Read The Girls at the Kingfisher Club for Free Online Page A

as close to a real name as the men would get; maybe it would keep them from asking.
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    The Kingfisher was the first place Hattie and Mattie (two years later) and Rebecca (the year after) ever danced.
    â€œThey have it so easy,” Doris said, sighing, “they don’t know any other way,” as if two weeks of dancing halfhearted grizzly bears at the Funeral Home Supper Club had been a crawl through the trenches under enemy fire.
    â€œYou’re hopeless,” said Lou, yanking the triple knot on her laces.
    (It was the only way to keep them on. Later, they learned to look through the catalogs for ugly, thick-strap shoes that would last a little longer before they started to wear thin.
    â€œIt’s amazing we ever get called Princess in these,” Rebecca said sometimes as they flew down Fifth Avenue on Ladies’ Mile, and a streetlight would illuminate a shoe store as if to remind them of what they couldn’t have.)
    Lou stood and tugged at her skirt. “Right. Jake can’t get away, it looks like. Doris, show me that boy you were dancing with. Let’s see if he’s better at the waltz than the foxtrot.”
    â€œCome on,” said Doris, blushing at the edges, “Sam does his best. People can’t be good at every dance.”
    â€œCertainly not him,” said Lou.
    (“Those girls have tin hearts,” someone had told Jake. Jo was pleased when he passed it on—she’d worked to keep them a little cold.)
    They lasted nearly four years there, before the bust.
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    The night the Kingfisher got raided was rainy. Jo had almost kept them home.
    The weather was Jo’s second thought when the bouncer banged on the door and the place erupted into chaos and she grabbed Rebecca and bolted out the back, through the alley and out to the street.
    (Jo’s first thought had been for Lou, but that wasn’t a thing you ever admitted. She had a job to do; she couldn’t afford to play favorites.)
    From the shadows, Jo watched the police vans rattling away with her heart lodged in her throat.
    When she saw a glimpse of red hair two blocks down—Lou, it was Lou—she clapped a hand to her mouth to keep from crying out.
    Behind her came Ella, Doris, the twins, and Jake.
    Jo’s knees nearly gave out.
    She and Rebecca crept around the block to meet them, and Lou was already looking when they came into sight.
    â€œSee,” she told Ella, “I don’t know why you worry.”
    â€œWhere were you?” asked Rebecca, jogging over to Doris and lost in the glorious practicalities of engineering an escape. “Where’s the secret door? Is it a tunnel? Where did you go underneath? How are you?”
    â€œIt’s a long tunnel,” said Doris. “I thought we’d run to Vermont already, and I’m covered in spiderwebs, but I’ll probably be fine.”
    â€œIt’s just a precaution,” Jake told Jo. “Tunnel’s been there for ages.”
    Jo was trying hard not to shake. “And how often does that come in handy?”
    Jake shrugged. “Generally the cops leave the place alone—out of sight, out of mind. It’s more lucrative busting my neighborhood than some two-bit operation like ours. I bet Simmons just forgot to pay protection this month.”
    It didn’t feel like “just” anything, but in front of the others Jo didn’t dare look worried.
    Lou came over, brushing the last of the cobwebs off her elbow, stopping just within Jake’s reach.
    â€œYou can show a girl a good time, I’ll give you that.”
    â€œHope this doesn’t scare you off the place,” Jake said. “I know you sometimes disappear.”
    â€œYou’re a nosey parker,” said Lou, but he shrugged with his hands in his pockets, met her eye, smiled.
    Lou’s face fell.
    (Jo knew Lou knew better than to make men promises.)
    â€œWe should