“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?”
Evie gave the reporter a tight smile. “I think it’s swell, Mr. Woodhouse.”
T. S. Woodhouse raised an eyebrow. “Do you?”
Evie fixed him with a stare. “Sure. Perhaps we’ll start our own nightclub—hoofers and hocus-pocus. If you’re nice, we’ll even let you in.”
“Maybe you’ll have your own union,” another reporter joked.
“There are some folks who say the Diviners are no better than circus freaks. That they’re dangerous. Un-American,” T. S. Woodhouse pressed.
“I’m as American as apple pie and bribery,” Evie cooed to more laughter.
“Love this Sheba,” the second reporter murmured, jotting it down. “She makes my job easy.”