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.