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don’t know. Ben, the barker. We heard that’s why she was killed, so she had to have been, right?”
    â€œDoes anyone work here who hates Jews?”
    â€œSheila hates everybody, says Jews and Communists are running the world. I don’t know. I hear a lot of people talking about it. Some of ’em say President Roosevelt is a Jew. That don’t mean they like Hitler any better. And it don’t mean they would’ve killed Pandora just ’cause she was one.” She looked up. “I’m sorry, Miss Corbie. I can’t help you. Sheila and me think Henry did it, ’cause he’s mean enough.”
    She shuddered, brushed past Miranda. “I’d better go in.”
    Her hand was on the knob, but she paused and faced Miranda again. “Lucinda really was Pandora’s friend. If anybody knows anything, it’s Lucinda. She won’t talk to us.”
    â€œWhere can I find her?”
    Ethel/Loretta shrugged. “Maybe at the Ron de Voo Restaurant, down the Gayway. She tries to get dates to take her there.”
    She was still clutching the Photoplay from earlier and flipped through the pages. “Lucinda’s kind of pretty, like Pandora was. Tries to look like Dorothy Lamour.” She pointed to a photo of the actress.
    Miranda slipped the five-dollar bill into the fold of the magazine. “Thanks.”
    â€œBut I didn’t ask—”
    â€œConsider it a contribution to stenography school.”
    Her mouth opened and gaped at Miranda. “How did you know I want to be a stenographer?”
    â€œYou’re practicing shorthand, aren’t you?” Miranda pointed to the margins of the open Photoplay .
    The girl smiled, her eyes and mouth falling back into tired lines as she drew the terry cloth around herself.
    â€œYeah. Funny way to make money. Thanks, Miss Corbie.”
    â€œBe careful, Ethel.”
    Miranda watched as the girl slipped behind the door.
    First Lucinda. Then Henry.
    It was going to be a long night.
    Miranda clutched her purse, reassured by the outline of the .22.
    *   *   *
    The Ron de Voo sat at the far end of the Gayway on the south side, over by the shooting galleries and the snake show, close to Jacobs’s animal exhibit and Henry Kaiser. The crowd in the long, narrow building was thick and chummy and loud, swing music strident, chatter brittle and trying too hard, wanting the blue and yellow neon words to live up to their promise before it was two A.M. and time to go home alone.
    â€œWe Three, My Echo, My Shadow and Me” floated above the chatter, skinny little Frank Sinatra singing for Tommy Dorsey and sounding about twelve. Miranda pushed her way past the music and through a curtain of blue gray smoke to the counter, where she threw a dime at a dishwater blond waitress with bags under her eyes and bought two rolls of Pep-O-Mint Life Savers. Unwrapped them quickly and popped two candies in her mouth at once. Leaned against the glass and surveyed the crowd. Tried not to think about a Chesterfield.
    She still looked like an old twenty-five, but hell, new fucking wrinkles every day, and Nielsen told her the tobacco speeded it up, whatever magic cream or tonic she lathered on her body not holding back time, not keeping her from old-lady age and a bent back. And she was tired of the yellow tint to her skin after a long night at the Moderne, voice harsh and raspy, no breath for the San Francisco hills.
    Face and body and license. All she had. All she was.
    We three … we’re all alone, living in a mem-o-ry … my echo, my shadow and me …
    All she wanted.
    Miranda reached across the chrome-and-Formica counter. Grabbed a toothpick and rolled it between her fingers. Thirty-five was two years ahead, whole goddamn world might be dead by then. But she didn’t want to go out needing a Chesterfield.
    Looked over the crowd, light dim and cloudy through the smoke. Corner table. Under