When the noise died down, Evie welcomed her second guest. When she’d finished with him, telling him where to find a cache of old war bonds his grandfather had hidden in the house, Evie waited for the Seer Singers to croon the Pears soap jingle, then stepped again to the microphone, the studio lights blazing in her eyes. Even though the home audience couldn’t see her, she knew from her daily elocution lessons that a smile could be communicated through the wires, so she kept hers bright.
“Ladies and gentlemen, when I finish my radio show, I love nothing more than to relax with a nice hot bath. But when I bathe, I’m not alone.”
“You’re not?” the announcer shot back, shock in his tone.
“Oh, no! I have company in my tub.”
“Why, Miss O’Neill!”
“Dear me, Mr. Forman! It’s Pears soap, of course! Pears keeps a girl’s complexion smooth and lovely even when the winter winds are howling like a jazz band. Why, it’s so pure, even I can’t see anything in it!”
“That’s pure, indeed! Choose Pears—the modern choice for you and your loved ones. Now, Miss O’Neill, before we say good night, can you tell the fine members of our listening audience what you see?”
“I’d be happy to.” Evie let her voice take on a faraway tone. “Yes… I can see into the future and I see”—she let the silence hang for a count of three—“that it’s going to be a swell evening here on WGI, so don’t dream of touching that dial! This is Evie O’Neill, America’s Sweetheart Seer, saying thank you and good night, and may all your secrets be happy ones!”
As Evie passed down the long Art Deco hallway of the radio station, people called out their congratulations: “Swell show, Evie!” “Gee, that was terrific!” “You’re the berries, kid!”
Evie drank up their praise like a champagne cocktail. She stopped for a second in the foyer of a large, wood-paneled office with gleaming black-and-gold marble floors. A secretary waved to her from behind a desk.
“Great show, Evie.”
“Thanks, Kaye!” Evie said, preening.
There were only two rules she followed on her show: One, she never went in too deep. That was what kept the headaches manageable. And two, no bad news. Evie only told the object holder what he or she wanted to hear. People wanted entertainment, yes, but mostly they wanted hope: Tell me he still loves me. Tell me I’m not a failure. Tell me I did right by my dead mother, whom I never visited, even when she called my name at the end. Tell me it’ll be okay.
“Loved the way you played with the money clip,” the secretary continued. “I sure was nervous for that Mrs. Rutherford.”
Evie strained to see into the office just beyond the secretary, but the burnished gold doors were shut. “Did… did Mr. Phillips like it?”
The secretary smiled sympathetically. “Gee, honey, you know how the Big Cheese is: He only shows up for the biggest names. Oh!” she said, catching herself. “Gee, I didn’t mean it like that, Evie. Your show’s very popular.”
Just not popular enough to get the full attention of WGI’s owner. Evie tried not to dwell on that fact as she grabbed her new raccoon coat and gray wool cloche from the coat-check girl and headed out front, where a small but enthusiastic crowd waited in the January drizzle. When Evie opened the door, they surged forward, their umbrellas like fat black petals of the same straining flower.
“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!”