We passed by Mina Lochlear, fresh back from her tour of the Continent, and I saw a pair of men talking avidly under a bust of Antinous in an alcove. One of the men was Denis Rader, the Broadway comedian, and though I didn’t know the other young man, I thought they would not have to work very hard at seducing each other. There were no rules at Gatsby’s parties, no conventional ones anyway, and I wondered if they would stay like the man in the library had, cut adrift from the world they had come from.
Beneath the shelter of a staircase, there was Senator Barnes Hillcock, with his jacket off and a Maduro Habano cigar in his hand. He was talking with a man who sketched pictures in the air between them with his elongated fingers, and over that man’s shoulder, I saw the senator’s face grow ruddy and rich with a new ambition that was probably older than the Romans.
Soon we arrived before an elegantly paneled door with a handle made of pure jade. The butler opened it, announced me, and then stepped back with a slight gesture for me to enter. The moment the door shut behind me, I could feel that veil which had surrounded me being whipped away, though I still could not tell whether it was because some charm had been removed or whether Gatsby’s eyes were simply that sharp.
“Jordan Baker!” he said with pleasure. “Well, you have grown into a fine-looking girl, haven’t you?”
He looked, I decided, as if he had tried out several poses before the butler announced me. The room he had chosen for our meeting was small and intimate with a piano in one rear corner and a cold hearth at the back. I imagined him leaning one elbow on the mantel or staring out the window that looked out over the Sound before simply deciding to wait for me at the center of the room, a smile on his face and his hands stuck in his pockets. Other men might have been awkward about it, but he appeared to be entirely at his ease, content to be gazed at as long as the one doing the gazing was sufficiently awed.
“I have,” I agreed, coming farther into the room. “And I might have thought that you would come up with something a little more original. I’m a New Yorker now, and therefore have higher expectations.”
There was just enough humor in my voice to keep that smile on his face, and he gestured towards one of the wing-chairs by the fireplace.
“Won’t you have a seat, Jordan? Can I pour you something?”
“Whatever you are having, of course.”
I had an idea of what was on offer given the rest of the party, but whatever Jay Gatsby was having would be exceptional. He wouldn’t allow it to be otherwise, and I watched with interest as he removed a cut-glass stoppered bottle from the delicate drinks cart. The liquid inside was a deep and sticky black, like blackberry syrup. It moved with a languid sluggishness as he poured it into two gold-rimmed thimble glasses. He handed one to me, smiling down at it a little.
“This lot came from Italy. It was actually harder getting it out of Italy than into the States. They had to pack it into a shipment of Malatesta violins, one bottle inside each one. Prato holds those violins sacred, you know, which was funny enough for the purpose they were put to.”
He took his seat across from mine, sipping at the drink without taking his eyes away from me.
Demoniac is meant to be drunk straight, a small amount taken for medicine, a larger amount for pleasure. I split the difference because I wasn’t with friends, and I held it in my mouth for a moment, letting it go partway to warm vapor before swallowing. It was strong enough that I would have coughed without that precaution, and even then I had to sit up very straight, my eyes focused on a spot on the wall opposite from me as the room gently tilted. It put a pull in my lower belly like falling in love, and I enjoyed it even as I reminded myself it was purely a matter of infernal machinery.
“What happened to the violins?” I asked. I didn’t play, but there were musicians on Broadway, not poor ones either, who might have done a little bit of discreet evil for a real Malatesta.
Gatsby shrugged, a slight smile on his face, the glass already empty in his fingertips.