Pin nodded. She was working on an empty stomach: the whiskey, on top of whatever had been in the silver flask, made her woozy.

Max regarded her through eyes slitted like a cat’s. “How much?”

“Two bits.” She shifted uneasily.

“Ever take more when I’m not here?” She shook her head. “Why not?”

“Scared to,” she admitted.

“Good answer.” He picked up a dime and flipped it to her. “Go buy yourself a meal. I’m hungry just looking at you.”

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

CHAPLIN HAD TO sweet talk the girl, Valerie, into joining him for lunch at a hash house a few blocks from the studio. He’d asked her friend Glory first, but she’d just looked him up and down, her nose wrinkling as she pronounced, “You’re too old for me.”

Even with Valerie, it took a bit of doing—she wanted to eat at the canteen, where everyone would see her with him.

Out in the street, he was just another young dude smoking a cigarette, boater tipped jauntily as he took her arm and steered her through the restaurant to a table in the back. But she was amiable enough once he poured her a glass of beer, and even friendlier after she’d drunk two and he ordered her ice cream. He slid his hand beneath the white tablecloth, found her knee and pushed aside the folds of cotton, ran his fingers along her cheap silk stockings up to the warm skin plumped up between her garters and her cotton bloomers. She clicked the long spoon against her teeth as she stared, expressionless, at the strawberry ice melting in its metal bowl. He closed his eyes and thought of the buttercup-yellow-clad girl on the Essanay set, that sweet yellow bow on her dark ringlets and her smooth skin, no rouge save a dab on her lower lip so she’d resemble the large dolls in the toy shop.

“How old are you?” he’d asked her.

“Twelve,” she’d replied. “I was twelve in June.”

“When you’re sixteen I’ll marry you,” he’d whispered, and she giggled.

He moved Valerie’s free hand beneath the tablecloth and squeezed his eyes shut, as though the light hurt them. When he opened them again, all the ice cream had melted, so he ordered another dish for Valerie and one for himself. After they finished eating, he paid, walked her outside, and turned to go.

“You’re not coming back to the studio?” she asked, disappointed.

“I have an early train tomorrow.”

“Are you going back East?”

“Nope. California. I’m done with New York. Done with Chicago.” He lit another cigarette, tipped his hat, and strolled off in the afternoon sun.

Chapter 12

Chapter 12