High Spirits [Spirits 03] Read Online Free PDF Page A

“Stacy,” Harold mumbled, trying to avoid her hug. He couldn’t do it, but he didn’t hug her back.
           I suppose Stacy could be called a good-looking girl. She had a pretty face with delicate features, and she dressed in the latest modes. Well, I did, too, but Stacy favored the most radical of modern fashions, the ones that bring to mind the phrases, “flaming youth” and “flappers.” Her skirts were always too short, her accessories too jangly, her lipstick too flashy, her hair too short (and too blond), and her voice too loud. Invariably, too, she held a cigarette in a long, shiny black holder and blew smoke in everyone’s faces. Her total air was that of a brat of a girl who was trying too hard to be something she wasn’t: the heroine in This Side of Paradise . That goal would have been impossible for any of us. Stacy was too stupid to know it.
           “Jinx! Jinx!” she shouted, hauling Harold over to the group. “This is my brother Harold! And this”—her enthusiasm chilled, although mine was equally frigid—“is Daisy Majesty.” She flapped a hand in my direction.
           “Mrs. Desdemona Majesty,” Harold corrected. He was such a pal.
           Stacy sniffed and said, “Desdemona Majesty.”
           I probably ought to explain that “Desdemona” thing. It wasn’t really part of my name at all. When I was ten years old and first introduced to the Ouija board, I decided Daisy was too pedestrian a name for a spiritualist, so I opted to become Desdemona. I wouldn’t be forced to read Othello until I was in the ninth grade, or I probably would have borrowed some other literary character’s name, preferably one who wasn’t murdered by her husband.
           Jinx looked me up and down as if he were assessing me for the tax collector. “So,” he said, “dis is da medium, eh?” He stuck out his hand.
           Honest to goodness, I didn’t know people really talked like that until I met James Leroy Jenkins, “Jinx” to his friends—and probably his enemies, too. I didn’t figure among either of those select groups, thank God. The closest to his accent I’d heard up till then was that of Mrs. Barrow, our nosy party-line neighbor who hailed from Brooklyn. And Sam Rotondo, but his accent wasn’t like this. Although it pains me to give Sam credit for anything, his New York accent had more class than Jinx’s or Mrs. Barrow’s.
           “How do you do?” I muttered, keeping my chin high and my hand at my side. That was probably a foolish thing to do given the violent predilections of Jinx and his cronies, but I didn’t fancy shaking hands with a bootlegger who might well be a killer. I mean, they all were, weren’t they?
           I never did find out if Jinx would have taken my unwillingness to shake hands amiss because Harold grabbed the hand hanging there in the air and shook it, making me feel small and petty—until I remembered the killer part of this equation, and then my sense of self-righteousness kicked in again. That was absurd since I was there in the speakeasy and was, therefore, just as bad as Jinx was, except for the killer part.
           Stacy noticed, however, and huffed in my direction. Jinx either didn’t take offense or didn’t pay attention to me. He greeted Harold, took his arm, grinned at me, and said, “Lemme take youse guys to da boss.”
           “Da boss,” I presumed, was the one whose godfather had died. Been murdered. Oh, Lord.
           My heart started battering against my ribcage in fright. I didn’t want to meet any more gangsters. Jinx was plenty enough. Nobody had introduced me to the blond woman or the Italian man. I glanced at the woman and gave her a small smile, but she was studying her bright red fingernails, so I don’t think she noticed.
           “It’ll be fine, Daisy,” Harold whispered in my ear.
           I doubted that. Stacy had latched on to Jinx’s arm.