Such a Dance

by Kate McMurray

Genres: LGBT Gay; 20th Century Romance

Synopsis

When a vaudeville dancer meets a sexy mobster in a speakeasy for men, the sparks fly, the gin flows, the jazz sizzles—and the heat is on… New York City, 1927. Eddie Cotton is a talented song-and-dance man with a sassy sidekick, a crowd-pleasing act, and a promising future on Broadway. What he doesn’t have is someone to love. Being gay in an era of prohibition and police raids, Eddie doesn’t have many opportunities to meet men like himself—until he discovers a hot new jazz club for gentlemen of a certain bent...and sets eyes on the most seductive, and dangerous, man he’s ever seen. Lane Carillo is a handsome young Sicilian who looks like Valentino—and works for the Mob. He’s never hidden his sexuality from his boss, which is why he was chosen to run a private night club for men. When Lane spots Eddie at the bar, it’s lust at first sight. Soon, the unlikely pair are falling hard and fast—in love. But when their whirlwind romance starts raising eyebrows all across town, Lane and Eddie have to decide if their relationship is doomed…or something special worth fighting for.

Release date: October 27, 2015

Publisher: Lyrical Press

Print pages: 234

Sample

New York City, 1927

Left, right, left. Left, left, right, right, hop. Step forward, step back, hop, tip hat, blow the lady a kiss.

The steps were easy enough, the routine so committed to memory that Eddie could let a dozen other things swim through his mind without missing a beat.

He tossed his cane in the air and let it twirl. Light bounced off the polished silver shaft of it as the audience murmured appreciatively. Eddie caught it deftly, bowed a little, and moved his feet to the left, right, right, left, left, hop. He grinned at Marian, who stretched her arms above her head with grace, betraying her ballet training. Then she shuffled over to him, evidence of her years spent on the vaudeville circuit. She sang her lines in her trademark style, which sounded a bit like a goose honking, and the audience roared with laughter. She smiled and winked at him, and he grinned back and sang the end of the song. Left, right, forward, together, a flourish from the horn section of the orchestra. Then there were deep bows before the curtain fell. Applause erupted throughout the James Theater. Eddie and Marian did their goofy curtain call before retreating backstage.

Thus ended Eddie Cotton and Marian France’s act in Le Tumulte de Broadway, more informally Jimmy Blanchard’s Doozies of 1927, the variety act that was competing with George White and Flo Ziegfeld for ticket dollars and popularity. The song-and-dance team of Cotton and France was among the more popular acts. They were a comedy duo who told jokes, danced their way through physical comedy, and sang funny songs in funny voices. That year, they preceded the Doozy Dolls, fourteen barely-dressed chorines hired more for their looks than their dancing or singing skills.

While the Dolls paraded around on stage, Eddie walked back to his dressing room, Marian trailing behind him. She was already pulling off her shoes, and she padded past Eddie in stockinged feet. “I cannot wait to get out of here tonight,” she said.

“Hot date?” Eddie asked.

“Hardly.” Marian rolled her eyes, and then paused near the door of her dressing room. “I’m exhausted and my tootsies are killing me. I’d cut my feet off if it didn’t mean Mr. Blanchard would fire me.” She looked at Eddie, who chuckled. “What about you?”

“Nothing planned for tonight. Figure I’ll just go home and sleep so we can do all this again tomorrow.”

Marian smiled and kissed his cheek. “Good night, Eddie.” Then she retreated into her dressing room and slammed her door in his face.

Eddie went to his room to change. He wasn’t the least bit tired. No, his ailment was much worse: he was horny.

His restlessness had been building for days, starting as an itch and progressing to an all-out yearning, an uneasiness that wouldn’t be quenched by Eddie pushing his needs aside.

He considered his options as he changed out of his costume and slid into a pair of brown trousers and a white cotton shirt. He could go home and forget about it. He could keep his regular appointment with his right hand. Or he could find someone who would help him take the edge off.

He washed the stage makeup off his face and examined his reflection in the mirror. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, something Mr. Blanchard had taken exception to before showtime that day. The stubble looked like bronze dust on his otherwise pale jaw. His eyes looked tired. Eddie let his fingers dance over the black powder he kept on hand for the occasions when Blanchard wanted him to do blackface—thankfully, rare these days—and then dusted some over his eyes. He liked the effect, which created rings around his eyes and made him look a little less rosy and innocent, as he tended to present in his normal life. He grabbed his fedora from the shelf in the corner and plopped it on his head. He pulled the brim down so it hid his eyes. He thought himself hard to recognize as he posed in the mirror, his eyes hidden, his chin shadowed.

Mind made up, he slipped out of his dressing room and then out of the stage door, onto 41st Street. The cool spring air bit his exposed skin, but he liked it, liked the contrast to the sweltering lights of the stage. He adjusted the brim of his hat and walked.

He fingered the money clip in his pocket, tried to remember how much cash he had on hand. Behind him, he could hear a roar of applause from one of the theaters, though whether it was from the Doozies or one of the productions in the four other theaters nearby, Eddie couldn’t tell. It didn’t much matter. He was about to leave that world—the dancers, the lights, the laughter, the applause, the cute little families out for a night of entertainment—to go to a much darker place.

He walked east. The lights of Times Square seemed to fade as he left them behind, and then he was standing on one side of Sixth Avenue, the elevated train platform separating him from Bryant Park. He pulled the brim of his hat down a little farther and looked around. There was a man standing against a pillar, the train platform above casting striped shadows over his body. He was tall and thin with an elegant stance. A cigarette dangled from his long fingers, and he would occasionally lift it up to his lips and take a drag. He wore a dark coat and had a bright red scarf tied around his neck.

Julian, Eddie thought. Maybe this will be easier than I expected.

He approached slowly. Julian was looking at something in the distance, but he turned his head when Eddie got close. There was something wary in his eyes. Eddie lifted his hat so Julian could see his face, and something like relief showed over those delicate features before a wide grin spread across Julian’s face.

“Dearest Edward. Funny meeting you here.”

“How are you, Julian?”

“Marvelous.” He took a long drag from his cigarette before dropping it and smothering it with the tip of his shoe. “You looking for something?”

“I am.”

Julian nodded. “There’s a new boy in my employ. He fancies himself my apprentice. He’s over by the library. I can fetch him, if you like.”

“I don’t want a boy,” Eddie said.

Julian smiled. “I know, darling. I was just offering.” He reached over and stroked Eddie’s arm.

Up close, Eddie could see the makeup caked on Julian’s face, designed to make him look much younger than he really was. Eddie had known Julian for a while, but had never been able to ascertain his actual age. If he had to guess, he’d put Julian in his late thirties. Under the makeup, Eddie knew, there were crow’s feet and frown lines. Strands of silver ran through his body hair, though the hair on his head was, of course, bleached blond.

Eddie looked at the aging fairy and saw that he was tired and underdressed for the weather. “You want a warm place to sleep tonight, Julian?”

“I would, yes,” Julian said quietly.

Eddie crooked his finger so that Julian would follow. Julian pushed off the pillar and fell into step next to Eddie, who walked back toward Times Square along 40th Street.

“Dinner?” Eddie asked.

“No, darling, I already ate. An older gentleman named Roberto takes me to Sardi’s every Thursday and buys me dinner just for the pleasure of watching me eat.”

Eddie glanced at Julian. He could imagine that watching him eat would be quite a pleasure. He thought Julian beautiful, but of course couldn’t say that. Men were not beautiful. Julian would probably joke that he was something else, but Eddie thought him a man in all the ways that counted, in all the ways that he needed to ease the tension and longing that had built up in his body.

“You’re still at the Knickerbocker?” Julian asked.

“Yes. I’d prefer to go in through the Broadway entrance.” Which was not through the main lobby where everyone could see what Eddie was up to.

“Of course.” Julian fiddled with his scarf. “Fancy digs or not, my usual fee still applies. Don’t stiff me.” Julian paused and then chuckled. “Well, not monetarily, anyway.”

Later, as Eddie lay awake in bed, contemplating the décor in his relatively modest room with Julian sound asleep and snoring softly beside him, he reflected on how he felt physically satisfied but empty at the same time.

The loneliness was familiar, was a comfort in its way. The knowledge that Julian would be gone in a few hours, that this room and its silence would be waiting for Eddie after the noise of the theater the next night, that life would carry on as it had been, these were all things he could trust and rely on, and a thousand days played out before him in his mind, days of the same. Eddie liked routine, thrived within the confines of it, but could he really go so long without change?

Julian stirred in his sleep. Eddie shuffled over in the bed and pulled the quilt up to his chin, careful not to let their bodies touch.

He chastised himself for his own fear of change. He glanced over at Julian’s sleeping form and let himself imagine what it would be like if they forged some kind of partnership. He’d met other men like himself over the years, men who lived together or had some kind of permanent relationship. He even knew a few husbands. Having worked in the theater for a number of years, he encountered homosexual men almost daily, and often they acknowledged each other without much fanfare, which was just as well. Eddie wanted people to notice him for his dancing or his comedic chops; he didn’t want them to notice after whom he lusted.

So he kept his little secret tucked away in the hidden corners of the city.

Julian stirred again. He woke and looked at Eddie. “You’re awake.”

“Just thinking.”

“Such heavy thoughts you must have to be wearing such a serious expression.” Julian leaned over and ran a hand down Eddie’s chest. “Maybe I can help unburden you.”

Eddie sighed. He gently moved Julian’s hand back to the other side of the bed. “Thanks, but not right now.”

Julian rolled onto his back. “You should know, I might have to move.”

“What?”

“I adore you, you know that I do. I’m always glad when you wander over to the park. But I’m not sure how much longer you’ll be able to find me there. Some club on Sixth didn’t pay off their local law enforcement, so a raiding party got themselves worked up into a good frenzy a couple of days ago. They came to the park and arrested everyone who wasn’t dressed like he was on the way to a funeral.”

“You too?”

“No, I was visiting with a gentleman at the Hotel Astor, but my dear friend Jesse told me all about it. You’ll know Jesse, of course. He’s the fellow with the proclivity for violet.”

Eddie had no idea to whom Julian referred, but he nodded.

“Not that I haven’t been arrested before,” Julian added.

“So where are you moving to?”

“I don’t know yet, darling. And it may not even be a problem. But should you come to the park looking for something, you may not find it there for much longer.” Julian rubbed a hand over his face. “Can I leave word for you somewhere?”

That seemed like a terrible idea. “No. I’ll find you, I’m sure.” But even if he didn’t, Eddie was surprised that the prospect of not seeing Julian again was not too dire.

And what did that say about Eddie?

“Maybe I should go,” Julian said, sitting up.

In the moonlight streaming through the window, Julian appeared to be an entirely different creature, less an effeminate affectation and more an actual man in his late thirties, a man who worked for a living, who had dreams deferred and given up on, who had come here tonight to do a job. Eddie wondered how much of Julian was real and how much was an act. As a rule, Eddie had long been fascinated by the fairy men who occupied the streets of New York, the queens who talked like women and dressed like them sometimes, too. He had never found them especially attractive—in fact, looking at a fairy sometimes brought shame, because Eddie, behind all other things, was a man who lusted after men the way he was supposed to lust after women. But here was Julian, thin and willowy, but with short blond hair on his head, and long limbs and broad shoulders. He had a pattern of blond hair on his flat chest that was unrelentingly masculine, and a large cock, of course, which was part of his appeal to Eddie just to begin with.

And Eddie found himself lusting again.

“You don’t have to go,” he told Julian, and he reached over and ran a hand over Julian’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be mean, I just have a reputation . . .”

“I understand, darling. Of course I understand. I didn’t mean to imply . . .”

“I just . . .”

“I know.”

Eddie frowned. “I need to keep my job. I’ve worked so hard.”

“I need to keep mine, too.”

Eddie sighed. “If you have to leave the park, I will find you. Or you can find me. I go to the club at the Astor sometimes.”

“Where the sailors hang out.”

“Yes.”

Julian smirked. “I suppose that you are a man of sophistication. You like the trade. The big brawny men, the soldiers of fortune.”

Eddie couldn’t deny that. “I like to look at them, yes.”

“And fuck them. I like to, too.”

Eddie sighed. It was hard to believe he was having this conversation.

“But you don’t want me to find you,” Julian said. “It doesn’t matter, I just thought . . . well, I figured you liked me.”

“I do like you, Julian.” Or Julian was a good companion for tonight. For any night. He had a working knowledge of men’s bodies that could not be rivaled, and he could make Eddie forget his problems and his loneliness.

But was there anything more lonely than lying in bed next to a man who would take your money and leave in the morning?

Eddie sat up and pulled his legs up to his chest. He knew, too, that part of Julian’s seeming affection now was borne of the fact that, when their encounters were over, Eddie didn’t beat the shit out of Julian. In the thin white light that flooded the room, Eddie could see the bruises on Julian’s torso from the last john who’d felt the need to prove his masculinity by pounding his fists into the effete object of his affection. Eddie wasn’t sure if he should feel reassured by that, if it was a good thing that he made Julian feel safe.

“I’m sorry,” Julian said softly, as if maybe he wasn’t sure about that, either. “I do care about you. I won’t come after you. If after tonight we don’t see each other, I hope that things go well for you. Maybe I’ll come see that show of yours sometime.”

“Sure. It’s very good. Or so I’ve been told.” Eddie wasn’t sure how the usual crowd at the James Theater would deal with a man like Julian.

“I’m sure that you are perfectly marvelous in it.” Julian reached over and caressed Eddie’s hair. He smiled affectionately. “But if I don’t see you, good luck.”

“You too.”

“I don’t need luck. I make my own.” Julian grinned. “Perhaps you would like one last tussle with me. Free of charge.”

When Julian reached for Eddie, Eddie let himself be pulled into those long arms. He wasn’t feeling especially affectionate. If anything, the encounter felt more than anything like a good-bye. Would he ever see Julian again? He wondered as they moved and moaned and sweated together, and when Julian cried out at the end, something in Eddie’s heart closed off.

Eddie got up afterward and went to the restroom. On his way, he left Julian’s fee on the dresser. When he returned to the bedroom, Julian was gone and so was the money. Just as well, Eddie thought, returning to bed. The sheets smelled like sex and Julian, and it was enough to let Eddie sink into sleep.

In 1922, three important things had happened to Lane Carillo: he got engaged, he broke his engagement, and he ran off to New York with his bride’s brother.

They were still in New York eight months later when shame and guilt finally drove Scott off the side of the Brooklyn Bridge. And it was the moment Lane saw the police drag Scott’s bloated, lifeless body out of the East River that confirmed for him what he already suspected: he’d never be able to go home again. The scandal was bad enough, but he could not face his family now that he had essentially killed Scott.

The next year had been equally momentous. In his numb haze, he’d reached out to a cousin for a job, any job, and he’d been given a gun and enough money to buy a new suit. It was later that year that Jimmy Ribello had pulled a gun on Lane and told him a faggot had no place in the family business.

That was the first and last time a member of the family challenged Lane’s masculinity. Sometimes when he closed his eyes, he could still see Ribello’s blood pooling on the floor.

Now he sat at a corner table at Lenny’s, a restaurant on Broadway near Times Square that was something of an art deco explosion on the inside, and he contemplated the bowl of soup before him as he listened to conversation buzzing through the dining room. David Epstein held court at the table in the opposite corner. Lane kept an eye on Epstein as he carried on meetings, but tried to focus more on his soup.

Mickey Maroni slid into the chair across from Lane. “I need fifty simoleons.”

Lane rolled his eyes. “What for?”

Mickey leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Legs says we gotta pay Hardy again or we’re gonna get raided. Plus I heard Mook say he’s got a delivery of white lightning coming in next week that we want to be in on.”

“Why do you think fifty dollars will accomplish all that?”

Mickey frowned. “Well, see, I got a little here, and I thought . . .”

Lane grunted his disapproval. Mickey was a relatively new soldier, and a real amateur at that. Lane thought him more like a bee buzzing around his ear. “I’ll talk to Legs,” Lane said, effectively cutting Mickey out of the equation. He casually lifted the edge of his jacket so Mickey could see the gun hidden there.

“Oh. Thank you, sir.” Mickey moved to stand up, but then he settled back into his chair. “And Mook’s delivery?”

“I’ll take care of it.”

Mickey slapped his hand on the table. “You’re darb. I owe you one.”

“Get out of here, Mickey.”

When Mickey had left, Lane raised his hand slightly. Timmy, one of Epstein’s runners, appeared at his side. “Get me Legs Aurelio. Then go find Callahan and ask if he knows anything about a shipment coming in next week.”

“You got it, boss.”

Timmy ran off, so Lane went back to contemplating his dinner. The soup was light and creamy, but Lane didn’t have much of an appetite, thinking now instead about cops and shipments, which he supposed was an improvement over thinking about Scott or poor, dead Jimmy Ribello. And still, he went back to trying to recall the details of Scott’s face, that look in his eye that had convinced Lane they should hop the train in Chicago that took them to New York. It was difficult to do; the finer parts of Scott’s features were faded like a blurry photograph from his memory.

Legs showed up then. Before he even opened his mouth, Lane said, “Did you send Mickey to ask me for fifty dollars?”

Legs’s eyes widened. “That idiot asked you for fifty rubes?” He sat, looking chastened. “No. Sorry, boss, but no, absolutely not. I told him to tell you that Hardy’s been making noise, and I’m thinking that if Epstein wants to get this new venture off the ground, I’m going to need to make arrangements.” He shook his head. “For a lot more than fifty dollars.”

“I figured.” Lane considered. “I don’t have much cash at hand, but let me talk to Epstein.”

“Great. Thanks, Carillo.”

“You know anything about a shipment coming in next week?”

“Mook said something about some rotgut coming in from one of the boats off the coast.” Legs leaned in and lowered his voice. “Between you and me, I think it’s more of that hooey from New Jersey that tastes like formaldehyde. You can’t give that stuff away.”

Lane dismissed him. He rubbed his face and looked around the restaurant. At this time of night, nearly everyone in Lenny’s was affiliated with either Epstein or Giambino or Joe the Boss Masseria or someone else lurking in the shadows. Lane had, in fact, caught sight of Arnold Rothstein earlier in the evening, though he seemed to have moved on to somewhere else in the interim.

Epstein shooed away the man he was talking to, some flunky Lane recognized but couldn’t name. The flunky came over to Lane’s table and said, “Mr. Epstein wants to see you.”

Lane looked at his soup. He lifted the bowl to his mouth and intended to sip some but realized it had gone cold. He put it back on the table and stood up.

When he got to Epstein’s table, Epstein gestured for him to sit.

Lane sat and looked over Epstein. He was a corpulent man with dark hair streaked with silver and several extra chins. He looked very much like the well-fed fat cat he was, and his large size made him an imposing figure when he had to do business. Half the city was terrified of him, and Lane had to admit that he would never have wanted that dark gaze looking at him with disdain.

“Hello, Lane,” Epstein said cheerfully. “I see you’ve been doing business tonight. Is everythin. . .