“Yes,” she muttered.
“First, what’s your name?”
“Pin.”
“Pin what?”
“Pin Maffucci.”
“That’s a queer name, Pin. Is it short for something?”
“No.”
“Who’s your father, Pin?”
“Don’t got one.”
Hickey glanced at Fatty, who nodded. “His mother’s that Gypsy fortune-teller by the cabaret. Madame Zanto,” he explained. “Real name’s Regina Maffucci. This is the first year she’s worked here.”
Hickey turned back to Pin. “I see. How old are you, Pin?”
“Fourteen.”
Hickey raised an eyebrow. “Fourteen?”
“My birthday’s in April,” she retorted. “April nineteenth.”
Hickey looked at O’Connell, who shrugged and tapped the information into the stenotype. “You work here, Pin? I see you running around with your friends. Some of those boys are hooligans. Got a job?”
She avoided his eyes. “I do odd jobs. Help out when someone needs it.”
When she didn’t continue, Hickey nodded. “All right, then. Why don’t you tell us what happened this afternoon?”
She recounted it all from the beginning. Most of it, anyway; some. She didn’t mention that the missing girl reminded her of the girl she’d seen at Essanay—she didn’t mention the studio at all. Hickey asked most of the questions. Occasionally Fatty would break in, as O’Connell continued to type her answers.
“Sergeant Bacon said you found a girl’s hair ribbon. May I see it?”
She gave it to him with reluctance. Hickey turned it over in his hand. He shot a look at Fatty, then set the ribbon on the desk. “Can you describe the man who was with her?”
“He had on a hat. A boater. Seersucker jacket, I think. Or I dunno, maybe it was just a suit.”
“Was he a colored man?”
“No. He was white.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I dunno. He looked like a white man.”
“What color hair?”
“Dunno. The hat.”
“If the hat hid his face, how could you be sure he was a white man?”
“He just was.”
Hickey drummed his fingers on the desk. “What else?”
She bit her lip, thinking. “He had a mustache, maybe. Red or blond. Or light brown. I’m not sure, he might not have had one.”
“Red or blond or light brown. Maybe. Jesus.” Hickey puffed his cheeks out. “Got that, O’Connell? Red or blond or brown mustache. Maybe.”
“Could be anyone,” said Fatty.
Hickey sighed. “What else can you remember, son? There must be something.”
Pin closed her eyes. “That’s all.”
Hickey paced to the window, peered out at the people on the midway. He lowered the shade.
“That queer little man you mentioned—why did you approach him?” he asked, turning back to her. “You said he was a stranger. You weren’t up to any mischief like your pal Mugsy Morrissey, were you?”
“You know I wouldn’t.”
“Then why’d you go talk to him?”
“I seen him hanging around sometimes.” Pin averted her gaze from the captain’s. She shouldn’t have told him anything.
“You said he told you he was part of some society called the Gemini?”
“He showed me a card and that’s what it said. Gemini Child Protectors, something like that.”
“Did you get his name?”
“No.” It was her first outright lie.
“Can you describe him?”
“No.”
“No? You talked to this man and you don’t know what he looked like?”
“He looked like a regular man.”
Hickey frowned. “What about the card—was his name on the card?”
“I don’t think so. I can’t remember.”
Hickey glanced at Fatty and O’Connell. “Gemini Child Protectors—ever heard of them?”
The two sergeants shook their heads. Hickey rubbed his chin.
“Maybe a private agency hired by the parents,” he mused. “If this was a kidnapping that went wrong.” He returned his attention to Pin. “Why’d you go speak to Lord Clyde?”
“Some days he plays Satan in Hell Gate. I thought he might’ve seen the girl in the yellow dress.”
O’Connell looked up from the stenotype machine. “Clyde’s surname?”
“Smithson,” said Fatty. “Clyde Smithson. He’s the Negro magician at the freak show. Never had any complaints about Clyde.”
Pin looked at him, startled. “Nobody has! Jesus Christ.”
“Watch your tongue, boy. You said he’d just gotten off working at Hell Gate when you saw him,” Hickey went on. “You told him about the missing girl, but he didn’t remember seeing her.” Hickey stared at her pointedly, and she felt a spike of panic. “If Clyde was working inside the attraction, wouldn’t he have noticed if something went awry, and reported it?”
She shook her head. “He couldn’t check ’cause he had to get to his show at the Ten-in-One. He had to dress in a hurry.”
“So he was changing his clothes when you saw him at the Ten-in-One?”
“No. He already had his suit on.”
Hickey and Fatty exchanged a look. Hickey brooded, finally asked, “Why didn’t you report this to the police when it happened, Pin? There something you’re not telling us? This girl, did you know her? Anything happen between you and her that you want to tell me?”
Pin stared at him, aghast. “What? No!”
Hickey stood for a long time, waiting for her to say something. She clenched her hands in her lap and refused to look at him. After a minute, he turned toward O’Connell. “You got all that?”
O’Connell nodded. Someone knocked at the door and cracked it open.
“Sir, Captain Cabell is here from Robey Street station.”
Hickey waved him off. After the door closed, he shook his head. “Goddamn it. Now it’ll all go to hell.” He pointed at the stenotype machine. “Get that out of here before that son of a bitch sees it. Bacon, ask someone to escort this young man home. I want him in his mother’s custody for the night.”
“I’ll bring him,” Fatty replied quickly. Pin scowled. Now the stupid bastard would know where she lived.
Captain Hickey grabbed his hat from the desk. He gave Pin a terse nod of dismissal. “If you hear or see anything else, I’ll trust you to let us know immediately. Especially about that man, the detective or whatever the hell he is.”
Hickey left. O’Connell followed, the stenotype machine bundled beneath his uniform jacket. Pin stared sullenly at the floor, willing Fatty to leave.
Instead he stepped to the door, motioning impatiently for her to join him. “Well, let’s get you home,” he said. “It’s going to be a long night for the rest of us.”
He hustled her through the crowded waiting room. She was almost out the door before she heard a familiar voice shouting from somewhere behind her, demanding to see a lawyer. Clyde Smithson.
Chapter 33
THE PARK HAD closed early, its electrical lights extinguished. Before Pin could run off into the darkness, Fatty grabbed her.
“You heard the captain. I’m to see you home.”
She tried to shake him off, but he yanked her upright.
“Now you listen to me, goddamn it!” he exclaimed, and raised his nightstick. “A little girl’s been murdered. I don’t want anything to happen to you or anyone else on my watch. So shut your gab. If you promise not to run away, I won’t keep hold of you. But if you run off, so help me God…”
Pin gave him a cold stare, but nodded. He released her arm. “Good lad. Now let’s get you home.”
It was late, after midnight. A few custodians still emptied trash bins and swept up horse dung along the Pike. Two city policemen on motorcycles raced past. The coasters and other attractions looked ghostly, except for Hell Gate. The devil atop the pav
ilion blazed in the glare of spotlights. Policemen swarmed over the boats in the holding area, carrying kerosene lamps and flashlights. A lone figure with a lantern peered into the mouth of the tunnel. Pin glanced uneasily up at Fatty.
“Who’s Cabell?”
“Captain of the Robey Street station. Any serious crime here falls under his purview. But we’ve never had much in the way of serious crime. And never a murder.”
They crossed to the other side of the Pike. Passing the Ten-in-One, Pin felt her throat tighten. She wished she’d never mentioned Clyde. She hesitated, then asked, “How did she die?”
At first she thought Fatty wouldn’t answer. “She was suffocated,” he said at last. “That’s what Doc Overcash said. We just called him in the event—in the event that there was anything to be done. We’ll have to wait for the official cause of death from the coroner. But it seems that she was smothered.”
The policeman set his hand on her shoulder, but gently. “That was an ugly thing for you to see, Pin. A terrible thing.” He shook his head. “Where exactly do you live?”
“That alley by the Cyclone. I can go from here.”
“I’d like to say hello to your mother. Put her mind at ease if she’s been worried about you.”
“Probably she won’t even be there,” Pin said quickly, alarmed. “I can just go on my own. She wouldn’t worry, anyway.”
“She might if she’s heard about what happened.”
He steered her down the alley, toward the trash-strewn lot. Something rustled in the shadows, and Pin stiffened as a cat streaked in front of them. When she looked up, her mother stood in the doorway of the tiny shack, holding a kerosene lantern.
“Is that your mother?” For the first time Fatty sounded uneasy, almost shy.
Pin nodded miserably. Her mother looked disheveled and suspicious. After Abriana’s disappearance, Gina began to disappear, too. She shrank from Pin, as though her bones might crumble at her touch. Pin wondered how she could stand to be handled by the men she danced with. Alcohol helped, she knew that, and the laudanum syrup she kept in a tin box alongside their mattress.
“Pin? What are you doing?”
She hadn’t gone dancing. She’d removed the cheap bangles she favored for fortune-telling, but still wore her Gypsy clothes—a short skirt that fell halfway below the knee, cheap red silk over Rusleen petticoats. Her shirtwaist was too big, her thick dark hair loosed from the amber combs she usually wore. Her garnet earrings caught the light and glowed—the only truly beautiful things she owned. Pin approached her hesitantly, flinching when she saw her mother’s face grow rigid.
“It’s all right, Ma,” she said as Gina covered her mouth, staring at Fatty Bacon. Stepping beside her, Pin caught the candied scent of soothing syrup and the Sen-Sen Gina chewed to mask it. “There’s no trouble, Ma, I’m fine!”
“Yes, ma’am, that’s right.” Bacon removed his helmet. “Well, no, that’s not true.” He smoothed his hair nervously. “There’s trouble, but Pin here’s not in it. I just wanted to make sure he got home safely.”
“Safely?” Gina shook her head. She sounded as though she’d swallowed a mouthful of honey. “I don’t understand. What’s not safe? Did they, did they—”
Pin cut her off before she could mention Abriana. “Nothing, Ma! I told you—”
“Don’t you lie.” Gina grabbed her wrist. “What happened? What did they find?”
He stepped toward them and raised a hand. “You might as well hear it from me, Mrs. Maffucci. Someone was killed on one of the rides today.”
Gina murmured something in Italian and crossed herself. “The Blue Streak?”
“No, ma’am.” Bacon turned his helmet over in his big freckled hands. “A girl was murdered. In Hell Gate.”
Gina cried out and sagged against the doorframe. Pin caught the lantern as Bacon hurried to her side. Together they half carried Gina the few steps to the mattress on the floor. Pin helped her lie down. When she looked up, she saw Bacon staring at her mother with pity.
“It’s a terrible thing,” he said. “Your boy, he was the one who found her. That’s a brave son you have there, not many boys would have done what he did.”
Was he mocking her? Bacon caught her look. He tilted his head at the bottle of soothing syrup on the floor, and continued, “I just wanted to make sure the lad was safe. And you.”
His gaze flickered across the tiny room, and Pin cringed. A single chair and a metal trunk that held their clothes and served as her mother’s dressing table. A chamber pot with an ill-fitting lid. Pin’s spare clothes hung from nails on the wall, knickerbocker trousers and a grimy white shirt.
Bacon cleared his throat. “Do you have someone you can stay with, Mrs. Maffucci? Family elsewhere in the city? Your parents?”
Gina shook her head. “Not till fall,” she whispered.
“We’ll be fine,” said Pin fiercely. “We are fine.”
Bacon appeared unconvinced. At last he said, “Well. I have to get back to the station house.”
Gina nodded and brushed a flyaway hair from her face. “What’s your name again?”
“Francis Bacon.”
“Of course. Sergeant Bacon. I recognize you.” She gave him a crooked smile. “I work on the Pike. Madame Zanto, the fortune-teller.”
“I’ve seen you, too.” Bacon slid his helmet back onto his head. “I’ll try to keep an eye on your place.”
“We’ll be fine,” repeated Pin. Her mother nodded.
“Thank you so much, Mr. Bacon,” she said.
He crossed to the door, the floorboards buckling beneath his heavy boots, and left.
“Good riddance,” Pin said, and sank onto the mattress. “Are you all right, Ma?”
Gina turned to her, face aflame. Before Pin could move, she’d struck her cheek. Pin reeled backward and hit the wall, so hard the shack quivered.
“Why were you there?” Gina tried to grab her hair, but Pin had already scrambled away. “Do you want to die, too?”
She lunged at Pin, but her daughter’s hand closed around her wrist. She felt the knobs in Gina’s wrist, skin so papery thin it scarcely seemed to cover bone.
“Stop, Ma,” she said through gritted teeth. “Stop.”
Gina stiffened, straining against her. Pin feared her wrist might snap like balsa. After a few seconds her mother’s face went slack. Pin released her, and Gina’s body seemed to disappear within her shabby clothing as she sank to the floor.
“Why would you do that?” she kept repeating. “Why, why…”
Pin dropped beside her. “Ma, don’t,” she cried. “Please don’t. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
Her mother rested her head upon Pin’s shoulder. She stroked Pin’s hair, pressed her cheek against her daughter’s. Pin flinched, and her mother drew back, gazed at Pin’s face, and tugged a finger through her daughter’s matted curls.
“We need to cut it again soon,” she said. “Help me out of my clothes.”
Pin hated this task. The metal hooks and eyes dug at her fingers, and she struggled with the buttons on her mother’s boots.
“Why don’t you just get new ones?” she demanded, yanking off one boot and throwing it into a corner. “These are falling apart. They smell.”
“Why do you think?” her mother replied wearily.
For Pin, all that was over. She could pull her shirts on over her head. Her trousers had sensible buttons, the kind that didn’t need a buttonhook. Her boots laced up. She never needed to bother with her hair, except to cut it.
“Pin…?” Gina murmured, eyelids drooping. Pin set aside her mother’s clothes and helped her lie down. Gina whispered, “Thanks,” eyes dark in her sunken face as Pin lay next to her, watched her mother’s chest rise and fall. After a long time, her eyes fluttered open to stare at Pin.
“I miss my daughter,” she whispered.
“I do, too.”
Gina shook her head. “Not Abriana.”
Pin drew closer. She began to cry. “O
h, Ma,” she said. But her mother was already asleep.
Chapter 34
HE SLEPT SOUNDLY, as he always did afterward; woke and lay on his side to gaze at the form beside him. Early morning sunlight brought out minute imperfections in her face, spots where a bit of grime or soot had permeated the unglazed porcelain. He pushed back the blanket and rearranged her dress, tugging it down to cover her spindle-shaped legs and soft torso stuffed with excelsior. He preferred the cool smooth touch of her bisque limbs and cheeks to the soft places, except her hair. He buried his face in her ringlets. They had a sweet grassy smell, nothing like human hair at all. He wondered sometimes if the company had substituted horsehair, but that would have been difficult to curl.
He roused himself and put on clean clothes, a new shirt and the pink seersucker suit and jacket he hadn’t worn in two months. He got a basin and cloth, returned to the bedroom to clean her. When he finished, he picked her up, her porcelain chin on his shoulder, and carried her to the other room. He set her in a chair, carefully arranging her legs so they hung over the edge, fluffed her hair, straightened her dress. Turning, he went to the windowsill and plucked a small round tin from his shaving bag, a pot of rouge. He dabbed a bit on his fingertip, returned to the doll, and ran his finger across her mouth, tracing her lips. With a handkerchief, he wiped off his finger, stood back, and reviewed his work. Mouths often lacked definition in photographs, but he wanted her to look lifelike, not whorish.
Satisfied, he turned and retrieved his camera from beneath the bed. He spent the next few minutes adjusting the doll’s limbs, trying to make her resemble the girl as he remembered her, not in the boat but earlier when, replete with ice cream, she’d finally accepted first one lemon drop, then a second.
He finally stopped posing her. He knew from experience that he could lose hours like this, with the same outcome he’d achieved twice already since last night. He had no time for that now. He had scant time to develop his film, and he couldn’t afford to squander it.
He shot his photos, a dozen in all, making certain some film remained for later. He hoped he would have another opportunity to take more pictures with a different model in the next few days. He’d hold off on developing the film until then. Back East, he’d purchased a Kodak film tank, a portable developer that had proved invaluable.
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