother’s gatekeeper, for heaven’s sake! He’s manned the gate at your mother’s estate for years.”
           “Oh.” Sheepishly, Harold muttered, “I don’t keep close tabs on Mother’s servants.”
           I shook my head. “It’s got to be against the law for a boy that young to be playing the trumpet in a place like this.”
           Harold shrugged. “It’s against the law for all of us to be here, if you want to get picky.”
           I could tell Harold didn’t share my outrage. But Jackson was a friend of mine. He’d instructed me in many aspects of Voodoo and Caribbean spiritualism. I liked Jackson a lot, darn it, and I wondered if he knew about his young son’s career as a trumpet-player in a speakeasy jazz band.
           Probably. Some people don’t care how they make money, as long as they make it. Look at me, for Pete’s sake.
           “Do you see Stacy anywhere?”
           I squinted into the swirling smoke. “Not yet. Did you tell her we were coming?”
           “Mother did. Stacy and I don’t chat on a regular basis.”
           Perfectly understandable. I didn’t say so because the monster came back. “Follow me,” he rasped.
           So we did.
     
          

Chapter Three
 
    Although I hadn’t believed it to be possible, I became even more uncomfortable as Harold and I approached a knot of people on the far side of the main room. The knot contained Stacy (oh, joy), another woman, and two chaps who didn’t look as if they believed in brotherhood and tolerance toward their fellow men. One was an oily specimen with his curly brown hair slicked back, and the other was Italian. I could tell because he looked a lot like Sam Rotondo.
           From what Mrs. Kincaid had wailed at me, I presumed the woman who wasn’t Stacy to be Flossie, the oily man to be Jinx, and the Italian to be either Jinx’s boss, whose name I didn’t know, or another gangster whose name I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know them. In fact, I didn’t want to meet any of those people. Neither did Rolly.
           “Harold!” Stacy screeched. She ignored me, which was okay by me. She rushed to her brother and made a show of being pleased to see him. I knew better. Stacy and Harold got along like lions and lambs before Christmas was invented, although I couldn’t honestly have told you which one was the lion. Probably Stacy.