Curious Toys

by Elizabeth Hand

  He replaced the camera under his bed and picked up the doll, crushing her to him as he inhaled the scent that still clung to her dress, a whiff of vanilla ice cream and lemon. For a long time he stood, rocking back and forth, until he heard the clatter of a milk wagon in the street. He kissed her cool forehead, pulled a key from his pocket, and carried her to the closet. He stood her inside and locked the door.

  Only then did he allow himself to retrieve his greatest treasures from the suitcase: a sheaf of photographs nestled within a leather folder. Each one showed a doll—always the same doll, but you would never know it. He had dressed and posed her so naturally that, as he fanned out the photos, it seemed to him as though he held an entire garden of beautiful creatures in his hands.

  His fingers trembled as he recalled the name of each girl: Maria, Iolanda, Abriana, Deirdre, and all the others. The Italian girl, Abriana, had been so pliant and vacant of expression that she might truly have been a life-size doll. Yet her beauty, like that of the others, would have been lost forever, save for these images. The innocent symmetry of the doll’s features would never change, never age; never be tainted by betrayal. They were his alone, always.

  Chapter 35

  PIN WOKE, FOR once, long before her mother. Floating between sleep and wakefulness, she waited for the sun’s rays to creep down the alley. A devil’s face danced in front of her, twisting into a Kewpie doll’s and then her sister’s, which was the same face as the girl’s in the tunnel, only laughing. With a cry she sat up, looked down to see if she’d awakened her mother.

  No. Gina slept through anything. As Pin’s heart slowed, she stared at the dingy sheet, the muslin panels Gina had pinned over the windows to provide some privacy, the red utility bag where her mother kept her few cosmetics and fortune-telling cards.

  Everything was as it had been when she woke yesterday morning. How could the entire world change, yet her mother still keep her face powder in a stained red bag?

  She slid from bed, pulled her boots over her bare feet, and went outside. She snuck into the back of the Cyclone building and made her way to the utility washroom, used the toilet, then washed her face and arms. She drank water straight from the faucet until her stomach bulged, and hurried back to the shack. Her stomach cramped from hunger, an ache she’d grown accustomed to. Drinking a lot of water helped, but not much.

  In the distance, the giant cuckoo clock chimed eight. Pin sat cross-legged on the floor and reached for the magazine Larry had given her. She flipped through the pages until she found the continuation of a story she’d started last month.

  CHAPTER III: AMONG THE MISSING

  “Where is the coach?” he cried. “Where are Jane Mint, One-Eyed Dell, and the Eskimo woman, Kittigazuit?”

  She read until she finished the chapter and tossed the magazine aside. She bellied onto the mattress and gazed at the wall, where she’d tacked Clyde’s photo alongside an advertising card for Vin Fiz grape soda, with a color portrait of the aviatrix Harriet Quimby, clad in knee-high leather boots, trousers, aviator goggles, and a plum-colored satin jacket with a hood.

  On April 16, 1912, Harriet had flown across the English Channel in those clothes—the first woman to achieve such a feat. But because the Titanic had sunk the day before, no one remembered Harriet Quimby.

  Pin did. She’d watched a Mutoscope of Harriet’s flight dozens of times, memorizing Harriet’s masculine attire, her knowing smile. Two and a half months after she’d flown across the Channel, Harriet died when her monoplane crashed during a Boston air show. The only time Pin had cried harder was when Abriana disappeared.

  Glory loved Harriet, too. The first time Pin visited the film studio, she’d stopped at her room to ask for directions and spotted a color poster of the beautiful woman in plum-colored satin and black leather, standing in front of her plane. A bold signature swooped across the image.

  Yours affectionately, Harriet Quimby.

  “Holy smokes.” Pin barely glanced at the girl bent over an ironing board across from her. “Where’d you get this?”

  The girl set down the iron. She seemed unperturbed that a strange boy had walked into her dressing room. “G.M. gave it to me. He knew her—she wrote for the movies before she began to fly.”

  “She did?”

  “Sure. What, you think girls can’t write?” The girl gave Pin a scornful look and reached to flick Pin’s cap. “Who are you, kid?”

  “Pin.”

  “Pin? What kind of name’s that?”

  “Nickname.” Pin hesitated. She’d stopped explaining it after she got beat up too many times, but this girl was unlikely to beat her up. “They called me that when I was little, ’cause I was small and sharp.”

  “Sharp? I’ll decide that.” She leaned against the wall. “I’m Glory. Gloria May, but they call me Glory.” She grinned. “Because I’m so glorious.”

  She stuck out a hand, the way a boy would. Pin took it, trying to think of something clever to say, finally just shrugged. “Pleased to meet you.”

  Glory dropped her hand. “You looking for someone?”

  “Yeah. Lionel Gerring. He’s a writer—know where I can find him?”

  “Stage, probably. That way.” She pointed into the corridor. “Maybe I’ll see you later. Or drop by anytime. I’ll be around somewhere.”

  In her room, Pin gazed at the picture of Harriet Quimby but thought of Glory. Maybe she’d invite her to the amusement park one day. Maybe she’d get another chance to hold her hand, on one of the coasters or the Old Mill. Not Hell Gate. She wouldn’t go inside there again on a dare.

  She did a futile search of the shack in hopes of finding something edible, spotted a tin of lemon drops tucked into her mother’s red bag. But the tin was empty. She dug around in the bag till she came up with a dime. Sometimes her mother gave her money for food, but usually she forgot. Pin checked to make sure her mother was breathing evenly, and went outside.

  She wondered with apprehension if the park would even be open the day after a murder. But Matthew, the manager of the Kansas Cyclone theater, had already arrived for work. He stood in front of the Cyclone building, staring, baffled, at a piece of camera equipment in his hands. A projector. He glanced up as she approached.

  “Heya, kid. You don’t got a pin on ya, do you?”

  She shook her head. “Sorry.”

  Matthew sighed. “Something’s stuck in here, but I’m afraid if I try to fix it, it’ll fall apart.”

  “Can I see?”

  Matthew squinted at her. “You know about projectors?”

  Nodding, she fooled with the projector’s gate. She managed to open it and felt inside until she found the culprit.

  “Here it is.” She held up a shriveled strip that looked like a piece of dried-up bacon. “A piece of melted film got stuck. Someone should’ve cleaned it out.”

  She flicked it away and handed the projector back to Matthew. “How old is that thing, anyway?”

  Matthew shot her a wry look. “Old.”

  “I figured.” She pointed at the slot the film passed through as the projector ran. “Those older cameras they used to shoot with, the film wasn’t, you know, perforated. So they’d punch in the holes after they processed it. But everyone uses different kinds of perforators, and the holes don’t always line up with the wheels in the projector. You should get a Bell and Howell perforator, that’s what they use at Essanay.”

  “Bell and Howell, huh?” Matthew regarded Pin, amused but also impressed.

  “Yeah. And tell your projectionist that if the film tears, he should clip it out right away. Otherwise it’ll burn up—that’s how that big fire in Des Moines started.”

  Matthew hefted the projector. “Thanks, kid. You’re the one lives back in the shed there with your ma, right?” Pin saw a flash of sympathy in his eyes. “I’ll tell Felix what you said. Bell and Howell, right?” He dug in his pocket and flipped Pin a nickel.

  She ambled onto the Pike. It was not yet ten o’clock and already scorch
ing hot. The air shimmered above the freshly raked gravel path, and mist drifted into the Fairyland woods, obscuring the picnic tables beneath the trees. The woods bordered the North Branch of the Chicago River. From the other side of the river, the scaffolding of the Velvet Coaster resembled the gasworks in Little Hell. A small tributary, barely a stream, trickled off from the North Branch, marking the boundary between the amusement park and the abandoned factories known as Bricktown.

  You could see Bricktown from Fairyland, and smell it, too, the lingering tang of acrid smoke from the kilns and dung from the horses that used to haul off carts piled with pink Chicago bricks. After the Great Fire, the city banned wooden buildings. Brick factories filled this part of the North Side, with their clay pits and kilns and hobo workers hopping on and off the freight trains destined for the slaughterhouses in Packingtown.

  In other parts of Chicago, the brickyards had been shut down by those who objected to the stink and noise, the shifting population of vagrants who worked there. Ikie insisted that the factories in Bricktown had closed, yet its kilns still roared intermittently, belching black smoke and flames. Some nights you could hear voices. Rumor was the Black Hand came to Bricktown in the middle of the night and burned the bodies of the people they killed.

  The giant cuckoo clock began to count the hour as the Blue Streak coaster made its safety run, empty cars rattling like a runaway milk wagon. The final stroke of ten had not quite died away when the screamer march “Thunder and Blazes” rang out from Ballmann’s bandstand. Riverview Amusement Park was open for the day.

  Frowning, Pin surveyed the crowds streaming through the entrance gate. Hadn’t news of the girl’s murder hit the papers? At the least, she’d thought that parents might keep their younger kids at home, especially girls.

  But no—it was just another Sunday. People beelined for the Tickler and Aerostat and Flying Bobs, the Jack Rabbit coaster and Gyroplane. Already a long line had formed for the Hippodrome, where an Italian movie, The Inferno, had been showing all month. Mugsy and Ikie had snuck in and claimed there were scenes of naked people.

  She wondered what was going on at Hell Gate. She got as far as the terminus for the Miniature Railway and halted.

  The dark ride had been roped off, a group of city policemen milling around its entrance. She continued on cautiously, but as she drew near the unattended ticket booth, a cop yelled at her.

  “Ride’s closed, kid.” He made a shooing motion.

  Pin waited till he turned away and kept walking, maintaining a safe distance from the cops. Men in shirtsleeves and rolled-up trousers waded through the canal, dragging nets on long poles through the water. Every few minutes, they’d shake out whatever they’d dredged up onto the boardwalk. Pin covered her nose as the wind carried the stink of accumulated muck.

  After a quarter hour, a tall, broad-shouldered man in a uniform strode toward the front of the pavilion. The cops stopped whatever they were doing to assemble around him. He wore a dark-blue fedora like Captain Hickey’s and had a jowly face, a mouth like a loose seam that flapped as he spoke. She strained to hear him through the din of rides and screams, Red Friend’s endless chant.

  “Happened right where you’re standing, friend—that very spot!”

  The man in the fedora raised his hands, as though to silence the calliope and coasters.

  “Gentlemen, thank you all for being here this morning. Mr. Baumgarten does not want a panic, and neither do we,” he announced calmly, as though used to this kind of gathering. “I assured him we’d patrol the grounds, but do our best not to interfere with the normal doings of the park…”

  He must be Captain Cabell, Pin realized, the man Hickey had called a son of a bitch.

  “As you all know,” he went on, “the commissioner is on vacation in Wisconsin, but he’s been notified of what’s happened. And we now have a suspect in custody. The child’s parents have come forward and identified her. I’ll be speaking to the newspapers sometime this afternoon at the Robey Street station. Till then, don’t talk to any reporters. Or anyone else.”

  He took a step back and clapped his hands. “So! Back to work, gentlemen. I’ll call in reinforcements as needed. I hope they won’t be.”

  He strode off toward the park entrance. The men returned to dredging the canal, and the cops dispersed. All were armed with billy clubs, and she saw two who carried guns in holsters around their waists.

  Pin abruptly remembered she wasn’t supposed to be here. As she turned to go, she saw Larry a few yards off, also watching the proceedings. She hesitated, then walked over to him.

  “What the hell you doing here?” he snarled.

  “Just watching. Like you.”

  “I’m here ’cause I’m not there.” He pointed at the empty ticket booth.

  “Think they’ll open it later?”

  “You an imbecile?”

  He glanced past Pin, then swiftly walked away. She looked over to see a policeman heading in their direction and took off after Larry.

  “Maybe they’ll open later,” she said when she caught up with him. “Captain Cabell back there just said they already have someone in custody.”

  Larry stopped to stare at her in disbelief. “You know who that suspect is?”

  “No.”

  “Clyde. What the hell did you tell them?”

  “Clyde?” Her stomach turned as she recalled last night in the station house, Clyde’s booming voice demanding to see a lawyer. “Tell who?”

  “The cops! You were the first one they questioned, they went and dragged him out of his house!”

  “Clyde? They arrested Clyde?”

  “Of course they did!” Larry looked like he wanted to punch her. “He was the only colored man working there except me, and everyone saw me selling tickets. I thought you and him were friends. What the hell did you say to them?”

  “Nothing! Just, I went to tell Clyde about what I saw.”

  “The body.”

  She nodded. “But Clyde didn’t believe me. Johnny was the one who did. And Clyde couldn’t have done it, he was working the ride. Everyone knows that.”

  “Everyone knows, but no one can prove it. He was wearing a rubber mask and a costume. No one could swear it was him in there.”

  “But someone must’ve seen something!” Pin’s voice rose in desperation. “Or seen Clyde and recognized him. They could testify.”

  Larry gave a derisive laugh. “Testify? You read too many stories, kid. That only happens if it goes to trial. And if it goes to trial, they’ll send him to the gallows.”

  “But they couldn’t! He didn’t kill her!”

  “You think that matters? Little white girl’s dead, Negro man’s within a mile, they’ll kill him for it. And maybe now I’m out of a job. And don’t you tell me I should go looking at the Sunny South. You ever see any colored folks watching that show? They make the Negro singers wear blackface.”

  “I never seen it.”

  “Well, you should go sometime, maybe you’d learn something. Tell you this, when I graduate I’m going to practice law.”

  Something in Larry’s expression shifted as he gazed at her, and for a terrifying instant she feared he saw through her disguise.

  “Wake up, boy,” he said. “You’re not Clyde’s friend. Doesn’t matter what you did or didn’t do. Clyde’s hired a good attorney, he’s trying to find some witnesses. I don’t know what you saw in there, but you better think hard before you start talking about it, you hear?”

  He walked away and she hurried after him, holding out the magazine. He smacked it from her hands, then pushed her so she fell onto the dusty gravel. “And don’t you follow me, you little fink. I see you again, I’ll put your lights out.”

  Chapter 36

  THE PORTER BROUGHT him the newspapers after they’d left Kansas City.

  “Like you asked, Mr. Chaplin.” The porter opened the door to the private compartment and handed him the Chicago Tribune. “I know you wanted the New York papers, but we can’
t get them out here.”

  Chaplin tucked the newspaper under his arm and nodded, counted out enough coins to cover the cost, and dropped them into the man’s hand. The porter remained as he was, smiling. Of course, he was expecting a tip.

  Instead Chaplin gifted him with a huge grin and a half bow, pretending to doff a hat. The porter laughed as Chaplin swiftly closed the door. The man would dine out on that for much longer than he would a dime.

  The train had left Chicago late that morning, a good thing as otherwise he might have missed it. It always took him longer to pack his suitcase than he anticipated. His breakfast tray had been delivered as requested. A poached egg, toast and butter, bacon, half a grapefruit. He didn’t care for grapefruit but couldn’t forgo the novelty.

  And orange juice! The bacon was crisp American bacon, not very nice. He peeled the bits of fat from it and left the rest. The coffee had cooled, but he didn’t mind that. Coffee was also a novelty.

  He settled in his chair, picked up his coffee cup and a piece of cold toast, and scanned the headlines. For the last few weeks, the Eastland ship disaster had supplanted the European war in the papers. The vast tourist steamer had capsized at its dock on the Chicago River, killing eight hundred forty-four of its twenty-five hundred passengers. More than were lost on the Lusitania back in May, and more passengers than had died on the Titanic.

  But now, that tragedy was no longer front-page stuff. Unlike the sinking of the Lusitania, it couldn’t be used as military propaganda. He read of several failed British military ventures in the Ottoman Empire and turned the page.

  His gaze fell upon a photograph of a young man, his cheek pressed against that of a pretty little girl in a long-waisted dress patterned with embroidered daisies, a large bow atop her curls.