“Nah, they’re off at the Casino. They gave me money, but I spent it all.” She gestured at the crane, cradling the Kewpie.

“Are you hungry? Would you like an ice cream?”

Her eyes narrowed and he quickly added, “Only if your parents give permission.”

The girl snorted. “They don’t care what I do, long as I don’t smoke.”

He smiled. “I promise, I won’t let you smoke. Come on, let’s find the ice-cream cart.”

They walked along the Pike, the girl toying with her prize and seeming disinclined to pay him much attention, though she smiled obediently whenever he caught her eye. He took care to weave through the heart of the crowd, to not get too close to her, to affect the pleasant, detached expression of some benign male relative, an uncle or her father. If necessary, within seconds he could lose himself in the mass of Sunday visitors.

But they passed no one the girl knew. And while there might well be people here who knew him, he felt safely hidden behind the anonymity of his hat brim, tipped to shade a face that was utterly unremarkable, save for those occasions when it needed to be. Thousands of men—tens of thousands—surrounded him, each clad almost exactly as he was, in seersucker, white shirt, celluloid collar, bow tie, gun-metal calfskin shoes. He slipped among them like an eel, his gaze seldom leaving the girl beside him.

As they drew near the ice-cream cart, he gave her a dime. “You go and get whatever you want,” he said, lifting his head just enough to reveal his smile beneath the hat’s brim. “I’ll be in the shade over there.”

He gestured to a stand of rhododendrons, watched her run to join the line. He felt as though he stood on a cliff edge, leaning over so as to feel the air rushing up at him from that black place where he could dive and never be followed. Not yet, anyway, not this minute or the next: he would capture as many as he could until time ran out for all of them, himself, too, but he would pluck a garden’s worth of girls before it did.

He headed to the rhododendrons and stepped into the thicket, removed the heroin cordial and a tin of lemon drops. He opened the tin and let a few drops of cordial fall onto each lozenge, closed the tin and shook it, then repeated the process. When he finished, he pocketed the tin, sucking his fingers to remove the sticky residue. He glanced around to make sure no one had seen him, and strolled back to the Pike.

The girl ran up to him, grinning, the Kewpie in one hand and a cone of strawberry ice cream in the other. “Thanks!” she said breathlessly.

“You’re very welcome,” he replied with a smile. “Now, how about a movie?”