Francis nodded in agreement. He waited till nearly everyone had dispersed before approaching Hickey. The chief shook his head.
“Don’t! Cabell spoke to the commissioner last night—asked him to shut the park down, at least for a few days. Deneen refused. So don’t waste any more of my time or your own.”
Hickey thrust his cigar between his teeth and removed a box of matches from his breast pocket, a signal that Francis was dismissed.
Chapter 68
IT WAS FAR too early for Max to have arrived at the park, but Pin went by his dressing room anyway. The door was still unlocked. Inside, there was no sign that he’d been there. Mondays she did her studio run: she prayed he’d show up soon and send her off with a packet for Lionel. She was starving and had been able to scrounge only a nickel from the shack before she left. And she yearned to see Gloria again, to hear her sly laugh and tell her everything that had happened since they’d last met.
But there was no point waiting for Max. He kept his own hours. So she continued on, and drew up short when she saw a freshly painted banner flapping above the entrance to the Ten-in-One:
BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND
LORD CLYDE, THE HOO-DOO KING
PRESTIDIGITATOR SUPREME & ESCAPE ARTIST
NO BARS CAN HOLD HIM!
“You have a fucking nerve, boy.”
She turned to see Clyde staring down at her, his eyes bloodshot and his usually immaculate white shirt soiled and rumpled.
“Clyde.” Her voice came out in a croak. “Clyde, you’re free?”
“Say what, boy? Speak up.” Clyde stooped to bring his face close to hers. “Didn’t have any trouble speaking up to the police, did you?”
“What? I didn’t—”
Without warning, his hand clipped her ear, and she went sprawling onto the ground.
“I didn’t tell them nothing,” she gasped, rolling onto her back. “You can ask them, what’d they say?”
“They said you’re a little dago punk. What the hell you doing where you’re not wanted? Get your skinny ass out of here before I kill you. Go on now!”
Fighting tears, she grabbed her cap, staggered to her feet, and ran toward the park entrance.
The giant cuckoo clock was hooting ten. The roller coasters clattered as they completed their safety runs, Ballmann’s band played the screamer march. The smells of scorched sugar and roasting wienies turned her stomach as she looked up to see the first wave of people come through the gates, some of them holding flyers.
“Don’t do us any good now,” a woman flanked by four excited children complained as she balled up a piece of paper and flung it aside.
Pin picked up the crumpled flyer and smoothed it out:
RIVERVIEW AMUSEMENT PARK
MONDAY ONE DAY ONLY!
ALL PERSONS ADMITTED FREE
SPECIAL FIREWORKS AT DUSK!
Her breath caught as she read the smaller words at the bottom of the page:
A REWARD OF $1,000 IS OFFERED FOR THE CAPTURE OF THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE RECENT CRIMES AT RIVERVIEW.
Pin dropped the flyer as someone called her name.
“Pin! Wait there!”
She froze, fearful of Clyde’s fury, then spotted a slight figure racing toward her from the gate.
“Pin!” Glory ran up alongside her, her cheeks flushed. She wore a skirt and jacket of lettuce-green linen, a Panama hat with a matching ribbon. “I was scared I wouldn’t find you!”
“Glory.” Pin grew hot, and stared at her feet. “What are you doing here?”
“Lionel sent me.”
“Lionel?”
She looked up, and Glory nodded. “He was going to come himself, but they’ve got him on the stage, writing a new scene for Wally’s bathing-contest movie.” She gave Pin an odd look. “You okay? Your face is awful red.”
“I’m fine. Just hot. You—you look pretty swell.”
“Thanks.” Glory twirled and held out her arms to show off the dress, her hair a dark cloud trapped beneath her straw hat. “My mother made it—she makes all my clothes. Mr. Spoor wants me to wear it in a scene they’re shooting this evening. I get to play a judge at the beauty contest. First time they’re letting me play someone who’s not a married lady.”
She measured up Pin through narrowed, blue-crystal eyes. “Lookee here. Lionel was here yesterday and lost something. A notebook. He knew you’d be coming to the studio later, but he can’t get away, so he sent me to ask if you could get it and bring it to the studio later, along with…”
Her voice dropped to a whisper as she leaned in closer, her breath tickling Pin’s ear. “Along with what I’m not supposed to know about. Dope.” Glory laughed and drew away.
Pin grinned sheepishly. “Sure. Did you check at the lost-and-found at the station?”
“Nope. Just got here. He says he left it at a fortune-teller’s. Madame somebody.”
“Madame Zanto?”
“Yup, that’s her name. Madame Zanto. Know her?”
Pin closed her eyes. “Yeah, sure,” she said at last. “I know where she works. But she won’t be in yet,” she lied. “I can look for it later. What kind of notebook?”
“Just a notebook, he said. Where he writes down ideas for scenarios and dialogue. Spooky stories. You’ve seen it, he’s always carrying it with him.”
“I’ll find it and bring it when I come by later. Max isn’t in yet, either.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.” Pin raised her hand, palm out. Glory regarded her seriously, then nodded and pressed her palm against Pin’s.
“Okay. But if you forget, he’ll get mad at me.”
“I won’t forget.”
Pin shifted from one foot to the other, trying to think of some way to prolong the conversation. Glory, too, seemed disinclined to leave. She removed her hat and fanned her cheeks, squinting up at the dark sky. “Looks like it’ll storm later.”
As if in response, thunder mumbled in the distance, the sound immediately drowned out by the roar of the Jack Rabbit coaster. Glory shuddered. “I hate thunder.”
“It won’t rain—too far off. You want to see the Comique? That’s what they call the nickelodeon here.”
“Sure.”
They started walking. After a few steps, Glory linked her arm through Pin’s. “What do you do here all day?”
Pin’s heart beat faster, feeling Glory’s touch on her arm. “Not much,” she admitted, trying to keep her voice steady. “I help out sometimes at the Kansas Cyclone movie—it breaks down all the time. I know how to fix it, but they won’t let me. I wish I could work where you do. At the studio.”
Glory made a face. “What, be an actor? Don’t tell me that.”
“Not an actor. A cameraman. Billy Carrera’s taught me some things, but I could learn more. I just wish someone’d give me a job there.”
“Well, you’re kinda young.”
“I’m fourteen. Old enough to work.”
“Maybe. But you look younger. No offense intended.”
“I’ll be in high school next month. I’ve seen guys at Essanay aren’t any older than me. Well, maybe a year.”
“But most of them are actors,” said Glory. “You could be a joiner, if you were a girl.”
Pin had seen joiners at the studio: a room full of young women holding up ribbons of film, trying to determine where to match one frame to another with no obvious break in the action. Every frame had to be checked, marked with a wax pencil, then carefully attached with gummed tape. Seamstresses were supposed to be good at it—many joiners came from dress-making factories.
She shook her head. “I’d rather be a cameraman. Or a cutter.”
“Cutters do the same thing as joiners.”
“Except cutters decide how to put the story together. I’d still rather be a cameraman.”
“I’ll say something to Mr. Carrera.”
“He won’t listen to a girl.”
“He’ll listen to me,” Glory retorted.
She s
lid her arm from Pin’s and adjusted her Panama hat. Pin kicked at the gravel underfoot. “Well, thanks,” she said.
Another, louder rumble of thunder sounded. Glory looked at the sky in alarm. “My dress!”
Pin pointed to a large wooden building. “That’s the Comique. C’mon—” They began to run as the first fat drops spattered against the ground.
Chapter 69
HE NEVER NOTICED when the busy thoroughfare fell away and he entered a street of tenements. Overhead, ash-colored clouds filled the sky, seamed with heat lightning. Earlier he’d seen a distant twister form before it fragmented into grey ribbons. He paused beneath a tree, opened the first bottle of cordial, and proceeded until he’d dosed all three tins of lemon drops. He finished what remained of the cordial and replaced the tins in his pocket, kicked the empty bottles into the underbrush, sucking his fingers to remove the sticky residue, and ducked out from under the tree.
The road here wasn’t much more than a path, deeply rutted and coated with brick dust and soot. The cordial made him feel not languid but anxious, his earlier desperation sharpened. The world around him seemed harshly lit, as if battalions of electrical lights had replaced the sun. He cast no shadow on the cracked earth at his feet; when he knuckled his eyes, strange sparks flew out. His eyes itched, and his arms. His tongue. An image of the doll came to him, her glass eyes threaded with tiny black cracks and her mouth parted to show a black slit. No teeth, no tongue. He thrust the image from his mind, but another took its place: the girl struggling in the theater as he covered her mouth and her teeth sank into the ball of his thumb. She had died but still escaped him. The next one wouldn’t; he shoved his hands into his pockets, finding a twist of soft fabric in one and shredding it between his fingers. No, she wouldn’t get away, not her, not ever.
“Hey, Mister!”
A shrill voice disturbed him: he looked up, startled to see he wasn’t alone. On either side, people stood or squatted on the stoops of ramshackle buildings, the women’s hair hidden beneath dark kerchiefs, men’s faces shaded by wide-brimmed hats as they puffed their cheroots. Huns or Czechs or refugees from some country he’d never heard of before the war in Europe.
“Hey, Mister, Mister, you lost?”
A row of small heads gazed down at him from a rooftop. Seconds later, something smashed into the road, and he hopped sideways as a bottle burst, spattering him with urine. Some of the people on the stoops laughed as a woman screamed angrily at the children. Cursing, he stumbled on, peals of high-pitched laughter echoing behind him.
Chapter 70
PUSH PUSH, UP and down, down and up, damn the mop. Pay special attention to the third floor, someone vomited by the window, they said. Spit, dirt, shit, hurt.
Damn the mop.
He pulled the ropy part through the mangle, sloshed it into a metal pail with cleaner water, then pushed it back and forth across the floor. Faces stared up at him from the wet linoleum, men with beards and gaping mouths, evil generals, evil men. Inside the wards people moaned and wept; he could hear them whispering behind his back.
Henrico Dargero he saved all those girls! So brave. Grave. Dead, head, bled. He saved them all. Don’t fall!
Damn the mop.
The doctors never spoke to him, or the nurses in their white uniforms with the stains under the arms. The wards smelled of mentholatum, carbolic soap, and antiseptic. Mop mop.
He reached the end of the long hallway, where one broad flight of stairs led up, another down. An immense laundry cart stood on the landing. Sometimes he searched inside to see what he might find among the soiled sheets and bloody bandages. Sister Rose saw him once and punched his ear so hard he heard bells for a week. Bells hell. Oh well.
Beside the laundry cart stood a trash barrel. Push the metal bucket on its squeaking wheels, drag the mop, stop to make sure no one saw. Look inside the barrel quick before they come. He hoped the boy found his message. Newspapers, sometimes a ladies’ magazine or The Little Girl’s Sewing Book. St. Nicholas magazine on the children’s floor, they didn’t like him to dally there, not since what happened. Not his fault.
Damn the mop, he slipped and nearly fell, caught himself and looked around, no one saw. He reached inside the trash barrel, grabbing what was closest. A newspaper, oh damn. He started to drop it, like playing the fishpond game, try another fish, you could win next time, a Kewpie, a celluloid doll. Something nice. Then he saw the headline:
Amusement Park Killings Continue
And the advertisement:
ALL CHILDREN ADMITTED FREE!
He looked over his shoulder. From downstairs came voices, Dr. Wiggins making his rounds. Rounds, hounds. Zounds. Quickly he read the article.
…police remain baffled. Riverview owner Karl Baumgarten has put up a $1,000 reward for capturing the killer…
A reward! Nothing rhymed with that except award. He’d never had one. He stared at a photo of a girl in confirmation robes, standing in front of a church:
GILDA BELASCU
His eyes watered: so pretty. Who would leave their precious child alone, someone might push her down the stairs. Set her on fire.
He tore off the picture and put it in his pocket, reached down again, and pulled up an issue of Pearson’s with an advertisement for Pears’ soap on the back: an infant with golden hair, her chubby hand reaching for a soap bubble.
Joy!
He curled up the magazine and stuck it down his trouser leg as someone shouted from the ward, then clattered up the steps, one of the nurses. She raced by him, knocking the metal bucket so that filthy water spilled everywhere and he cried out in a rage.
Damn the mop!
Chapter 71
HE CONTINUED TO swear, enraged at the pock-faced children, but they had already disappeared. He hurried on, the poverty of the slums trailing him like a bad smell. Twiglike girls nursed bundles of rags. Men pissed in the street, drunk through the morning. All of them foreigners, chittering like insects. They should never have outlawed wooden structures here, better it all went up in flames.
Another quarter hour and he reached a block where every building had been razed. Boards and twisted metal, heaps of rubble and rotting wood. He wrinkled his nose at the odors of charred brick, horse dung, river bile, and sewage. The North Branch wouldn’t be far off. The tenement block must have abutted a brickyard, now demolished.
But people still lived close by. He craned his neck to see yet another row of dilapidated tenements. Between here and there stretched a wasteland of abandoned kilns and warehouses, a freestanding brick archway that opened onto nowhere.
Lightning lanced the horizon. The humid air played tricks with distant noises. The groan of an unseen freight train seemed to come from only a few yards off, along with snatches of a man singing “Can’t You Hear Me Callin’, Caroline.” Yet when he turned, no one was there.
He walked on, after a few minutes stopped again.
Shrill voices echoed from the ruined brickworks. He heard laughter and then a shriek, followed by the sound of an argument.
His hands trembled with anticipation. He shoved them back into his pockets and continued at a brisker pace, picking his way through broken glass and boards riddled with nails, until he reached the phantom arch, the name FELLISON’S carved into its bricks. He stood there, hidden from view, and watched the scene in front of him.
Children played in the ruins, all girls. He counted seven, clad in a patchwork of drab plaid dresses and pinafores. One girl, blond and taller than the rest, stood atop a pile of bricks, hands on her hips as she surveyed her kingdom. Two smaller girls crouched at her feet, whispering to each other and holding hands. The others remained a safe distance away and warily circled the mound. No one seemed to have spotted him.
A girl broke from the circle to shriek imprecations that the tall girl ignored. Another girl, stout and red haired and wearing a grimy gingham dress, clambered up the brick hill and reached for the two girls who crouched at the blond’s feet. They bellied onto the rubble
and stretched their hands out to her.
“Save us, Brigid! Save us!”
“Mother Witch, Mother Witch, have you seen my baby?” the redhead, Brigid, cried as she skidded back down the pile.
The blond girl playing the witch straightened. Sharp featured, she looked as though she’d blacken the eye of anyone who’d dare approach her. She stooped to grasp each of the smaller girls by the collar. The two captives laughed. The redhead again scrambled up the bricks, shouting, “Mother Witch, Mother Witch, have you seen my sister? She’s the one still wets the bed!”
“I do not!” one of the captives yelled.
The witch sprang at the interloper, and the girl fled with a shriek. The others collapsed with laughter as the witch raced down to grab an unwary girl’s arm. As she dragged her up the brick hill, Brigid turned to smack a smaller girl with russet plaits like her own.
“Shit! Una, why weren’t you watching?”
Una, skinny and freckled, lunged at her. The two fell and tussled until the smaller girl began to sob. Brigid stumbled to her feet, screeching, “Whyn’t you just go home?”
“I’m telling Ma!” Una pushed herself up, face crimson. “You’re supposed to be watching Danny!”
“If you tell Ma, I’ll kill you, you little brat!”
She pushed Una down again and rejoined the game.
Una wiped her nose and shrieked, “I hate you!” She struggled to her feet and stalked off, picking up chunks of brick and throwing them at the others.
Still hidden in the brick arch, he watched her pass, counted to sixty, and began to follow her. At first he stayed a good distance behind, but as the sounds of the game grew fainter, he hastened his steps. The girl walked aimlessly past the slag heaps, her pace slowing as she approached an abandoned warehouse. She picked up a rock and threw it at a window, nodding in satisfaction as the glass shattered.
He sidled toward the warehouse, staring at his feet as though deep in thought, even as he gazed from the corner of his eye to make sure the girl hadn’t seen him. When he saw her stiffen, he stopped short.
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