Lair of Dreams
“What do you mean?” Evie asked.
“That office is restricted. Belongs to the feds. Or it did once. It’s not in use anymore. Sorry.” He handed back the file. “Next!”
“How’re we gonna get back there?” Evie asked as she and Sam walked away from the window.
Sam thought for a minute. “What we need is a distraction. Something that’ll get us a big crowd in here.”
“You want a big crowd?” Evie repeated.
“That’s what I said.”
“I just wanted to be sure. Sometimes you mumble. Here. Sign this.” Evie handed Sam a scrap of paper and a pencil. She signed her name beside his. “Leave it to me.”
Evie pranced past the line of impatient people, swinging her beaded handbag on her arm. The young woman who’d recognized them was at the clerk’s gated window now.
“I am terribly sorry to interrupt,” Evie said, smiling at the woman. “Here’s your autograph, darling.” To the clerk, she said, “I’ve already forgotten—which stamp do we need for the marriage license again?”
The clerk only looked confused, but the girl gasped, then bit her lip.
“On second thought, never mind. I’m sure I’ll find it. Can’t keep the justice of the peace waiting,” she said, winking at the girl.
Humming, Evie tottered away, then hid herself in a spot with a view of the telephone booth.
“Any second now…” Evie said to herself, watching through the fronds of a potted palm.
“New York Daily Mirror, please,” the young woman shouted into the receiver. “Yes, is this the Daily Mirror? Well! Hold on to your hat, because I’ve got a scoop for you. I’m at the post office, the big one on Eighth Avenue? The Sweetheart Seer and Sam Lloyd are here. They were collecting a marriage license, and I heard them saying something about a justice of the peace. They must be planning to elope!” She paused. “Well, I have no idea why they’d be procuring a marriage license at the post office, but they’re here, and you’d better hurry before they get away!” The girl clicked her finger down on the disconnect bar, then placed another call. “Yes, the Daily News, please…”
“What did you do, future Mrs. Lloyd?”
Evie grinned. “Good things come to those who wait.”
Sam gave her that lupine grin. “That a promise?” he said, and Evie’s stomach went flippy-floppy again.
They didn’t have to wait long. Within ten minutes, a crew of competing reporters rushed the building. On the street, people took note, and soon the post office was mobbed by New Yorkers excited by the prospect of catching the famous couple trying to elope. Sam peeked out to see police arriving to hold back the sudden swarm of fans. It all had the feel of a friendly riot.
“Is this enough of a distraction for you?” Evie asked.
“Sheba, this is a first-rate confluey.”
The last of the day’s sun streamed in through the high windows and fell across Evie’s face, lighting it up—lips quirked into a smile of amusement, dark blue eyes gone to squinting because she probably needed a pair of cheaters but was far too vain ever to wear them. She was grinning now, really enjoying the spectacle. Sam had spent time traveling with a circus, but being with Evie was its own circus, a real trapeze act. He wanted to do something grand and ridiculous to prove himself to her—like go to Belmont and bet all his money on a horse. Hell, he wanted to buy her the damned horse and name it for her. It was stupid to let a girl get under his skin this way. But he didn’t feel like stopping it.
“What is it?” Evie said, patting at her hair. “Is there something on my face?”
“Yeah. There’s a face on your face.”
Evie rolled her eyes.
“It just so happens to be a really nice face,” he said, and he could swear that he saw Evie blush.
“Over there!” someone in the crowd shouted, but they were looking the wrong way, toward a man and woman walking a small terrier on a leash. The cops shouted and blew their whistles as the crowd broke free, surging toward the other side of the post office and the hapless wrong couple about to be swept up in their frenzy.
“Let’s ankle, Baby Vamp!” Sam reached for Evie’s hand. She clasped her fingers around his, and Sam reveled in the sureness of it as they sneaked down the stairs into the basement, enjoying the sounds of chaos from above. They passed through a large main room where sorting machines hummed and hammered, creating a constant, mechanized thunder. Letters shot down clear tubes and into waiting trolleys to be sorted by postal workers too busy to notice Sam and Evie as they passed through. At last they came to another portion of the post office, which splintered off into a vast warren of drab hallways. The search was starting to feel fruitless when, finally, they came to a set of stairs that led down one more level to a long, cheerless line of office doors.