Her voice trailed off, and her expression grew strange—not frightened but vacant. It unnerved him, and he stared at her, tongue-tied, until she blinked, the spell broken. She withdrew a small pouch, heavy with coins, turned her back to him, and made some adjustment to her blouse. When she turned back, the pouch was gone.

“I keep it with me,” she explained. “Even at night. If anyone’s going to steal it, they’ll have to kill me first. I have this, too.” She twitched her hand and held up a shiv.

Francis tried to hide his shock. “Well, I know where Pin gets his moxie, I guess.”

Once again her face grew masklike. She set the deck of cards on a small shelf, alongside a notebook and a hurricane lantern, and froze.

“Oh, God! I forgot all about this!” She picked up the notebook and shook her head. “A customer left it, I meant to go after him and give it back, but someone else came in right away.”

Francis glanced at the little book—the sort of notebook reporters like Bennie used. “I can bring it to the station house tomorrow—we have a lost-items box there, he might come to reclaim it.”

“Oh, could you? Thank you.”

She handed him the book. He slid it into his pocket and pulled aside the velvet drapes in the doorway. “I’ll secure us a table at the Casino,” he said. “After, we can do whatever you’d like—dancing, I hope.”

“I’d like that,” Gina replied, and smiled.

Chapter 53

Chapter 53

WHEN HE ARRIVED at his apartment, Lionel hung up his jacket and hat, removed his collar, and exchanged his shoes for his house slippers. He poured himself a glass of whiskey, set it on his desk beside the typewriter, and went to retrieve his notebook from his jacket. He’d begun writing the scenario in his head on the way home. If Essanay refused to let him make it into a photoplay, he’d turn it into a story and sell it to one of the adventure magazines. Someone was going to cash in on this Hell Gate killing: Why not him?

But the breast pocket of his jacket was empty. He found his handkerchief and coin purse in one of the other pockets, along with a toothpick. But the notebook was gone.

He cursed under his breath, pacing the room as he struggled to reconstruct the last few hours. His thoughts were still slightly blurred from Max’s hashish. When had he last had the notebook? In Fairyland? Yes, but it was after he’d left the woods that he’d seen all those cops at Hell Gate and realized that was where the murder had occurred. He’d written a note to himself, and then gone—where?