SMOKE AND MIRRORS

Outside the Globe Theatre on Forty-second Street, the lighted marquee blazed FLORENZ ZIEGFELD PRESENTS NO FOOLIN’: A MUSICAL REVUE GLORIFYING THE AMERICAN GIRL in tall letters. People in eveningwear drifted into the grand beaux arts theater, excited to see stars like Fanny Brice, Will Rogers, and W. C. Fields, along with the talented singing, dancing chorines and the celebrated Ziegfeld girls, beautiful models who crossed the stage in elaborate headdresses and elegant, barely-there costumes. It was the epitome of glamour, and Evie could scarcely believe they were taking their very own seats up in the curved balcony beside all the swells in their furs and jewels.

Evie nudged Mabel. “Oh, look, there’s Gloria Swanson.” She nodded toward the lower level, where the seductive motion-picture starlet, draped in ermine and velvet, enjoyed the stares of admirers. “She is the elephant’s eyebrows,” Evie whispered appreciatively. “Those jewels! How her neck must ache.”

“That’s why Bayer makes aspirin,” Mabel whispered back, and Evie smiled, knowing that even a socialist wasn’t immune to the dazzle of a movie star.

The lights dimmed and the girls squeezed each other’s hands in excitement. The conductor lifted his baton and a rousing opening song rose from the orchestra pit. The curtains opened, and a bevy of smiling chorus girls in brightly colored bathing suits tap danced in perfect synchronization while a tuxedo-clad gentleman sang of beautiful girls. Evie had never been so excited. She loved everything about the show, from the funny yodeling number set in the Alps to the swirling dance that took place in the harem of a sheik of Araby. She wished it would never end, but she could see from the program that they had come to the finale. It was said that Mr. Ziegfeld always saved the most spectacular number for last. The lights flickered to suggest lightning. From the orchestra pit came the crash of cymbals and the sharp shriek of violins against a violent drumbeat. Smoke pooled near the footlights and crept out into the audience. Onstage, barefoot, skimpily dressed girls wearing tall, beaded headdresses writhed suggestively below a replica of a golden altar. A blond beauty draped provocatively in golden silk stood on top of the altar. She danced as if in a trance while the music swelled and the lightning flashed. The beauty sang sweetly, begging the spirit world not to take her as a sacrifice to the golden idol. Along a catwalk, elegant Ziegfeld girls promenaded like ghosts. It was mesmerizing, and Evie sat forward, rapt.

“There’s Theta,” Mabel whispered. From her lap, she gestured discreetly to a chorus girl, second from the right. Even though she was dressed and made up to look like all the other girls, there was something special about Theta, Evie thought. The other dancers’ placid expressions suggested they were thinking about nothing more exciting than washing out their stockings after the show. But Theta made you believe she was a worshipper of Ba’al, lost to the frenzy.

Just as the action reached a fever pitch and the priest was about to plunge the knife into the heart of the sacrificial blond, the hero rushed the altar, fighting off the worshippers. He knocked the priest back, smashed the idol, and carried the bewitched girl down the lighted steps to safety. A bevy of chorus girls glissaded across the stage with huge feather fans, and suddenly the scene transformed into a wedding. The dancing girls tossed red rose petals as the now husband and wife, clad in virtuous white, sang to each other a pledge of eternal love before the curtains snapped shut on the whole affair and the show was ended.

“You were wonderful,” Evie exclaimed a short while later, as the four of them—Evie, Mabel, Theta, and Henry—walked the tree-shaded, narrow bend of Bedford Street in Greenwich Village on their way to a party one of the girls was hosting.

“Yeah. ‘Second girl from stage left’ is my specialty,” Theta deadpanned.

Henry took her arm in his. “Keep working, darlin’, and you just might be ‘first girl from stage left.’ ”

“Well, I thought you were the duck’s quack,” Evie said. “Mabel and I noticed you right away. Didn’t we, Mabesie?”

“And how!”

“You’re sweet to say so, kid. This is the joint, here.”

They’d stopped at a redbrick building. The party had spilled out onto the stoop, where a girl in a feather boa, a long cigarette holder angled between two fingers, was already drunk. She blocked their way with her leg. “What’s the password?”

“Long Island,” Henry said.

“You have to say it like this: Lawn Guy-land,” she instructed.

“Lawn Guy-land,” they all said.

“Entrez!” The girl let her leg drop with a thump and the four of them pushed their way into the foyer and up three flights of stairs dotted with birdlike clusters of people till they came to an apartment whose door was propped open by an ice bucket. Inside, the radio played a jazzy number. The hostess shimmied past them with a loud “You’ve arrived!” before disappearing into another room as if riding an unseen tide. There was a lamp on the floor, and a bust of Thomas Jefferson topped by someone’s cloche gazed at the four of them from one of the burners on the tiny kitchen’s even tinier stove. A fella crooned “I’ll Take Manhattan” for a few of the chorus girls and their friends, who sat at his feet singing along.

Mabel tugged on Evie’s sleeve. “I’m not really dressed for this party.”

“Nothing we can’t fix with a little smoke and mirrors, Pie Face,” Evie said. With a sigh, she removed her rhinestone headband with the peacock feathers and placed it on Mabel’s head. “Here, you go, Mabesie. You look like the Christmas windows at Gimbels. And who doesn’t love those?”

“Thanks, Evie.”

“Bottom’s up,” Theta said, handing them each a drink.

Mabel stared at hers. “I don’t really drink.”

“First sip’s the roughest,” Henry advised.

She took a sip and winced. “That’s awful.”

“The drunker you get, the better it tastes.”

Evie was so nervous that she downed her cocktail in two stiff swigs, then refilled her glass.

Henry arched an eyebrow. “A pro, I see.”

“What else is there to do in Ohio?”

An argument was heating up in the parlor, and a woman’s shrill voice rang out. “If you don’t pipe down about that, I’m going to call that occult killer myself and ask him to do you in, Freddie!”

Everyone began chattering about the murder under the bridge and the latest warning.

“A pal of mine who has a cousin who’s a cop told me it was a sex crime.”

“I heard it’s a beef between the Italians and the Irish mobsters, and she was somebody’s moll who got too friendly with the wrong fella.”

“It’s definitely some kind of old-country hoodoo. They shouldn’t keep letting these foreigners into the country. This is what happens.”

“Evil’s uncle is helping the bulls try to find the killer,” Theta informed them.

Everyone crowded around Evie, badgering her with questions: Did they have any suspects? Had the victim lost her eyes, like the papers said? Was it true the girl who’d been murdered was a prostitute? Evie had barely had a chance to answer even one of their questions when a girl shouted from the doorway, “Ronnie’s got the ukulele out! Boop-boop-a-deet-deet-doh-doh-da!”

And just like that, they were on to the next thing, from one thrill to the next with no time to stop. Evie felt small and dull beside their wattage. They were all so glamorous and exciting. Theater people who could sing and dance and act, who knew bankers and high rollers. What could Evie do? What talents did she have that made her stand out?

Evie was vaguely aware that she had one toe over the line of drunk. A tiny, urgent voice of reason told her to slow down and keep quiet. That what she was about to do was probably a bad idea. But since when had she ever listened to reason? Reason was for suckers and Presbyterians. Evie downed the rest of her martini and slithered closer to the smart set singing along with the ukulele.

“You’ll never guess what I can do,” Evie said brightly as they finished a round of “If You Knew Susie.” “I’ll give you a hint: It’s like a magic trick, only better.” Ronnie paused his fingers on the strings of the ukulele. She had their attention now, and she liked it. “I can read secrets from just any old thing. Boop-boop-a-ding-dong… ding-dong.”

Theta swiped Evie’s glass and sniffed it.

“Really, I can! Here.” She reached over and grabbed a girl’s earring, ignoring her protests. For dramatic effect, Evie pressed the earring against her forehead. For a moment she hesitated—what if she heard that horrible whistling, like she had with Ruta Badowski? But the second she thought that, the more determined she was to take that image from under the bridge right out of her mind, and soon the earring gave up its confessions. “Your real name is Bertha. You changed it to Billie before you moved here from… Delaware?”

The girl’s mouth opened. She clapped in glee. “Well, isn’t that just the berries! Oh, do something of Ronnie’s!”

Evie went from person to person, grabbing up little tidbits, getting better as she went. “Your birthday is June first and your best girl’s name is Mae.” “For dinner, you went to Sardi’s and had the corned beef.” “You have a parakeet named Gladys.”

“Say, that’s swell—you oughta have an act, kid!” Ronnie the ukulele player said.

“I will have an act!” Evie said loudly, letting the gin do the talking. “I’ll turn my living room into a salon, and every night, people will come up and I’ll tell them what they had to eat. All the columns will write me up. I’ll be the Sandwich Swami.”

Everyone laughed, and their laughter tucked itself around Evie like the warmest of blankets. This was the best city in the world, and Evie was diving right into the thick of it now. Within the hour, she’d gotten a read from about a dozen objects, and she was positively woozy. The hour was late—or early, depending on how you read it. Some fella had wrapped his striped tie around her head and tied it off in a half bow. Mabel had fallen asleep on the sofa. The hostess had left a tray of sandwiches balanced on Mabel’s stomach, and from time to time a partygoer would stagger by and steal one. Near her feet, a passionate couple embraced in a never-ending lip-lock.

Henry settled next to Evie. “Say, sugar, that’s some party trick you’ve got. Tell me the truth: You were a magician’s assistant.”

“Uh-uh,” Evie said, grinning.

“Well, how did you learn how to do that?” Henry pressed. “Have you always been able to…” He put his fingers on her forehead and mimed reading her thoughts, making Evie laugh. She was drunk enough to tell him the truth, but some tiny voice inside told her not to. The evening had been so perfect. What if it turned sour, like the last party?

“A lady never tells,” Evie slurred.

Henry seemed like he was on the verge of asking her something else. Evie could feel it. But then he got that smirk again. “Of course she doesn’t.”

“Do you want me to tell you your secrets, Henry?”

“No thanks, darlin’. I love living in suspense. Besides, if I told myself all my secrets, I’d lose my mystery.” He raised one eyebrow and pursed his lips like John Barrymore in Don Juan, and Evie felt she’d made the right call.

She giggled. “I like you, Henry.”

“I like you, too, Evil.”

“Are we pals-ski?”

“You bet-ski.”

Theta crashed next to them on the thick zebra-skin rug. “I’m embalmed.”

“Potted and splificated?”

“Ossified to the gills. Time for night-night.”

“Whatever you say, baby vamp.”

“Theta.” Evie waved a finger in Theta’s general direction. “You didn’t let me tell your secrets.”

Theta wavered for a minute, but she was too drunk to say no. “Here ya go, Evil,” she said, passing over an onyx bracelet shaped like a jaguar. “My birthday is February twenty-third, and I had one of those limp sandwiches in the kitchen for dinner a million hours ago.”

Evie squeezed the bracelet and felt an overpowering sensation of sadness, and a trace of fear. She saw Theta running in the dead of night, her dress torn and her face a wreck. Theta was afraid, so very afraid.

Evie had to let go. When she opened her eyes, Theta was looking at her strangely, and all Evie could see was the other Theta, the scared girl running for her life. “S-sorry. I couldn’t get anything,” Evie lied.

“Just as well,” Theta said, taking the bracelet back. But she gave Evie a wary glance, and Evie hoped she hadn’t gone too far. Maybe it was best to keep her party trick under wraps for now.

A vase flew just over their heads and smashed against a wall, thrown by the blond from the Ba’al number. Daisy somebody. Now she was shouting. “Nobody ’preciates what I do for the show! Not Flo, not anybody! I’m a star and I could go out to Hollywood and be in the pictures anytime I wanted!”

“Good old Daisy,” Henry said knowingly.

“Time to blow,” Theta said.

Evie roused the sleepy Mabel, and Henry grabbed their coats. Evie kept diving for her sleeve with her left arm but missed it each time, and Henry finally had to put the coat on her.

Evie patted his face. “Send me the bill for your services, Henry.”

“Free of charge.”

Arm in arm, the four of them wound through the bohemian streets of Greenwich Village, past the tiny nightclubs and artists’ garrets. As they did, they sang a song Henry had made up, a ridiculous ditty that rhymed “she sat her fanny on a boy named Danny,” which broke Theta up every time. The first tentacles of a monstrous headache were creeping up the back of Evie’s neck, tightening across her skull and making her eyes hurt. She couldn’t quite shake what she’d experienced while holding Theta’s bracelet. She didn’t know what terror Theta had been running from, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know, so she sang louder to drown out the voices in her head. At the edge of Washington Square Park, Henry stopped and hopped onto a park bench.

“Did you know this used to be a potter’s field? There are thousands of bodies buried under this land.”

“I might be one of ’em soon,” Theta said on a yawn.

“Look at that,” Henry said, gazing up at the golden moon bleeding its pale light into the inky spread of sky over the Washington Square arch. They tipped their heads back to take in the full beauty of it.

“Pretty,” Evie said.

“You said it,” Theta agreed.

“Oh, god,” Mabel whined. She turned toward the gutter and threw up.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 590