Lair of Dreams

“Miss O’Neill! Miss O’Neill!”

Slips of paper and autograph books were waved at her. She signed each with a flourish before dashing down the alley toward a waiting taxicab.

“Where to, Miss?” the cabbie asked.

“The Grant Hotel, please.”

The rain was coming down; the taxi’s windshield wipers beat in time to some unseen metronome as they cleared the fogging glass. Evie peered out the taxi window at the study in smoke, fog, snow, and neon that was Manhattan’s Theater District at this late hour. A lightbulb-ringed theater bill featured an illustration of a tuxedoed man in a turban holding out his hands like a soothsayer while comely chorines danced under his enchanting sway. A sash at the top read COMING SOON—THE ZIEGFELD FOLLIES IN DIVINERS FEVER! A MAGICAL, MUSICAL REVUE!

Diviners were big and getting bigger, but so far, no Diviner was bigger than Evie O’Neill. If only James were around to see her now. Evie traced the empty space at her neck where the half-dollar pendant from her brother used to rest, a reflex.

A billboard for Marlowe Industries loomed above the jostling cab as they waited for the light to change. The billboard showed a silhouette of the great man himself, his arm gesturing to some nebulous future defined only by rays of sunshine. Marlowe Industries. The future of America.

“He’s coming to town soon, you know,” the taxi driver said.

Evie rubbed her temples to keep the headache at bay. “Who?”

“Mr. Marlowe.”

“You don’t say.”

“I do say! He’s breaking ground out in Queens for that whatchamacallit—that exhibition he’s planning. Traffic’ll be murder that day. I tell ya, he’s already given us the good life—automobiles, aeroplanes, medicine, and who knows what else. Now, that’s a great American.” The cabbie cleared his throat. “Say, uh, ain’t you the Sweetheart Seer?”

Evie sat up, thrilled to be recognized. “Guilty as charged.”

“I thought so! My wife loves your radio show! Wait’ll I tell her I drove you in my cab. She’ll have kittens!”

“Jeepers, I hope not. I’m all out of cigars.”

The light changed and the cab turned left off the arterial throughway of Broadway, following the narrow tributary of Forty-seventh Street east toward Beekman Place and the Grant.

“You’re the little lady who helped the cops catch the Pentacle Killer.” The cabbie whistled. “The way he butchered all those people. Taking that poor girl’s eyes? Stringing that fella up in Trinity Cemetery with his tongue cut out? Skinning that chorus girl and—”

“Yes, I remember,” Evie interrupted, hoping he would take the hint.

“What kind of person does that? What’s this world coming to?” The cabbie shook his head. “It’s these foreigners coming over, bringing trouble. And disease. You hear there’s some kinda sleeping sickness now? Already got about ten people with new cases every day. Heard it started in Chinatown and spread to the Italians and Jews.” He shook his head. “Foreigners. Oughta t’row ’em all out, you want my opinion.”

I don’t, Evie thought.

“There’s talk the killer—that John Hobbes fella—wasn’t even human. That he was some kinda ghost.” The cabbie’s eyes met hers in the rearview mirror for a moment, seeking either confirmation or dismissal.

Evie wondered what the cabbie would say if she told him the truth—that John Hobbes was most definitely not of this earth. He was worse than any demon imaginable, and she’d barely escaped with her life.

Evie looked away. “People say all sorts of things, don’t they? Oh, look. Here we are!”

The driver pulled up to the monolithic splendor that was the Grant Hotel. Through the cab window, Evie spied a scrum of reporters staked out on the hotel steps, smoking and trading gossip. As she exited the cab, they dropped their cigarettes along with whatever gossip du jour held their fickle interest and surged forward to greet her, shouting over one another: “Miss O’Neill! Miss O’Neill! Evie, be a real sweetheart and look this way!”

Evie obliged them, posing with a smile.

“How was the show tonight, Miss O’Neill?” one asked.

“You tell me, Daddy.”

“Find out anything interesting?”

“Oh, lots of things. But a lady never tells—unless it’s on the radio for money,” Evie said, making them laugh.

One smirking reporter leaning against the side of the hotel called out to Evie: “Whaddaya think about all these Diviners coming forward now that you let the cat out of the bag on your own talents?”