Page 9 of The Devouring Time

The door swings open, even though Evans hasn’t given any response. Or maybe our silence was a response? On the other side lurks a person in a hooded robe that shrouds them from head to toe and offers no glimpse of their face. Without speaking, they point down a short hall, from which jazz pours like golden wine.

I’d think this was all part of whatever prank or scheme Hart might be playing on me, but Evans looks unsettled by the doorman as well. Still, he leads me down the short hall, which opens into a room containing a coat check.

At least the woman at the counter is dressed normally. Rather than a hooded robe, she wears a green silk frock with a handkerchief hem, her hair cut in a sleek bob. Behind her, tucked into a discreet nook, is a telephone.

Evans removes his hat and his dark blue wool coat to pass to the woman. But I hesitate. I could follow him immediately into the speakeasy proper. Or I could ask for use of the telephone and call James to come get me out of this mess.

“Coming, Mr. Caine?” Evans asks with an arch of his brow.

7

I let go of the idea of calling James—there’s nothing he can do for me at this distance, and if Evans is right about me selling my half of Forgotten Folios, I don’t know what my standing with him might be.

Why would I have left the bookstore, though? It’s my refuge from the rest of the world. Did I leave voluntarily, or…

The coat check woman clears her throat—I’ve been wool-gathering. I pass her the coat I woke up in, receive my ticket in return, and follow Evans into the speakeasy proper.

For a moment, I think I’ve stepped into a hallucination. The place is decorated with grotesque trees made from papier-mâché and wire frames, their black branches twisting in unnatural shapes. Silk leaves rustle from the wind generated by ceiling fans, and luminescent paint creates the suggestion of glowing eyes watching from hollows in the trunks. The lighting is low, only a few dim bulbs widely spaced, making the illusion of a dark forest seem more real. Like the doorkeeper, the bartender is dressed in a hooded robe that covers him—her?—from head to toe. The servers moving between tables wear the same strange uniform, and I have the sudden unpleasant thought that if I lifted their hoods, I might not find anything beneath.

A jazz band plays from the side of the room farthest from the bar. No one dances in the open space clearly set aside for that purpose, but it’s too early for the flappers and sheiks to have risen from their beds. Despite the strange decor and even stranger staff, the place is jammed with workers of every shade of skin looking for a pre-dinner drink. Men in boots caked with mud stand elbow-to-elbow with shop girls and clerks, and the tables are packed with small groups.

Evans leads the way to an unoccupied table tucked in the far corner, a pair of the false trees looming over it so as to give the impression of privacy. “An…interesting…choice of watering hole,” I remark as I sit down across from him.

“It reminds me a bit of a cabaret I visited in Paris.” Evans looks around, as though taking it in anew. “Do you have any cash?”

Do I? For the first time it occurs to me I might be utterly without resources. I pat my pockets frantically, feel the shape of my billfold with a wash of relief. Taking it out, I’m stunned to find it stuffed with cash.

“What the…?” I murmur in confusion as I thumb through the money.

Evans’s sharp eyes ignore the cash in favor of remaining fixed on me. “Is something the matter?”

“No, I just…I never carry this much around with me.” It seems a minor thing, but somehow I feel even more off-balance than before. Why do I have so much money in my pocket, instead of in the bank? Reaching for normality, I say, “I suppose I can at least pay for the drinks.”

“That isn’t why I asked. I wanted to see your reaction.”

“My—?”

A hooded staff member seems to materialize out of the gloom, startling me into silence. “What can I get you?”

The voice at least seems normal. Feminine, though I still can’t glimpse anything beneath the hood, and the shapeless robe conceals all else.

“Two Widdershins Specials,” Evans says. “And a plate of oysters, if you will.”

The server slips away as quickly as they appeared. “My reaction?” I prompt Evans.

“If you’d answered without thinking, I would have known you’re lying about your memory loss.”

The devil…but clever. Far more clever than I’ve been so far. When the server reappears with a pair of drinks and plate of oysters, I ask, “Pardon me, but can you tell me the date? Including the year?”

If the question strikes them as odd, they give no indication. “September 30, 1927. Mars sets just before six o’clock.”

I sit back in my chair. So it’s true. That, or Hart has rented out this entire speakeasy in order to trick me, which is too outrageous a notion to seriously entertain.

I’ve lost a year of my life.

I reach for my drink to steady my nerves, then stop. It consists of a tumbler of clear liquid with a large fish fin soaking in it.

“Is there anything else, sirs?” the server asks. “Cigarettes? Playing cards? Small idols?”