—Excuse me. Are you Mr. FitzWilliams?
When Emmett said the word mister, FitzWilliams looked up with a touch of surprise.
—Yes, he admitted after a moment. I am Mr. FitzWilliams.
Taking the empty chair, Emmett explained that he was a friend of Duchess’s.
—I gather he may have come here last night to speak with you.
The old performer nodded, as if now he understood, as if he should have known.
—Yes, he said in a tone that verged on an admission. He was here. He was trying to find his father because of a little unfinished business between them. But Harry had left town, and Duchess didn’t know where he’d gone, so he came to see Fitzy.
FitzWilliams offered Emmett a half-hearted smile.
—I’m an old friend of the family’s, you see.
Returning the smile, Emmett asked FitzWilliams if he had told Duchess where Mr. Hewett had gone.
—I did, the old performer said, nodding his head at first, then shaking it. I told him where Harry went. To the Olympic Hotel in Syracuse. And that’s where Duchess will go, I suppose. After he sees his friend.
—Which friend is that?
—Oh, Duchess didn’t say. But it was . . . It was in Harlem.
—Harlem?
—Yes. Isn’t that funny?
—No, it makes perfect sense. Thank you, Mr. FitzWilliams. You’ve been very helpful.
When Emmett pushed back his chair, FitzWilliams looked up in surprise.
—You’re not going, are you? Surely, as two old friends of the Hewetts, we should have a drink in their honor?
Having learned what he had come to learn, and certain that Billy would be wondering where he was by now, Emmett had no desire to remain at the Anchor.
But having initially looked like he didn’t want to be disturbed, the old performer suddenly looked like he didn’t want to be alone. So Emmett got another glass from the bartender and returned to the table.
After FitzWilliams had poured their whiskeys, he raised his glass.
—To Harry and Duchess.
—To Harry and Duchess, echoed Emmett.
When they both had taken a drink and set down their glasses, FitzWilliams smiled a little sadly, as if moved by a bittersweet memory.
—Do you know why they call him that? Duchess, I mean.
—I think he told me it was because he was born in Dutchess County.
—No, said FitzWilliams, with a shake of the head and his half-hearted smile. That wasn’t it. He was born here in Manhattan. I remember the night.
Before continuing, FitzWilliams took another drink, almost as if he needed to.
—His mother, Delphine, was a beautiful young Parisienne and a singer of love songs in the manner of Piaf. In the years before Duchess was born, she performed at all the great supper clubs. At El Morocco and the Stork Club and the Rainbow Room. I’m sure she would have become quite famous, at least in New York, if it weren’t for becoming so sick. It was tuberculosis, I think. But I really can’t remember. Isn’t that terrible? A beautiful woman like that, a friend, dies in the prime of her life, and I can’t even remember from what.
Shaking his head in self-condemnation, FitzWilliams raised his glass, but set it back down without taking a drink, as if he sensed that to have done so would have been an insult to her memory.
The story of Mrs. Hewett’s death caught Emmett a little off guard. For in the few times that Duchess had mentioned his mother, he had always spoken as if she had abandoned them.
—At any rate, FitzWilliams continued, Delphine doted on her little boy. When there was money, she would quietly hide some from Harry so that she could buy him new clothes. Cute little outfits like those, what do you call them . . . lederhosen! She would dress him up in his finery, letting his hair grow down to his shoulders. But when she became bedridden and she would send him downstairs into the taverns to bring Harry home, Harry would . . .
FitzWilliams shook his head.
—Well, you know Harry. After a few drinks, it’s hard to tell where Shakespeare ends and Harry begins. So when the boy would come through the door, Harry would stand up from his stool, make an elaborate flourish, and say, Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, the Duchess of Alba. And the next time it would be the Duchess of Kent, or the Duchess of Tripoli. Pretty soon some of the others began calling the boy Duchess. Then we all called him Duchess. Every last one of us. To the point where no one could even remember his given name.
FitzWilliams raised his glass again, this time taking a good, long drink. When he set the glass down, Emmett was startled to see that the old performer had begun to cry—letting the tears roll down his cheeks without bothering to wipe them away.