Chapter 48
HE SHUT THE door behind him and leaned against it, waiting until his heart slowed. The little bitch had attacked him. Like a rat springing from its nest, not asleep at all, not silent. He’d had to cover her mouth with both hands, and still she’d fought. Strong as a grown woman, how was that possible?
He licked his lips. His mouth tasted foul: a shiver of nausea passed through him as he remembered the bottle of cordial he’d finished. He dug a hand into his pocket and withdrew the Kewpie doll. The nausea became a spasm. His legs buckled and he knelt, retching.
After a few minutes he got unsteadily to his feet. The room’s stifling late-afternoon air was alive with dust motes. He recalled images from the movie: arms waving like underwater plants, the eyeless faces of the damned. A title card.
Hope not ever to see Heaven. I have come to lead you to the other shore; into eternal darkness, into fire and into ice.
He stared at the red half-moon imprinted on the back of his hand, where she’d drawn blood. He’d misjudged the amount of cordial in the lemon drops. It was the first time one had put up a fight, the first time he’d gazed down into eyes that were not a doll’s, glazed and placid, but those of a terrified child.
He squeezed his eyes shut. The orchestra had been loud enough to drown out any sounds, and that imbecilic usher hadn’t shown his head during the movie. The other couples scattered across the balcony had been engaged in their own skirmishes in their own velvet seats. No one had noticed his own.
But the girl’s struggle had made it impossible for him to maintain either illusion or excitement—all his energy had gone into silencing her. Her dress had been torn in the tussle; he’d taken it anyway, but it was spoiled, everything was spoiled.
He walked to the closet and unlocked it, pulling the torn calico dress from his pocket. It had been threadbare and patched to begin with. Now it was nothing but a rag. He couldn’t clothe her in that, couldn’t take the photographs he’d so meticulously planned in his head. He tossed the dress aside.
He’d have to develop the negatives he’d already shot—a waste of the remaining film on that roll, but he’d already been deprived of one pleasure back in the theater. Now, with her dress spoiled, he’d have no joy in dressing the doll again, and no joy whatsoever in giving her the bitch’s name. What had it been? Gilda.
He pushed it from his memory. He would find another girl tomorrow.
Maria waited inside the closet, arms held stiffly at her side, her blue glass eyes gazing straight ahead. Her bisque fingers would be cold to the touch. She had no teeth to bite.
He stared at her, turned, and walked to the bed. He knelt to retrieve the camera and film tank and light apron where he’d hidden them, picked up the doll, and set her on the mattress. He spent several minutes posing her, shooting what remained of the film.
When he was finished, he turned his attention to the film tank. He measured out the grains of pyro, sulfite of soda, and soda carbonate into five ounces of lukewarm water in the cylinder, added cold water. He repeated a similar process with the acid bath, dissolving the fixing powders in warm water he poured into a washbasin. He proceeded with the intricate transfer of the film cartridge from his camera, carefully lowered the reel into the cylinder, set it on a plate.
He got out his pocket watch, and every three minutes turned the cylinder, until twenty minutes had passed. He brought the cylinder to the sink, removed the transferring reel, and set it into the fixing bath; washed it five times in another bowl, changing the water each time. Last of all, he hung the filmstrip from a dowel to dry. Later, he would examine the negatives and make the prints in the same closet where he kept the doll. He used a flashlight for this, which gave the final prints a misty, dreamy quality.
He washed his hands, cracked a window to disperse the acrid scent of the chemicals, and returned to the closet. The familiar ritual of developing the film had calmed him, but as he gazed down at Maria in her yellow dress, he felt that ease dissolve. Her vacant gaze seemed focused on something in the room behind him: it took all his effort not to look over his shoulder to be sure he was still alone.
He stared at her, unable to look away. A black abscess burst inside him, the sickening horror of what he’d done, not once but over and over again, more times than he could count. He could no longer sense his own breath, hear the wind in the leaves outside, or feel the heat of the afternoon air upon his skin. Whatever thin membrane had held him intact within the void had dissolved. All that remained was the knowledge and the realization that he would do it again, without ceasing, until he died.
Chapter 49
ENTERING RIVERVIEW, HE found himself missing the noise and squalor of Coney Island. Here, the rubbish bins didn’t reek of discarded seafood luncheons left to rot in the afternoon sun. The gravel had been neatly raked, the grass watered and trimmed. The entrance gates resembled those of a medieval castle in a movie, banners flapping. The candy colors and fairy-tale buildings reminded him of a spun-sugar egg he’d received one Easter as a boy: he’d smashed it with a rock to better see what was inside, swallowed the sweet splinters, and made himself ill.
A flicker of that sickly desire overcame him as he navigated the thronged midway. He’d visited Riverview only once, shortly after it opened for the season in May. He’d been curious about the heavily wooded picnic area known as Fairyland, its name ironical considering the activities reputed to take place there. That day he saw no one at Fairyland save a young mother with her children, and he left the park feeling disappointed.
Now he meandered along the Pike, scanning the crowds and carnival workers for a face that might spark a story idea. He ignored the Ten-in-One—people with obvious scars or deformities interested him less than those whose eyes betrayed an inner disfigurement, perhaps one that mirrored his own. But it was early enough in the day that most of the people he passed seemed cheerful and expectant. Families, courting couples, small gangs of boys racing along the Lagoon.
He drew up short when he reached the Hell Gate pavilion, momentarily confused by the sight of policemen everywhere, guarding its entrance and dredging the canal, poring over piles of refuse.
Of course—the murder! The queasy excitement he’d felt earlier flared into delight. Here was a scenario for a movie! And they might even be able to film right here at the park! He took out his notebook and scribbled Hellgate, stood, and watched until a policeman walked over.
“I’ll have to ask you to leave, sir.” The cop gazed at him with distaste; contempt, even. Or perhaps he just imagined that? But no, the man fingered a billy club in a manner that seemed both suggestive and threatening.
Unless he imagined that, too. He nodded at the policeman and hurried off, and didn’t stop again until he reached Fairyland.
Not far away rose the abandoned smokestacks and kilns of Bricktown, but here the air was fragrant with loam and decaying leaves, last year’s sprouting acorns and golden dropseed. Trails crisscrossed the forest floor, left by rabbits or foxes and coyotes. Vagrants used these trails to reach the railroad bed.
So did men looking for anonymous assignations. He peered through the leafy patchwork but saw no signs of human traffic, not even the remains of a campfire. He wasn’t sure if he felt disappointed or relieved.
He tapped out a hashish cigarette, lit up, and smoked in rapid puffs, hoping he was downwind from any unseen picnickers. When he was done, he popped a lemon drop to mask his breath, and unsteadily retraced his steps, his thoughts pinwheeling from Hell Gate to actors who might be enticed to play a murderer.
A figure stepped from the trees in front of him. Older, white, with a carefully trimmed mustache and grey hair beneath his fedora. He froze as the man raised a finger to his hat brim and gave him a nod.
“Looking for a friend?” the man asked, his tone offhand and amiable. His mouth went dry as he stared at the man and remembered other encounters like this at Coney Island, grunting and sometimes a bit of blood, the memory of splintered sugar exploding into a
sour hot taste. He shook his head, bolted past the man, and crashed through the trees until he found the path again and emerged near the band shell.
He walked breathlessly past rows of chairs filled with people taking a break from the rides, his heart beating so hard he thought he might keel over. The hashish. He shouldn’t have smoked so much. To calm himself, he bought some hokeypokey and settled on a bench to eat it.
When the ice cream was gone, he took out his little notebook and began scribbling ideas for his story. A child’s murder in an amusement park—it was ghoulish, but look how many people were here today, just hours after a real murder had occurred! He underlined the word Hellgate, scrawled a few other words—girl, rope or knife?
If Spoor turned this one down, he’d take it elsewhere. He finished writing and sat for a few minutes before heading off to explore more of the park.
In several minutes he found a fortune-teller—a real person, not one of those automatons:
MADAME ZANTO ORACLE OF THE AGES
WHAT DOES YOUR FUTURE HOLD?
25 Cents
He pulled aside the shabby velvet curtains and walked in.
The dim room was hardly bigger than a closet. Joss sticks smoldered in a corner. A frayed Persian rug covered the floor, caked with dirt. At a table set with a china teapot, two cups, and saucers sat Madame Zanto, clad in a red shawl, black shirtwaist, a skirt that ended only a few inches below her knees.
“You come to know your future?”
She looked up at him, much younger than he’d expected—twenty-seven or twenty-eight, several years younger than he was. Small and very thin, her dark curling hair held in place by two combs. Delicate features, swarthy complexion, her face more piquant than pretty. Italian, he thought. A genuine Gypsy wouldn’t be permitted to work here.
She gestured at the chair opposite her, the silver bracelets on her arms jingling. “Have a seat. Twenty-five cents.”
She held out a hand as he sat, searching for his coin holder. He removed his notebook, set it on the table as he emptied his pockets.
“Here it is.” He extracted a quarter and dropped it into her palm. She set it aside and reached for the teapot, poured tea into one of the cups, and pushed it toward him.
“Drink that. Every drop.”
It was tepid and tasted of jasmine smoke, but he downed it. She set the cup upside down on the saucer and turned it three times, tapping it as she gazed at him.
Looking for tells, he thought. He held up his hands so she could see he wore no wedding band. She gave him a tired smile, turned over the cup, and leaned forward to stare at the sodden mass.
“These here—these are tears,” she said, dabbing a finger in the saucer. “And this—”
Her finger hovered above a small mound of tea leaves. “This mountain signifies you have a powerful enemy.”
“An enemy?” He laughed.
“Yes.” She tipped her head. “You have no enemies?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Well, it means trouble, anyway.” She narrowed her eyes. “You won’t marry,” she said, lifting her head to see his reaction. He tried to manage an expression that combined diffidence and disappointment, instead felt himself blushing under the woman’s intense stare.
“What else?” he asked, hoping to change the subject.
“What else,” she murmured. “I don’t see anything else.”
“That’s it?” he said in mock dismay. “A powerful enemy and I won’t marry? You’re not even trying!”
She made a face and prodded the tea leaves with a fingernail. “You might consider getting a dog.”
“A dog?”
“For companionship. And to protect against your enemy.”
He snorted. “For a quarter I should get a good omen.”
“You want me to lie? The dog’s not a bad omen. It’s a piece of advice. Usually I charge extra for that.”
He stood and tipped his hat. “Thanks for the advice. I’ll take it up with my landlord.”
He pulled aside the velvet curtain and left. Neither he nor Madame Zanto noticed that he had left his notebook on the table.
Chapter 50
IT WAS AFTER five o’clock when Francis returned to the Riverview station house. Magruder manned the desk, chin propped on one hand as he read a newspaper. At the sight of Francis, he held up the front page so Francis could see the headline:
Vicious Murder at Amusement Park: Colored Magician Arrested
“It’s everywhere.” Magruder pointed at a stack at his elbow. “O’Connell brought these in. Cabell met with all the reporters, he—”
“I was there,” said Francis.
He found the Riverview captain slouched in his office chair, puffing ruminatively at a cigar. As he entered, Hickey sat up heavily and stubbed out the cigar in a marble ashtray.
“Francis. Where’ve you been?”
“Robey Street, like you asked me.”
“I know that didn’t take three whole hours.”
“I did some catching up with a man I knew there.”
Hickey regarded him through bloodshot eyes. The creases in his jacket suggested he’d tried to get some shut-eye here in the office. “Anything new?”
“Not a thing.”
Hickey poured a scant inch of water into a glass, opened a packet of analgesic powder and tipped it in, gulped down the murky liquid without bothering to stir it first.
“Christ, this is all we need.” He reached for another cigar. “You still don’t think Smithson did it?”
“He says he’s been here since opening day. I can vouch for that, and so can a thousand other people.”
“Can he account for every single day?”
Francis dragged over a chair and sat. “I know I saw him around here last month—I saw his show twice. It’s a good show,” he added.
“I don’t give a tinker’s damn how good his show is.”
Francis’s jaw tightened. “Goddamn it, Bill. You know he’s innocent, and so does anyone else who knows Clyde Smithson. That boy who saw the man going into the ride with the girl says he was a white man. If you don’t release Clyde, there’s going to be trouble. Remember those kids last summer? You want that on your hands?”
Hickey’s face darkened. “You sure there was nothing new at Robey Street?”
“Not a word other than what the Maffucci boy told us right here in this room.”
“That kid—he could have told us anything. For all we know, he could’ve done it.”
“Now you’re just being obtuse.” Francis shook his head. “He’s a scrawny kid, you saw him. This was some kind of crazed sex fiend. That girl was—”
“I know what she was,” Hickey broke in angrily. “I have three daughters. It’s unspeakable. And all we have is a description of a man who looks like every other man. You think we’re going to question every dude in Riverview wearing a boater and an ice-cream suit? People are going to read the papers and scream about closing the park. Baumgarten’s going to have a heart attack.”
“Elsie Paroubek’s case didn’t affect business here.”
“Elsie Paroubek wasn’t murdered in summer at an amusement park.” Hickey heaved himself from his chair, walked to the window, and raised the shades to stare at the crowds outside. “I bet there’s a hundred thousand people here today.”
He turned back to Francis. “Well, not much we can do but wait. Cabell give you any guff?”
“What you would expect.”
“Well, there’s no reason you should spend the rest of the day here,” Hickey said. “We have enough Chicago men on duty to hold a parade. Report tomorrow as usual.”
Francis clapped his helmet back on his head and stood. As he turned to leave, Hickey said, “What do you think the odds are of this killer attacking again?”
“Not good. It would be like lightning striking twice. And he would have to be a fool. He could be in Minnetonka by now.”
Francis headed for the door. He hadn’t won a bet since 1906, w
hen he’d wagered that the Hitless Wonders White Sox would win against the Chicago Cubs in the World Series. He’d considered telling Hickey that, but had thought better of it.
Chapter 51
THE BLACK BROTHERS Lodge turned out to be a weathered barn behind a sprawling white house on Roscoe Street. A nice part of town, not the sort of area where she’d expect to find a secret society holed up.
“This is it?” Pin gave Henry a doubtful look as they hurried down the sidewalk. He’d had to pay her streetcar fare—she was flat broke.
“Yes,” he said. He kept glancing stealthily over his shoulder, in a way guaranteed to draw attention if anyone happened to notice a very short, scruffy-looking man and an even-scruffier boy walking in a respectable neighborhood early on a Sunday evening. “We need to get inside before anyone sees us.”
Pin wondered if they were doing something illegal. She began to look around nervously as well. On the streetcar, Henry had stared at her with such a strange, intense expression that she began to feel frightened.
Goddamn sissy. What’d I say? He’s a punk.
What if Henry was a fairy? She’d contemplated hopping off the streetcar and running back to Riverview, but next thing she knew he was gesturing at their stop.
There were no streetlamps here, only large old trees and green lawns in front of houses all but hidden behind rhododendrons and azaleas and hydrangea bushes. The air smelled different from Riverview’s—no trace of river-bottom stink or dust raised by the passage of thousands of feet. The wind stirred the trees, and their branches made a sound like people whispering overhead. Lights glimmered in some of the houses, but not at their destination.
“Is anyone home?” she wondered.
“I told you, he’s gone to Decatur. Traitor.”
“This is Willhie’s house?” She looked at him in surprise. “Do you live here, too?”
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