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?”