FRANCIS HAD NO luck tracking the pickpocket at the Infant Incubators. No one working there recalled seeing anyone suspicious, except for that same queer little man who was there a few times a week. Francis knew him by sight—shabby and probably touched in the head, always talking to himself. Sometimes he was with another man, tall and gangly as a scarecrow. One of the nurses thought the two guys might be chesters, the way they watched the children in the park. But you couldn’t haul off a guy for looking, and anytime the little man saw Francis coming, he took off.

Francis returned to the station house and spoke to the lady who’d lost her reticule. She was obstreperous and middle-aged—he pegged her for a suffragist.

“I don’t know what you’re getting paid for, if you can’t find a common criminal,” she exclaimed, smoothing her expensive skirts as she stood. “I’m going to write Mr. Baumgarten a letter of complaint.” Karl Baumgarten was the amusement park’s owner.

“I think that’s a good idea,” Francis replied, and steered her toward the station-house door. “He’ll be very interested in what you have to say, I’m sure.”

He returned to his rounds, keeping an eye out for trouble. There were seven midways at Riverview, all linked by the Pike, and almost a hundred concessions, nearly every one rigged. You’d think people would know better by now, yet fights still broke out when men realized they’d been taken. But today it was too hot for fighting in the late-afternoon heat, and too early for the serious drunks to emerge from the beer garden or Woodland Cabaret.

Sunset found him by Hell Gate. Not many people in line, so he took advantage of the lull to stand in the shade of a pin oak and remove his helmet. He looked around absently—balloon man, hokeypokey cart, lots of high-school kids. No sign of that hooligan Mugsy, who’d end up in prison if he didn’t find a job in the stockyards once summer ended.

He set his helmet back on his head and headed for the path that led to the adult attractions—Salome’s tent, the She-Male, the Woodland Cabaret, the booth that specialized in art postcards. Past a grassy clearing, the path forked. To the right, you’d end up in Fairyland, the woods frequented by picnickers and trysting couples.