Beautiful Days Read Free Page A

the past.” Charlie smiled at her in a softer way now, bringing her out of her thoughts and back into the spare office. “If Dad thought you weren’t having a good time, he’d figure out how to come back to life just to kill me.”
    â€œBut your absence—that has gotten a lot of attention.” Jones leaned forward and put his fist against the desk, watching Cordelia. A few lines emerged in his forehead—the most dramatic facial expression he ever made. “That’s why we wanted to speak to you.”
    â€œExactly.” Charlie jumped down from the desk and crossed the floor a few times excitedly. “See, Jones and me, we decided not to take vengeance on Duluth Hale for what he did to Dad in any ordinary way. At first I wanted to strike him down, of course, but Jones convinced me it would be better to work slow, methodical. Really hurt him. Hurt him by taking away everything he’s got. And we’ve made progress. We’ve near edged him out of Manhattan. Only a few speakeasies left get their liquor from the Hales.”
    â€œHow’d you do that?”
    A manic light crossed Charlie’s eye. “Don’t worry about that, princess. What I want you to worry about is something else. Everyone knows the Greys control New York’s hotels. That’s because Dad was such a class guy, and because he always knew how to get the real stuff from Europe. We’ve managed to hold that, even without him as our leader. Now we control most of New York’s speakeasies, too . . . and to show how big we’re getting, we want to open a place of our own.”
    â€œA speakeasy.” Jones leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest. “To show the public, not to mention the rest of the bootleggers, we’re strong as ever. That we still got class.”
    â€œThis place will be our gem, Cord.”
    â€œI’m glad business is good.” Cordelia’s eyes went from one man to the other. It felt even more inappropriate to have spent the day lying by the pool after hearing all Charlie had done to get them out of the mess she’d created. “But what does that have to do with me?”
    Charlie gestured at Jones, who produced a few newspaper clippings. Cordelia rested what remained of her cigarette between her lips and stepped forward.
    GREY THE BOOTLEGGER’S DAUGHTER: AN AMERICAN TALE OF OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE AND UNBELIEVABLE LOSS , read the headline. Cordelia scanned the page. It contained a rather exaggerated version of her pauper upbringing far away, her coming-out on the charmed lawns of White Cove, and her introduction, shortly thereafter, into the adult world of pain when she watched her father expire with her very eyes.
    â€œThey’re all curious about you, Cord.”
    â€œMe? Why?”
    â€œBecause you’re interesting to them. You’re beautiful, but not the way they are, and something awful happened to you. And, of course, because as of late, you’ve made yourself scarce.”
    â€œPeople don’t want to take their eyes off a thing like that,” Jones interjected.
    â€œOh.” Cordelia sighed, exhaling a cloud of smoke that obscured her view, and then put her cigarette out in the ashtray on the desk. How strange, she thought, that the very thing that closed her off from the rest of the world should make her so fascinating to it. “So what do you want me to do?”
    â€œWe want you to run the place.”
    She tried not to look shocked. “The speakeasy?”
    Charlie nodded. “We got a lot of power behind this thing. I put my muscle up against the Hales every day—you don’t have to worry about nothing like that. You’re gonna be the pretty face of the operation.”
    â€œWe’ll find you the place, all that,” Jones said. “Don’t worry.”
    â€œOh.” Cordelia felt a little stunned, but she wasn’t worried. For a month now she had wondered