It was stifling up here. The walls were the color of a rare tenderloin, the horsehair seats upholstered in red velvet. Electrical lights glimmered behind ruby-glass shades, as a pall of rising tobacco smoke settled over them.

“Can you see?” he asked the girl, pointing to the screen far below. A small figure sat in front of a huge pipe organ and began to play Bach’s Fugue in D Minor.

“I can see just fine.” Gilda slumped into her seat, the celluloid doll in her lap.

After a few minutes, the organist walked backstage. A line of women marched into the orchestra pit and played “Paragon Rag.” He reached into his jacket pocket for a tin of lemon drops, opened it, and popped one in his mouth before holding it out to her.

“Care for a lemon drop?”

She took one, her gaze fixed on the Ladies’ Orchestra, and crunched it greedily. “Can I have another?”

“Help yourself.”

She took two more and stuck them in her mouth as he loosened his tie. She yawned and mumbled, “When’s it gonna start?”

“Soon.”

The Ladies’ Orchestra struck up a lively rendition of the overture to William Tell, finishing to loud applause. The electrical lights dimmed as a bright square appeared on the movie screen below. The music swelled into something ominous and unfamiliar, eerie piping, strings that sounded like human voices. The high-school boys fell silent and leaned over the rail, staring raptly as the screen filled with the image of a beautiful woman floating above a field, her hand extended to a black-clad man.

He glanced at the girl beside him, her glassy eyes only half open. The doll had slipped beneath her armrest. He picked it up and set it back in her lap.

The orchestra’s accompaniment grew louder. He watched as the phantoms on the screen journeyed among the damned, many of whom were indeed naked. As the orchestra’s playing grew louder and more feverish, he let himself sink down in his own seat, one anonymous shadow among many, as beside him the girl breathed heavily, and then not at all.

Chapter 46

Chapter 46

IS IT TRUE?” Bennie asked Francis when they were a safe distance from Robey Street. “About that other killing?”

“How could I make that up?”

“How’d you find out?”

“I’ll tell you—but what about filing your story?”

Bennie laughed. “I already did—it’ll hit the streets in half an hour. But maybe I should’ve waited. How the hell did you know about that murder in Boston?”

“Someone who used to live there told me about it, not more than an hour ago.”

“Is he trustworthy?”

“I believe him.”

“Think he’d talk to me?”

“No.”

“And they never caught whoever did it?”

“Not as far as I know.”

They waited at a corner to let a streetcar pass. Francis jangled the keys in his pocket, a habit when he was concentrating.