Time's Echo: A CHRONOS Files Novella by Rysa Walker Page A

had to be the real 21 Club.
    I'm not sure why. The place looks
like an ordinary row house from the outside, except for the large iron gates at
the entrance. The doorman slid open a little window when he heard us knock, and Simon held something up for him to see. I thought
it was money at first, but it was some sort of token. After a second or two,
the door opened and we were in. Simon slipped the guy a couple of bills when we
were seated and I suspect it's no coincidence that the redhead and her friend
showed up a few minutes later.
    The owners must have an
arrangement with bootleggers and, most likely, an arrangement with the police,
since liquor flows freely and it's not the cheap, homemade variety. Four rounds
later, the only one at the table who's sober is me, thanks to one of the little
blue pills I swiped from Simon earlier.
    The redhead, whose name I didn't
catch, is saying something I can't make out over the music and the crowd. I'm
about to ask her to repeat it when Simon reaches across the table and yanks on
my sleeve, jerking his head toward the exit.
    I disentangle myself from the
redhead, glad that we're leaving. But the girl follows me, so Simon must have
invited them to come along.
    The one with Simon is named Elsie.
Her hat looks like a Roman helmet, with just a few blonde curls peeking out
beneath. While she isn't quite as drunk as the redhead, or as drunk as Simon
for that matter, she's way beyond tipsy. Once we're in the lobby where it's
quieter, she asks Simon where we're headed.
    "The
Epicure. It's next door, right?"
    She seems reluctant. "Yeah. Tillie and me've been there lotsa times. It's okay, but this place is
nicer."
    "Yeah," I say. "I
thought this was the place you wanted to go, Si."
    " Wanna do both."
    Simon and Elsie stumble out the
door and up the stairs to street level. Elsie totters slightly as her heels hit
the sidewalk and she has to clutch onto his arm to keep from falling. The
redhead, who must be Tillie, finds that extremely funny for some reason and
explodes into a fit of laughter, hanging onto the iron railing for support. By
the time I drag her up the stairs, Simon is knocking on the door of the
neighboring brownstone.
    Once we're inside, I see what
Elsie means. It's a bit more run-down, just as smoky, and even noisier than the joint we just left. Simon orders a round of
drinks—something called Bee's Knees for the girls, which looks pretty much the
same as whatever this is he ordered for us. The cocktails are heavy on sugar,
probably to hide the fact that the gin—if it really is gin and not wood
alcohol—was brewed in someone's bathtub.
    The music, however, is an upgrade.
The band itself isn't great, but the vocalist is really good. Simon seems to be
thinking the same thing, although his expression makes me think he's more
impressed with what meets the eye than what meets the ear.
    His eyes keep moving between the
singer and the front door. When he catches me watching him, he grins and raises
his glass, shouting out a toast that sounds like "To New York's
finest!" before tossing back the rest of his drink.
    My stomach sinks. The last time I
saw this expression on Simon's face was in Cincinnati. He's up to something.
    The band shifts into a rendition
of "Fascinating Rhythm," and Simon pulls Elsie onto the dance floor.
She's sober enough to be embarrassed by his dance moves, none of which belong
in this half of the century and several of which probably violate local
obscenity laws, even in New York.
    Tillie is too drunk to notice
anything. Her head of closely cropped curls is slumped against my shoulder and
her eyes are almost closed. I kind of feel sorry for her and I kind of feel disgusted,
but mostly I'm pissed that Simon is finally drunk enough that he might spill
something about Kate and we're in a dive too noisy to hear anything below a
scream.
    Halfway through the second chorus,
the band screeches to a halt and then shifts to an entirely different tune. The
vocalist pauses for