Hot keys, p.1
Hot Keys, page 1
Hot Keys
Synopsis
In 1920s New York City, it’s hard on the streets, but Betty May Dewitt and her best friend, Jack Norval, are determined to make their Tin Pan Alley dreams come true. Fate leads them to a speakeasy called the Trespass Inn, where people play fast and loose and criminals run the show. Betty and Jack are whisked into the glamorous and dangerous world of Prohibition rum-running, but fate has more in store for them than adventure. Romance blooms when a psychic medium’s magic dazzles Betty, and a gangster infuriates and fascinates Jack all at the same time. But danger lurks in every alley, and with the Trespass Inn under attack by rival gangsters, Betty and Jack will have to fight—not only for their hearts and dreams, but for their lives.
Hot Keys
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Hot Keys
© 2022 By R.E. Ward. All Rights Reserved.
ISBN 13: 978-1-63679-260-6
This Electronic Original Is Published By
Bold Strokes Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 249
Valley Falls, NY 12185
First Edition: November 2022
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Credits
Editors: Jenny Harmon and Cindy Cresap
Production Design: Susan Ramundo
Cover Design by Tammy Seidick
eBook Design by Toni Whitaker
Acknowledgments
Firstly, I want to thank my parents. Mom and Dad, you always believe in me and it makes such a difference. I love you both.
I also want to thank the whole crew at BSB for guiding me through this process and for all their hard work. Special thanks to Jennifer Harmon for taking a rough novel and wrangling it into shape with me.
And finally, thank you, Elizabeth, for listening to me talk incessantly about this novel and for being by my side the entire way. I love you.
Dedication
To Liz, my love and the light of my life.
Chapter One
Singing was all about breath control. Betty May knew this intimately. As a singer, she needed to take deep breaths, from the diaphragm. Shoulders back and relaxed. Stand up straight, and let your voice project out to the world. New York City was, to Betty, a living, breathing entity. A set of lungs inhaling deeply. In her mind, the automobiles and horses and chatter of people walking the streets were the city’s voice. New York singing its heart out. Sometimes it felt like it was singing just for her.
Tonight, she was exhausted. Her boss had kept her late typing up some boring document, but she wouldn’t let it get her down. The city’s song breathed life back into her. Made her itch to sing along. If only she had someplace to do it besides her little apartment.
Moving to New York from Wisconsin had been her dream since she was a little girl. She and her best friend, Jack, would take over the city as famous musicians. In her mind’s eye it was glorious, a life of glitz and glamour and joy. It was a far cry from the empty belly life she was living at the moment, but she wouldn’t give up. Her New York dreams were too big to ever give up on.
Betty hummed to herself as she walked home. Her office job as a secretary was boring. Soul sucking. The kind of thing she wasn’t suited for at all. She was too saucy by half to be any good at talking with the men who visited her office. They were all stuffy and uptight businessmen who couldn’t take a joke. Or worse, lecherous pigs who looked at her like they owned her. Betty May belonged to no one.
The sound of bright, cheerful laughter snapped Betty out of her morose musings. Across the street she saw a group of three women giggling as they stumbled their way into an alley. They were gorgeous. All three of them wore beaded dresses that barely skimmed the bottom of their knees, showing off their shapely legs. Feathers adorned their bobbed hair, and rouge painted their cheeks. They were a vision. She knew immediately that wherever these women were headed was where she wanted to be.
She darted across the street, abandoning her walk home for the promise of adventure.
Betty watched quietly from the mouth of the alley as the girls flung open a nondescript-looking door and wobbled their way inside. She crept after them, peeking around the door. One of the girls knocked three times, then once more after a pause. Huh. Now what was that about?
“Was that the right password?” another girl asked.
Before anyone could answer, the door swung open, revealing a large man. Music filled the air, along with the sound of chattering voices. Of course! This had to be one of those speakeasies she’d heard rumor of. The girls tumbled through the door, and then it was closed firmly behind them, leaving her in silence. Well. Silence just wouldn’t do. Not while there was the tantalizing promise of something exciting just beyond the door in front of her.
She wasn’t exactly dressed properly, wearing a sensible belted navy blouse and a white pleated skirt that brushed her ankles, but she strode forward with confidence nonetheless and knocked the secret knock. The huge man opened the door, and Betty May found herself curtseying with a saucy little wink. “Hello! I’m Betty May, how do you do?” The man just looked at her, before stepping aside to gesture her in.
Entering the room beyond was like stepping into another world.
There was a haze over the whole place that made it seem all the more mysterious, as the smoke from the patron’s cigarettes wafted playfully through the air.
And the outfits! Girls in knee-length dresses, draped in beads and sparkling shawls with their hair coiffed and decorated with feathers and glittering jewels that caught the light. Compared to them she felt like a wren in the presence of a room full of peacocks. How was it possible for so many beautiful women to be in one space?
Not to be outdone, the men wore dashing suits, some of them having already sloughed off their jackets, revealing suspenders and crisp white shirts.
Shadowy corners lurked at the edges of a dance floor, dark and inviting. And off to the side was a bar. If the dance floor had been a sight to behold, the bar was on a whole new level of bedazzlement, with electric lighting illuminating it like a beacon of hope for the weary soul in need of a drink. Promising liquid salvation on its sawdust-covered floors.
She wandered along the edge of the dance floor in awe. Bodies swayed and jumped, and Betty was sorely tempted to join them.
But then she saw it.
Up at the front of the room was an empty stage, with a baby grand piano covered in cloth sitting woefully silent. And a lonely microphone that called to her like a lover from across the room. Betty smiled as an idea crystalized in her mind. With newly found determination, she marched her way over to the bar.
Yes, this was going to change their lives. She just knew it.
* * *
Rain was a musical instrument that few men could rival. Not that Jack Norval would ever try to. Why try to outshine greatness when you could play along with it? After all, a piano on its own was no band.
So, on days when the sky opened up and the thought of venturing outside made him shiver, he could often be found at the bench of his old piano. His fingers mirroring the pitter-patter of the rain as they flew over the keys as if under a spell, he’d let the staccato rhythm of the drops be his metronome. Let the gentle sound of it conduct a song all its own, with him to play along.
It was one of the reasons he loved rainy days so much. Of course, he was never so jovial when he had to go out and get wet, but he’d be lying if he said that the mere sound of a shower didn’t make his fingers itch to press against ivory, no matter where he was or how sodden his clothes might get. Today, drops of rain beat out a jaunty tune against the windowpanes, but for once, Jack wasn’t inclined to play along. In fact, his well-worn piano stood quiet in the corner as he waited anxiously for his housemate to emerge from her room.
He shuffled his feet along the crack formed by the floorboards shifting over time. It was a dangerous little thing, the kind that could catch a toe easily if you weren’t paying attention. They’d asked the landlady if she would fix it a while ago and had only gotten an unimpressed grunt in response. She hadn’t even looked up from her newspaper. It didn’t seem too promising, but Jack had a good feeling about it. She’d be sending a handyman up any day now…probably.
“Hey, maybe we should call this off,” he said. He toed at the spot where the crack ended, before turning to follow it all the way back, his hands firmly in his pockets. “I mean, it’s raining pitchforks out there. We should probably just stick to home for today. Wouldn’t wanna catch a cold, especially you, Bets. Gotta keep those pipes in good, working condition, right?”
“Jack Edward Norval, if you think a little rain can stop me from getting us this gig, you’re screwier than I thought.” Her lilting voice came from the bedroom, clear as day through her half-opened door. It was downright indecent how little shame Betty had about getting changed with her door open. “This place is rig ht on the outskirts of Tin Pan Alley. Come on, Jacky boy, this is our dream!”
“No! Our dream is to be real artists, not some low-life criminals playing at a juice joint!”
The click-click-click of Betty’s heels was all the warning he got before he was faced with an eyeful of his annoyed roommate. She was hardly dressed, wearing a red drop waist dress that barely amounted to a shift in Jack’s eyes. It barely covered her knees! And her arms were practically bare, with only a black beaded shawl to cover them. Though the ridiculous amount of makeup on her face almost made up for it with its coverage. Still, despite the impropriety of her standing there like that, he couldn’t help but feel a warm rush of affection for her. She was gorgeous, petite with long legs, shiny brown hair cut in a short bob, and big beautiful green eyes—the kind of girl any Tom, Dick, or Harry would go wild for.
“Bets!” he protested. “You’re hardly dressed.”
She huffed a laugh at him and cocked her hip. “I’m positive I don’t need to worry about that.” She winked, and he had to look away as his face warmed. “Look, Jack, we haven’t eaten anything but potatoes and hotdogs for a week now. If we don’t get work soon, we’re going to starve,” she continued, serious as a funeral. “I know you’re too straitlaced for this kind of work, but you gotta trust me. All you have to do is play. And I know you can play, right?”
Jack nodded, fingers toying with the strap of the bag on his shoulder. She was right, as always. No matter how in his own head he got, she always had a way of bringing him back down to earth. There was no other girl in the world like her. Shame hit him like a baseball bat to the gut. She deserved better than this life. She deserved the Ritz, and here he was offering her nothing but a tiny New York apartment.
Some friend he was.
“Yeah, you know I can,” he sighed. “I’m sorry, Bets, it’s just…I don’t like it. Places like that are filled with cons and gangsters, and I don’t want us caught up in that kind of business,” he said, frowning.
Betty tapped her chunky heel against the worn-out floor, making it clear by her expression that she wasn’t impressed one bit by his impression of the place. He was right though.
According to her, they needed money from a drunken and rowdy group who tipped as big as they lived. She’d smelled of gin and smoke when she’d staggered in that night, elated at finding this place. The smell had been strong enough that he’d have believed she was on a bender if he hadn’t known better. She wasn’t that keen on drinking, and he could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen her drunk. And she always told him that smoking was bad for her voice.
Personally, Jack found it all a bit nerve-wracking. “But we need the money,” he relented.
“We sure do, baby boy.” She grinned at him, punching his shoulder harder than one would expect from a skinny bird like Betty May. “Don’t worry so much. And fetch the umbrella. We don’t need to show up all wet for our audition.”
“Don’t you need to get dressed?”
She looked at him unimpressed. “Don’t be stupid, sweetie, I am dressed! Come on.” She grabbed his hand and aggressively towed him toward the door before he could protest. He hurriedly grabbed ahold of the polished wooden handle of his umbrella, half convinced she might tear his arm off at the delay.
“Betty…” He stopped himself, stamping down his old Midwestern sensibilities. For having hated the stuffiness of his hometown so much, he sure did find himself clinging to those very same values he’d scoffed at.
Thankfully, Betty was too excited to have even heard him and she let the sound of her name pass by like an automobile down the sodden streets.
The rain-slick sidewalks did little to improve Jack’s nerves or the grim mood that settled on him like a damp blanket. Despite taking to life in New York like an admittedly clumsy fish to the water, there was nothing good that could possibly happen at a veritable den of sin to the likes of which they were heading. Of that he was certain. The laid-back attitude of the city had been a breath of not-so-fresh air at first. But now, three years into living here, he was starting to realize that a loosening of morals wasn’t always the best thing.
“Relax,” Betty chided him. “You’re so stiff. You gotta have loose fingers for tonight.”
Jack blinked, flabbergasted. “You can’t be suggesting that I’ll…That I’m going to…”
Betty’s raucous disbelieving laughter was sort of insulting, and louder than it needed to be. “You dumb lug, I meant for the piano! Christ, Jack, I’m going to smear my damn makeup, I’m tearing up.”
“Well, it’s not that unbelievable.” Jack made a displeased sound, face reddening. Betty was still giggling, dabbing delicately at her face with a handkerchief. “Of course not, sweetie. Especially at a place like this. They have all sorts of people there.” She paused, elbowing him in the side a bit harder than Jack thought necessary. “You know, at a place like this I betcha there’ll be a lot of other—”
“What’s this place called again?” he interrupted, a tad desperately. Betty gave him a far-too-knowing look, but let him get away with it anyway.
“The Trespass Inn,” she said, grinning brightly at him. “Cute, right? And close by too. It’s like a dream come true.” Jack bit his tongue. If it was a dream, he thought it far more likely to be the kind where you were being chased by vicious old women with teeth like bears, or the ones where you’ve just fallen asleep only to be jarred awake by the sensation of falling. But Betty was happy. Happier than he’d seen her in a long while. And her dresses had been fitting far more loosely than they ever had before. So, he smiled wanly, and let her warm up her voice as they walked side by side, snapping his fingers every once in a while like a metronome to keep her in time.
“We’re here,” she said, nodding to a line of shops across the street from them.
Jack scanned the line of old storefronts, but all he could see was a butcher’s shop, a fabric store, an Italian restaurant called Gino’s, and a sign proclaiming there to be a psychic named Madame La Utirips in one of the apartment spaces above the stores.
“Are you sure? Where’s the sign?”
Betty patted his arm. “It’s a juice joint, Jacky. There is no sign. C’mon.”
She led him around to a small alley between two shops, all the way up to another door. The curling edges of the same Psychic Medium poster that was around front mirrored Jack’s urge to curl in on himself as Betty yanked open the door without so much as a knock.
Beyond the door, looming in the narrow entryway were two staircases, one leading up into darkness and one leading down into more darkness. Neither way seemed all that appealing. Grasping his elbow, Betty marched him down the rickety stairs, past slightly damp barren walls, down to yet another door. This one, complete with peeling paint and a missing doorknob was chained shut with a peephole that was currently closed.
There was muffled music playing from behind the door, the familiar strains of Leo Reisman that Jack would recognize anywhere. Taking a breath, Betty raised her hand and knocked, three quick raps in a row followed by a pause and one more rap.
The peephole slid open and a large man looked out at them. He had the type of face that communicated without words that no nonsense would be suffered. Jack was pretty sure this guy could snap them both in half at the same time without a second thought and probably without much provocation.
Automatic words of an apology were on the tip of his tongue when Betty beamed at the man and said, “Hiya! Remember me? We’re here to audition.”
The man looked silently between the two of them, as if sizing them up. Jack was just about to turn tail and flee when the door swung open. He was bigger than Jack had guessed, but instead of moving toward them threateningly, he nodded sternly and moved aside to let them in.
They stepped through the door and Jack could barely believe his eyes. The space was a wide-open boxy room, with a smattering of seating off to the right and an enormous bar made of dark wood to the left. But the main attraction was the wide-open space between the door and the slightly raised stage at the other end of the room. Jack could only assume that it was meant to be a dance floor, as the few people who had arrived by this time were flocking to it, dancing with a wild abandon that had Jack floored. He’d never seen dancing like this. Not since he’d arrived in the city, and certainly not back in his stuffy old Midwestern town.
