NO ONE HAD seen him as he hurried from the amusement park and hopped onto the streetcar, found a seat by the window, and rode to Uptown, hat on his lap. Reflexively he checked his pockets. One held his card case and wallet; the other, the girl’s balled-up dress, a bottle of Sydenham’s laudanum syrup, and a tin of lemon drops. When the streetcar reached its terminus, he walked several blocks and caught another one headed in the opposite direction. He hopped off a few blocks from the hospital and walked the rest of the way home.

He never took the same route twice. He’d learned that four years earlier, back at Coney Island, and a few months after that in Revere with Deirdre Monahan. The only way to reach Wonderland Amusement Park was by the Narrow Gauge from Boston, unless you had an automobile, or walked, or paid an outrageous sum for a taxi. So he’d taken the Narrow Gauge. Packed as the train car had been, he’d still worried about being recognized.

And he had been. As he rode the train back into Boston that evening, he saw the same young woman he’d inadvertently locked eyes with on the Narrow Gauge that morning, a strong-featured girl with an insolent black gaze and a pealing laugh that was loosed every time her male companion opened his mouth. Another Irish girl, they were always loud and bold. On the return trip from Wonderland she was alone, her color high and hair tousled by the sea wind. He wondered if she and her boyfriend had fought, or if she was a prostitute. She stared at him brazenly enough.

He moved to the back of the crowded train, desperate not to be seen. She followed him. Definitely a whore. He removed his boater and held it in front of his face, turning his back to her, but he could sense her gaze through the crush of passengers. When he climbed down at the station, she stood on the platform, waiting for him.

“Hello.” Smiling, she reached for his sleeve. He saw the heart-shaped mark on her neck where she’d been kissed hard, and the purplish cloud of a bruise. “I saw you at Wonderland by the roller coaster—want some company?”