THEY HAD SUPPER at the Casino Restaurant, where Gina made short work of a Wiener schnitzel. Francis had hurriedly returned to the station house, where he kept a change of clothes suitable for an evening out. But after dinner, Gina didn’t want to go to the Palace Ballroom.

“I work there some nights,” she said, and made a face. “Showing people with two left feet how to do the fox-trot.”

“You’re a dance teacher, right?”

“Not really a teacher. I demonstrate new dances, show them the steps. Sometimes men get a little fresh, but they’re usually there with someone.”

“Animal dances?”

“That’s right. Grizzly bear, bunny hug, fox-trot, turkey trot. Dime a dance. Anyone gets frisky, Mr. Schneyer shows ’em right out.”

Francis nodded, unsure what to say. He would have thought she’d be too embarrassed to admit such a thing. Or, at the least, that she’d blush while making the confession. Instead, she went on as though she’d been the one to ask him to dinner.

“Let’s go to the cabaret,” she said. “The girls I work with, we go all the time. They have a good singer, Sunday night’s a piano player, but he’s good, too.”

Back out on the Pike, they might have been any couple. Francis hesitated to offer her his arm, but Gina took it on her own. He smiled down at her. A few more good German dinners would put some meat on those bones.

The Woodland Cabaret was on the far side of the park, near the arcade and minstrel show. It was managed by a colored woman named Bella Bynum, who kept a pistol in her pocket and had patented a system of alarms that made her a pile of money. “If I had ten men like her on the force, I could retire,” Hickey often said. When Francis and Gina entered, Bella sat at a table, reading Popular Mechanics magazine.

“Gina! You got a date.” Bella set aside her magazine. She was a few years older than Gina, clad in a stylish blouse with a Ritz collar. “Or this another student?”

“Just a friend,” said Gina.

As Bella turned to Francis, her expression cooled. “I know you.”

Francis shrugged. “I’m off duty now.”

“You stayed on the job long enough to arrest Clyde.”

Francis blushed as Gina raised a warning hand. “I’m sure he had nothing to do with that. How is he, Bella? Did he get hold of Mr. Nelson?”

“He did. That lawyer charges like he’s the king of Sweden.” Bella’s gaze returned to Francis. “Only right thing to do is release an innocent man.”

Francis took Gina’s elbow. “Why don’t we call it a night?”

“’Cause I don’t want to,” she snapped. “And we all know Clyde’s innocent. We came here to dance—will that be a problem, Bella?”

“I guess not,” she said, and waved them inside.