The girl’s corpse had floated to the opposite side of the canal, where a board protruded into the water. The body butted up against it and remained there, partially submerged. It would be easy to miss, just as easy to do what Pin had done—mistake it for a lost doll or one of the flash pots.

She started at the slap of water on a wooden hull. Flattening herself against the ledge, she watched an empty boat slowly round the corner. Only when it floated to within a few feet of her did Pin realize that both its passengers were in the front. A grunting man lay on top of a woman, flat on her back, her long skirt and petticoat pulled up so high they covered her face.

Pin shoved the filthy hair ribbon into her pocket, pushed herself to a sitting position, lowered her legs over the ledge, and, when the boat had almost passed, dropped into the back. The boat rocked as she pulled herself beneath the plank bench, heart pounding.

Faint stirring in front, murmurs, then silence. The rhythmic grunts started up again as the boat approached the turn where Satan waited, the boat’s occupants oblivious to the explosions of flash pots around them.

“Ho-ho-ho!”

Pin heard a muffled yelp from the front of the boat as a rubber-tipped pitchfork found its mark. By the time the boat shot back out into a dazzle of electrical lights, the man and woman sat side by side, the crushed silk flowers on her hat the only sign that anything illicit had occurred. As they spoke to each other, Pin edged out from beneath the bench, trying to locate Horace so she could avoid him.

She was in luck. Instead of Horace, she saw a lanky figure in overalls, cigarette clamped between his teeth—Johnny Iacono. He was in high school, a few years older than Pin. He usually worked the Thousand Islands but filled in at Hell Gate a couple of nights a week when he needed extra cash. Sometimes he’d buy cigarettes for Mugsy and the other boys, and once he gave Pin a nickel, when she was broke and had gone all day without eating.

She kept out of sight until she felt the thud of his boat hook as it snagged her vessel and pulled it alongside the wooden walkway. The man in front disembarked first and leaned in to help out his lady friend. As they sauntered off, Pin jumped from the boat.

“Pin! What the hell you doing?” Johnny pushed off the empty boat and stared at her. “That better not have been you sent that empty boat through a while ago.”

Pin stumbled toward him. “Listen, you gotta listen to me. Someone’s dead in there.” Grabbing his arm, she pointed into the tunnel. “A kid, a girl. I saw her this afternoon—”

Johnny shook her arm from his. “What the hell you talking about?”