But not for him. That would make a bad story. He knelt beside his bed and said one Our Father and two Hail Marys, one Glory Be to the Father, and the prayer to Saint Dymphna. He withdrew the scapular with Saint Dymphna’s picture and kissed it, tucked it back inside his shirt. Time to face the evil generals.
Chapter 91
SHE HAD MISSED the moment when Riverview’s thousands of electrical bulbs blazed on. Now the lights looked harsh and garish, the shadows they cast longer and blacker. Pin stood at the edge of the midway, feeling small and unprotected. Her disguise was not a disguise. It revealed her for what she really was: a girl, alone at night.
She forced herself to step out onto the Pike. Immediately she was buffeted by the passing crowd. People knocked into her without even noticing. If someone did notice, their eyes looked right through her. When she was a boy, they’d have reacted with anger or annoyance. But as a girl, she was too skinny and plain to look at twice, too young for any man to take an interest in her.
She prayed Max would be different. He was different. She prayed he would notice her, without recognizing her.
She longed to run, but she knew better. Girls didn’t run unless they were being chased. Her instinct was to keep her head down, but she was afraid the wig might slip off. So she walked and stared straight ahead, trying to look like a girl who knew where she was going. She wasn’t so young as to appear lost, the way a seven- or eight-year-old would. Still, as she passed the line for the Shoot-the-Chutes, a grey-haired woman reached out to grasp her sleeve.
“Are you on your own, young lady?”
Pin started to yank her arm away. But the woman’s face was kind, and two girls about Pin’s age flanked her in the line. Her granddaughters. Pin shook her head.
“No. My family’s waiting for me over by the Wild West Show. I was just getting a drink of water.”
The woman smiled. “All right, then. Have a nice time.”
The photograph of the doll grew limp between her fingers as she walked. She switched it to her other hand, wiping her sweaty palm on her dress. The thought of running into Ikie or Mugsy made her stomach hurt. She scanned the crowd but never saw them.
Beyond the glare of electrical lights, the sky had grown black. Thunder rolled, but the holiday mood and enormous crowds remained—it might have been the Fourth of July. She let the crowd carry her past the Wild West Show and the Ten-in-One, where people lined up five-deep for Armstrong’s Freak Show.
“Happened right where you’re standing, friend—that very spot!”
She pushed her way to the front of the crowd, to see if Red Friend recognized her. But he stared right through her. She was one of the line lice now, of no interest to him unless she was shelling out a dime.
The giant cuckoo clock started to call the hour, stopping at eight. Henry should be waiting for her near Hell Gate. She was late. She broke into a run as she neared Madame Zanto’s booth. But the arcade was so mobbed, not even her own mother would have recognized her.
Past the arcade, the crowds began to thin. No families here. These were grown-up entertainments—the minstrel show, the Woodland Cabaret, and run-down burlesque stalls.
And Max’s tent. There were more crushed cigars and cigarettes on the ground than earlier. The hand-lettered sign now read NEXT SHOW 10 O’CLOCK. He would wait till after that performance, she thought, and leave before the park closed at midnight.
She gnawed her lip, trying to steel herself. Max usually took a break around eight. He’d retire to his dressing room to remove his makeup, have a few pops of whiskey, then duck into the Woodland Cabaret for a quick dinner and a few glasses of beer. Afterward he’d wander down to Fairyland, smoking a cigarette under the trees. She’d seen him there several times when she’d returned from a delivery and hadn’t found him in his dressing room.
Her heart pounded as she drew closer to his dressing room. Would he have gone to the cabaret this evening? If he was in his room and saw her now, her plan would be ruined.
She stopped ten feet from his door. Through the window she saw a flicker of lantern light, the shadow of someone moving. She turned and slipped into the shadowy trees beside the path, crouching behind them. Waited.
Minutes passed. At last the light inside the shack went out. Pin held her breath as a tall figure in a white shirt and dark trousers emerged. No jacket, his boater pulled low to hide his face. He closed the door behind him but didn’t lock it, and walked in the direction of Fairyland, a glowing cigarette in one hand.
Pin watched until he disappeared into the woods, the yellow glow of his cigarette extinguished by the night, then sprinted toward his shack and slipped inside. The white suit hung where she’d last seen it beside the door. She reached into one pocket of his seersucker jacket—empty—then the other. The wallet holding the photographs was gone.
Chapter 92
HE KNOWS, SHE thought. He knows it was me.
She felt as she had felt back in the tunnel, the world peeled away like a mask to reveal a horror that had no words, dead girls indistinguishable from abandoned dolls. Quickly she pushed aside the jacket and stuck her hand into a pocket of the trousers that hung beneath it.
Inside was a first-class train ticket for the Capitol Limited, departing that night at eleven-fifteen from Chicago’s Grand Central Station and bound for Washington, D.C., along with a chit for a trunk being held at the station. She began to stuff the tickets into her pocket, then remembered she had no pocket.
And it would be stupid to take the tickets. He’d discover they were missing and flee immediately. And Max would be too clever to hop on the train. She and Henry would lose their chance. She stuffed the tickets back into the trouser pocket and slipped outside.
Girl or not, she broke into a run. In the near distance, the huge devil embraced the Hell Gate pavilion, leering in the floodlights. The line stretched almost all the way to Fairyland. A bolt of lightning flared across the horizon, and for a second illuminated a small figure standing atop the knoll. Henry. As she started up the hill, the small figure waved at her excitedly.
Idiot! What if someone saw him? If anyone looked up, they’d spot a man on top of the rise, gesturing like a lunatic. Lightning pulsed like the flash pots inside Hell Gate as she joined Henry where he stood, feinting at invisible attackers.
“Henry, no!” She tried to grab his arm. “Stop! It’s me—”
He froze and gaped at her. “Pin?” he said.
Chapter 93
HAD THE BOY forgotten? He’d been here for fifteen minutes, no, longer, twenty minutes at least, that damned clock! Damn the clock, damn the boy, he should have followed him! Stuck him with the knife, pushed him down the stairs and stabbed—
Oh, there he was.
Henry waved at the brave boy scrambling up the hill. See, I am here, General Evans! Just as you ordered, awaiting your commands! His sword flashed through the air: together they would defeat their enemy!
“Henry, no!” Someone grabbed his arm. “Stop, it’s me—goddamn it, Henry, stop.” Pin’s voice, but it wasn’t Pin. His hand dropped to his side.
“Pin?”
A girl stood in front of him. Pin’s height and skinny like Pin, but with yellow hair and a big blue bow, wearing a sailor blouse and skirt and clutching something to her breast. What the hell was she doing here?
“Are you lost?” he demanded.
The girl stared at Henry. Her anger gave way to a grin.
“It’s me,” she said. “Pin. This is the rest of the plan. I’m in disguise.”
Disguise! He shook his head in astonishment. “Pin? Pin? It’s you, really? Pin basket, pin box, pin…”
“Stop it!”
The girl slapped his hand, and he recoiled, eyeing her with suspicion. She could have murdered Pin, tortured him to learn of their plan.
“Prove it!” he shouted over a peal of thunder. “Prove it!”
She held up a small photograph. “Look at this. Henry, it’s me.”
He took the photo—the s
ame one Pin had shown him in his room, of a doll wearing a girl’s dress that was too big. You weren’t supposed to do what the doll was doing. It was supposed to be secret.
He looked back at the girl, the real girl, not this curious toy. She was biting her lip, the way Pin did when he was angry or frightened. And her voice…
It was Pin. He laughed and held the picture up in triumph, hopping up and down.
“Pin! Skin, twin—!”
“Damn it, Henry,” the girl begged, “please stop acting crazy.” She ducked behind the biggest tree, motioning him to follow.
“Do you want someone to see us?” she continued in an urgent whisper. “There are cops everywhere down there. I said I’d tell you the rest of the plan when I got here, so—stop doing that! Just listen, damn it!”
He forced himself to remain still. Stared at the doll photo so as not to gaze at her—his—that other face. Pin yet not Pin. It was hard to think of him as a boy, or a girl.
Pin took a deep breath. “Now you have to listen to me.”
He—she—told him everything.
“The She-Male!” he exclaimed. “Willhie and I saw him—he belongs in a museum!”
“He belongs in jail.”
“Where is he now? Hell Gate? Fate!”
“No. The woods—Fairyland.”
“I can pounce on him and wrestle him to the ground!”
“No.” The girl not Pin shook her, his, head emphatically. “This is the plan. I’m going down to find him in the woods. I’ll…entice him.”
“What if he tries to hurt you?”
“I have my shiv.”
“Is it poisoned?”
“No.”
“Too bad, too bad.”
She gazed at his hand, the one that didn’t have the photo. “Your knife—I told you to bring your knife.”
Without a word he pulled it from the sheath in his sock and slashed at the air. Light shone from his blade like fire, like lightning, like—
She grabbed his arm and forced it to his side. “Not now, you idiot! Wait until you follow me and he shows himself. That’s when you attack him, we both will—I have a knife, too. We’ll shout for the police, and if they don’t come, we’ll force him to go to the station house with us.”
He shrank from her touch, shuddering. But he put the knife away.
“I need to go.” She looked down toward the picnic grounds. “He has a ticket for a train tonight at eleven-fifteen. We need to capture him now.”
“Can I keep the photograph?”
“No. We need that to show the police. They won’t believe us otherwise. If we have to kill him…”
“I killed someone before.”
“Was it—was it hard?”
He shrugged. “Not as hard as dying.”
The girl nodded. “Wait till I reach the bottom of the hill, then come after me. Don’t act crazy. And don’t take too long.”
Pin stared at him. Henry opened his mouth to tell her—him—to wait, they should go together, maybe they should tell the police. He had the photograph. They might believe them.
But it was too late. Pin was gone.
Chapter 94
SHAME FILLED FRANCIS after he left Gina Maffucci. He’d said or done the wrong thing, misunderstood something crucial. Yet what had he failed to comprehend? What had he said that was so wrong?
Steady rolls of thunder rode on a wind that carried the bitter smell of smoke from the nearby brickyard. The Black Hand must be there, burning God knows what, or who. As if things weren’t terrible enough. As he drew near Hell Gate, he wished the sky would open and wash it all away to Lake Michigan.
“Francis!” Bennie Hecht pushed his way through the crowd toward him. “I’ve been looking for you all day, couldn’t find you.”
Francis felt a small spur of relief. He lifted his chin to indicate the shouting throng around them. “No? Are you surprised?”
“Nope. See any sign of him?”
“Not a thing. He could be twenty miles away. Or on a train to Wichita.”
“Do you think he is?”
“No.”
“Why not?” Bennie stared at him eagerly—not the way Riverview’s patrons did when asking for directions to the washroom, nor with Hickey’s impatience, or the other park sergeants’ veiled contempt for a man who’d been sent down from the city force. Bennie looked at him like he had back when Francis had been detective sergeant at Robey Street, and the two of them had met at Barney Grogan’s saloon to hash out the particulars of a fink’s murder, or the suspicious suicide of a man known to owe money to the Black Hand.
“I think he’s here, right now,” Francis confided as they passed the packed entrance to Hell Gate. “That Irish girl attacked him and escaped. He’ll be thinking of that—how he failed. He could have left Chicago after he killed the girl in Hell Gate, but he didn’t—he murdered another girl the next day. He’s like a trophy hunter, only he collects children.
“And today they’re all here,” he went on, looking around them. “He knows we’re looking for him. But he won’t be easily recognized. Another man in a suit and boater hat…”
“Well, he may have changed his clothes, Francis,” Bennie said. He cocked a thumb at the dark-ride pavilion. “Think he’s in there?”
“I doubt it. There’re plainclothesmen all over it, and around the Miniature Railway and the duck pond. He’ll know that—he’s smart. If he’s at Riverview, I think he’ll go there—”
He raised his billy club to indicate the woods, then craned his neck to scrutinize the small rise overlooking Hell Gate. “We could go up there, catch a view…”
Bennie nodded, staring at the knoll. He frowned. “What’s that?”
Francis halted to see where he pointed. Atop the rise stood two figures—a man, not very tall, and a girl. The man held some kind of knife, its blade catching the light as he parried at the girl. She gestured frantically, he lowered the blade, and she fled downhill, toward the woods. Francis grabbed Bennie’s arm. “It’s him.”
They raced up the knoll, Bennie outpacing Francis until they neared the top. Night had taken the girl, but the man remained where he was, staring after her until, with a start, he saw them and bolted.
They nabbed him as he ran down the hill. Bennie grabbed his jacket; the little man shook him off and stumbled away until Francis tackled him, pinning him to the ground. He reached past the man’s writhing arms to pull a long-bladed knife from a sheath in his sock.
Bennie whistled. “I’ll be damned. That’s a Solingen.”
“Not yours!” the man shouted. “My father’s! My grandfather’s!”
Francis stood and yanked the man to his feet. He recognized him now—the weird stunted fellow who stood outside the incubators, watching little girls traipse in and out. He was a good head shorter than Francis and, despite his deep voice, appeared no older than Bennie. He thrashed and babbled like a lunatic, raving about a general, knives, a reward.
“Enough!” Francis shook the man violently. To his relief, he fell silent, though he continued to mouth words as he stared, wild eyed, down at the woods. “Tell me your name.”
The man grew rigid but said nothing.
“What were you doing with that girl?” prodded Bennie. “Who is she?”
“Not a girl!” The man lunged, nearly slipping free. “Pin. That’s Pin!”
Bennie grabbed his other arm as Francis held up the man’s knife. “I saw you threatening her, we both did.”
The man’s gibberish rose to a howl. “I—did—not!”
“I said enough!” Francis yanked the man toward him. “You need to come with me, sir. What is your name?”
Abruptly the man grew still. “General Henry Dargero. I’m from Brazil.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” said Francis. “Just tell me your name.”
“Henry,” the man said sullenly.
“Who’s the girl?”
“Not a girl!” The man trembled in agitation. “It’s Pin! Pin!”
Francis didn’t hear him. He stared at Henry. “What did you say? Pin? Did you say Pin?”
“Yes, of course! Pin! He’s in a dress—a mess, a disguise. Lies! The killer, we—”
“Pin?” repeated Francis. “You mean Pin Maffucci? In a dress?”
“Yes! I am telling you! The boy knows the man, he went to trap him, we have a plan, but you are preventing us—”
He gazed down to where Fairyland’s trees tossed in the wind and lightning spiked the haze of smoke from Bricktown. “Oh, damn you!” he shouted. “He’s alone there now, he’ll be murdered!”
“Forget this nonsense, Francis,” Bennie broke in. “The girl’s gone, she’s safe. Let’s take him and go.”
“Wait.” Francis looked at Henry. “Are you saying that was Pin we saw you with? The boy named Pin Maffucci?”
“Yes, Pin! We are great friends.”
“And he was, what—in a costume?”
“He is dressed as a girl. His idea.”
“And Pin knows the murderer?”
“Yes!” Henry cried. “I just told you!”
“Who is he, then? Tell me!” Francis urged him. “The killer.”
“The man with two faces.”
“Two faces?” Bennie frowned. “Someone in the freak show?”
Henry shook his head. “No, the She-Male.”
“Good God.” Francis stared at Bennie. “He means Max—the actor who dresses as a woman. Half woman, half man.”
“He’s a fairy?”
“Obviously he’s not, if he’s killing girls,” snapped Francis, and turned back to Henry. “Where’s Max gone, then? Do you know?”
“To Fairyland, Pin says he goes to the woods every night. Pin’s going to entice him. For the reward. I have to find them…”
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