Evie made one last appeal via the radio at the end of the show. “This is the Sweetheart Seer with a message for Sergei—I’m sorry. Please come home. And by home, I mean the Knickerbocker.”
WGI was so ecstatic about the news that Sam was a Diviner that they insisted on hosting a party that evening at the Knickerbocker Hotel. The telephone operators and secretaries had spent the entire afternoon burning up the telephone lines, inviting every swell in town, as well as any reporter with more than an inch of column space. By eleven thirty, the hotel’s ballroom was packed, but Sam was nowhere to be found, and Evie’s heart sank.
As she stood listening to a portly man in a tuxedo drone on about the stock market—“Safest place in the world to put your money. Put it all in today. Every last cent!”—a bellhop delivered a note on a silver tray. “A message for you from Miss Anna Polotnik?”
Evie tore open the envelope. The note read, simply, “Roof. Now.”
“Won’t you excuse me?” Evie said sweetly. She sauntered gracefully from the room, then hiked up her dress and ran for the stairs.
“There you are,” Evie said, huffing and puffing as she came out onto the hotel’s roof. “I’ve been looking everywhere.”
“Congratulations. You found me.” Sam leaned forward, resting his forearms on the wide stone ledge. “How’s the party?”
“Oh, you know. Lots of hot air and silver gravy boats. Aren’t you cold?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to go inside?”
“No.”
“Are you all right?”
“Sure.”
“Are you lying?”
Sam shrugged and stared out at the jagged city. It was clear he wasn’t coming down, so Evie propped open the door with her purse and went to stand beside him. Searchlights had been positioned down below, compliments of WGI. White-hot, they swept back and forth, bouncing off anything with shine.
“That time we went to the Tombs to see Jacob Call,” Evie said softly. “That policeman looked right at us. You put up your hand, and it was like he couldn’t see us. Like we were cloaked in some way.”
Sam didn’t answer.
“How long?”
Sam shrugged. “I never know. Depends on how suggestible the person is. I’ve had folks who last twenty seconds and some who come around quick—I’ve been caught with my hand in the cookie jar, so to speak. Usually, it’s about ten to twelve seconds. Long enough to grab the goods if you’re fast. And I am.”
“I meant how long have you been able to do this don’t see me routine?”
“Since I was a kid, maybe eleven, twelve? We’d moved to a tough part of Chicago. These older boys used to bully me, knock me around for being a Jew and for being scrawny and little. There was no way I could take ’em all on. But once I learned that I could do that,” he said, putting out his hand, “it was like hiding in plain sight. It made me feel like I wasn’t this small, sick kid at their mercy. For the first time, I felt powerful.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before, when you knew about me?” Evie asked.
Sam let out a long exhale. “I needed it to be a secret until I found my mother.”
“But now it’s not a secret any longer.”
“No. I reckon it’s not.”
“Why did you do that today?”
“You’re honestly asking me that?” Sam looked at Evie, and suddenly, she knew. Don’t see me was more than Sam’s Diviner power; it was his entire worldview. It was how he’d gotten along in life, keeping hidden, only letting people see what he wanted them to see. His whole life was a sleight of hand. And he’d risked it all. For her.
“I… thank you for saving my life,” Evie said quietly. Her face was hot and her head buzzed. She was too afraid to face Sam, so she stood beside him, and side by side, they stared out at the twinkling city. “I’m so sorry about what I said to Woody. I promise I thought I was helping you, Sam.”
Sam let out a long sigh. “I know. Who knows? Maybe that rat can find something useful after all. I suppose that soldier fella was right out of his mind. Shell shock.”