The girl squealed—Chaplin must have goosed her. He kissed her on the mouth, slid his hand across her rump, and pushed her away, laughing. He lit a cigarette and turned to Spoor, said something to him as he gestured at the girl. The two men laughed.

“Maria and whatever your name is!” Carrera yelled impatiently. “The door, girls, the door!”

The two girls scampered to the back of the set. Maria, the one Chaplin had kissed, fell. She pushed herself back to her feet, examined her dress, and cried, “Now it’s torn!”

“Nobody cares!” yelled Carrera. “Keep going!”

Both girls disappeared behind the painted plywood walls as Chaplin was hustled from the room.

“Here you go, kid.” Pin started as Lionel handed her the Omar cigarette box containing Max’s money. “I’m heading home. Don’t stick around,” he added, and walked off.

She peeked inside the box with its image of a pharaoh and saw three rolled-up dollar bills. No nickel. He’d stiffed her for the streetcar fare back to Riverview again. Pin swore under her breath. “Goddamned piker,” she said.

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

SHE RETURNED TO Riverview, sweaty and out of sorts. The truss she wore beneath her shirt chafed at her painfully in the heat. She ducked into the shadows behind Max’s tent to adjust the elastic, then stepped over to lift a canvas flap and peer inside.

A dozen men stood at the foot of a makeshift stage—to judge by their yeasty smell and unsteady balance, most of them already drunk. They watched as Max turned, displaying first a man’s profile, then a woman’s. Electrical bulbs with pink gel shades bathed the room in sunset light, an effect heightened by the haze of cigar smoke that hung above the small audience.

“Cat got your tongue?” one of them yelled. “Say something!”

“A lady doesn’t speak until spoken to,” purred Maxene.

Pin was always amazed at how the illusion persisted. She knew Max was a man dressed—half dressed—as a woman, yet the combination of pink lights and shadows, and Max’s own peculiar magic, really did summon a woman up there on the stack of wooden crates covered with a muslin sheet.

Maxene lifted a delicate hand to adjust the limp ostrich feather sewn to a saggy lump of felt that served as both derby and cloche. “And a gentleman always says please.”

Maxene arched her neck, turning so that Max regarded the onlookers. “Please,” he repeated in Max’s own deeper voice, “or else.”