She glanced back and saw her mother and Fatty whispering to each other as they watched her. She turned to Henry again, lowering her voice. “Did you talk to the cops?”

He shrugged, not meeting her eyes. “Tried to. They think I’m crazy. That policeman, too. He said it wasn’t me, he said the second man was taller. He lied to them.”

“I hate him,” she spat.

“I think he didn’t want them to arrest me, maybe. Because I had a knife. Life.”

She stared at her feet. She could feel Henry’s gaze, but when she raised her head, he looked away.

“They told me that you’re really a girl,” he said. “Is that true?”

She bit her lip, after a moment nodded. When she spoke, she no longer sounded defiant, just defeated. “They made me tell them my real name.”

“What is your real name?”

She took a deep breath. “Vivian.”

“Vivian?” He frowned. “Vivian?”

He repeated it several times, as though trying to find a rhyme. At last he shrugged. “Vivian is a good name. Boy, girl: same.”

He fumbled through his pockets. Pin let her breath out, relieved he wasn’t going to mock her as everyone else was sure to.

“Pin,” her mother called. “We need to go.”

Pin ignored her. She watched as Henry pulled out a small crumpled card and a pencil stub. He crouched, smoothed the card on his knees, and painstakingly wrote on it, pressing down hard for each letter, as though to make sure the words wouldn’t blow away. When he was done, he stuck the pencil back in his pocket and stared at the card. At last, satisfied, he handed it to her. For a fraction of a second, his pale blue eyes gazed directly into hers and didn’t look away.

“I knew you weren’t really a boy,” he said.

“How?”

“Because only a girl would be so brave.”

“Miss Onofria! Miss Onofria!”

Pin turned to see someone walking toward her, the reporter who’d gone to smoke his cigarette beneath a tree.

“I’d like to have a word with you, Miss Onofria,” he said, stopping to remove his hat. “A few words, to be honest. I’m Mr. Hecht, a reporter with the Daily News. I’ve already spoken to your mother, but I’d like to hear your side of the story. I suspect it’s a very interesting one.”

Pin thought, then nodded grudgingly.

“Yeah, okay,” she said. “Just hold on a minute.” She turned to say goodbye to Henry, but he was already shuffling back toward Workingmen’s House.

Chapter 102

Chapter 102

HE REACHED HIS room, elated, locked the door, and hurried to his desk. He hadn’t slept in nearly two days. Exhausted as he was, he felt wide awake, thrilled by the great events in which he’d taken part.