Sure enough, his head jerked around in surprise. When he saw Sarah staring back at him, he didn’t seem to recognize her at first. His surprise slid into confusion and then, just for a moment, alarm, as recognition dawned. She hadn’t seen him in years, but they had been children together, sharing the agonies of dancing classes and tea parties. He knew her now and for just that second had been horrified to know she had seen him here, like this.
She understood it all in the second before his expression twisted itself into the semblance of delighted surprise, the kind he would have genuinely felt to have encountered her while dining at Delmonico’s in the city, for example. He leaned down and spoke to his companion, who shot a look in Sarah’s direction, plainly ready to object to his leaving her, even for an instant. But then she saw Sarah and recognized that someone of Sarah’s advanced years could not be a threat to her, and besides, Sarah already had Malloy for an escort. Reluctantly, she released the arm to which she had been clinging possessively and allowed him to make his way over to Sarah and Malloy.
“Sarah, is that you?” he asked, his features now schooled into the proper combination of amazement and pleasure.
“It certainly is. How have you been, Dirk?” she asked, taking the hand he offered.
He clasped hers in both of his, holding it fast while they exchanged pleasantries about the health of their respective families. Sarah thought she was going to have to pull it free by force until she realized she could simply introduce him to her companion instead.
“Are you enjoying the sights?” Dirk was asking politely, plainly expecting her to deny it. His eyes were dancing with the assumption of a shared contempt for the amusements found here.
“Very much,” Sarah said truthfully. “I was just trying to convince Mr. Malloy to take me on the Shoot-the-Chutes.”
“Malloy?” Dirk said with some amazement, as if the name were some foreign language he didn’t quite recognize. His tone told her he was shocked at the idea of her consorting with an Irishman, but at least he released her hand at last to shake hands with Malloy.
“Frank Malloy, Dirk Schyler,” Sarah said, offering Dirk no more information about Malloy, even though his curiosity was obvious.
“Do you come here a lot, Schyler?” Malloy asked him with all the subtlety of a police interrogator.
Dirk was taken aback by his bluntness, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to refuse to answer. That would have been beyond rude, and Dirk had been bred to obey the rules of etiquette as if they held the force of law. “I ... now and again,” was all he would admit. “I find it ... amusing.”
Malloy glanced meaningfully at the girl, who was waiting with increasing impatience for his return. “Yes, she looks ... amusing.”
Sarah wanted to smack him. Certainly, Dirk’s ill-disguised contempt for Malloy was annoying, but insulting him back wouldn’t get them anywhere.
The girl saw them looking at her, and she called, “Will you come on?” to Dirk, who replied with a placating wave, indicating he’d join her in a moment.
“We were just wondering if this ride is dangerous,” Sarah asked, drawing his attention back to her. “I couldn’t get Mr. Malloy to take me on the Flip-Flap Railway. He was afraid we’d fall out.” She smiled sweetly, knowing Malloy would probably like to choke her for saying such a thing.
“Oh, there’s no need to worry, old man,” Dirk assured him generously, plainly delighted to gain an advantage over Malloy. “Everything here is perfectly safe. The Flip-Flap relies on centrifugal force to keep people in their seats. Works just like gravity, don’t you know?”
Malloy didn’t know any such thing, but he wasn’t going to show weakness in front of Dirk. “That’s what I heard,” he lied.
“And the boat ride here”—Dirk gestured toward the Shoot-the-Chutes—“is quite a thrill, but not dangerous at all. And you’ll like the beginning of the ride even better than the ending. It’s a very different kind of thrill, especially with a companion like our lovely Sarah.”
Malloy didn’t like the suggestive tone of Dirk’s voice. Sarah could tell by the way his neck got red. But for once in his life he held his tongue, thank heaven.
“I’m afraid you might have the wrong idea, Dirk,” she hastened to explain. “Mr. Malloy and I are here on Coney Island for business.”
“Business?” He looked at Malloy again, as if trying to imagine what kind of business he might be in. “Police business, by any chance?”
Sarah was surprised he’d guessed so quickly, but Malloy wasn’t. The two men understood each other perfectly.
“Not all Irishmen are coppers,” Malloy reminded him.
“And not all coppers are Irishmen anymore, are they?” Dirk countered. “I heard my old friend Teddy has even hired some Jews to police our fair city. But no one would mistake you for one of them, Officer Malloy.”
“Detective Sergeant Malloy,” Malloy corrected him.
Dirk’s eyebrows rose, and Sarah thought he might have paled a bit, but perhaps she only imagined it. In any case, they were all distracted by the sudden appearance of the young lady Dirk had left standing nearby while he conversed with them.
“You promised me some ice cream!” she reminded him, shooting Sarah a look meant to freeze her blood. The girl was even younger than Sarah had thought, but her eyes were old with experience, just as Lisle’s were.
“So I did, my dear,” he said, tucking her hand into the crook of his arm and patting it soothingly. “I’m afraid I must excuse myself now. Sarah, it was so nice to see you. Malloy, enjoy the ride.”
His smirk was knowing as he steered the girl away. Sarah turned on Malloy.
“That was a fine job,” she said as soon as Dirk was out of earshot.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about all that male posturing,” Sarah said furiously. “The two of you were like schoolboys, puffing out your chests and trying to see who could be King of the Mountain.”
“You’re crazy!”
“No, I’m angry!” she corrected him. “If you hadn’t insisted on taking offense, I might have gotten some information out of him.”
“Information about what?” he scoffed.
“About Coney Island and what goes on here. It’s obvious he comes here often.”
“Yes, and you know why he comes here, don’t you?”
“Of course. To meet shop girls.”
“He does more than meet them,” Malloy said, his expression hardening.
“I’m sure he does. He buys them treats and takes them on the rides, and they reward him with their favors. It’s the kind of exchange that goes on all over the city every day.”
“And maybe he even buys them things, like hats. Or red shoes.”
That silenced Sarah, but only for a moment. “Dirk isn’t a killer.”
“Why not? Because you know him?”
Sarah remembered she had known the killer of Alicia VanDamm, too, and it had been someone she had never suspected.
“All right, Malloy, you win. Dirk could be the killer just as easily as every other man here.”
“Maybe even more easily than some. He doesn’t have to come all the way out here for female companionship. And why would he dress like a dry-goods salesman and prowl around a place where he’ll probably never see anyone who knows him?”
“Because the female companionship of girls of his own class would be heavily chaperoned. A liaison with one of them would be impossible. He’s probably dressed the way he is so none of the girls will suspect he’s wealthy and try to blackmail him. And he certainly doesn’t want any of his friends to know how he satisfies his baser urges. Keeping a mistress would be perfectly acceptable in their eyes, but apparently, Dirk doesn’t want to go to the trouble.”
“Or the expense, maybe.”
Sarah shook her head. “He could keep a woman if that’s what he wanted. I’m sure his father would provide for him if he knew the alternative was to have him consorting with the trash he’d consider these girls to be.”
“Maybe this is his way of rebelling. Maybe he hopes you’ll go back and tell everyone you saw him here. Maybe he wants to embarrass his family.”
Sarah didn’t know what Dirk’s motives were, and she really didn’t care, but she did know she could learn a lot from him. But not when Malloy was around. She’d have to seek him out when she got back to the city.
“Well, Malloy, since you cost me a chance to find out something from Dirk, you have to take me on the Shoot-the-Chutes.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Or are you going to make me go alone?”
“What would you want to go on that thing for?” He stared at the contraption in horror as yet another boat came splashing down into the artificial lagoon.
“I want to find out everything I can about Gerda Reinhard’s last days, and on the last Sunday of her life, she rode on that ride. Now, are you coming or do I have to find another escort?”
He opened his mouth, ready with another argument, but Sarah beat him to it.
“You’re not afraid, are you?” she challenged.
Of course he was, but he’d die before he admitted it. Sarah knew that, and she managed not to grin with triumph when he grabbed her elbow and determinedly steered her toward the line of people waiting to board the boats.
He was muttering something under his breath, and Sarah chose not to hear. It was easier than getting into ah argument. She could sympathize with his fear of mechanical contraptions. She wasn’t overly fond of them herself, but she was terribly curious to learn what Dirk had meant about the thrills on the first part of the ride.
They waited the better part of half an hour before they were handed into a boat. Malloy nearly upset the thing when he climbed in beside her, but the water was so shallow that truly upsetting was actually impossible.
“Easy there, sir,” the young boy assisting them cautioned, helping Malloy sit down on the seat beside her. They were crowded in with their knees pressing against the people on the seat in front of them and the knees of those behind them pressing against their backs.
Malloy shot her a reproachful look, but she simply smiled serenely.
When everyone was seated, the boat started with a jerk, and Sarah realized it was being propelled by some sort of motorized pulley device. They glided down the chute, and the next thing they knew, their boat was swallowed up by a tunnel.
“So this is what he meant!” Sarah whispered to Malloy as the darkness enveloped them.
In the sudden silence of the tunnel, where they were shielded from the raucous noises of the rest of the park, they could hear the sounds of rustling clothing and provocative giggling and even the smack of lips as the other couples in the boat took advantage of the momentary privacy for some hasty petting.
“If that’s all you wanted to know, I could’ve told you,” Malloy said, the disgust evident in his voice. “We didn’t have to get on this cursed thing.”
“At least try to enjoy yourself, Malloy,” she chided.
Just then the couple in front of them nearly toppled into their laps, and by the time they were all untangled, amid much giggling and cursing, the boat was emerging into the daylight again.
The couples discreetly stopped kissing, but they kept their arms around each other as the boat began to travel upward at an increasingly steep angle.
“Oh, my,” Sarah said as the ground fell away and the boat seemed to be going almost straight up into the air.
“I tried to warn you,” Malloy reminded her as she instinctively clutched at his arm for support, but by then she was too distracted to take offense.
What had she been thinking? This was insane! She could be killed! She most certainly
would
be killed! This flimsy boat would never withstand the impact she knew it would take when it went plummeting down the chute to splash into the water below. Malloy was right, but she would never have the opportunity to tell him so because suddenly the whole world was tipping over, and they were going down and down and down, faster and faster, until a scream was literally ripped from her throat, and she thought her very heart must be torn out with it. And just when she thought she couldn’t bear it another second, the boat hit the water with an impact that sent them slamming into their seats. The spray of water showered them, and then it was over, and they were gliding safely, surely to the shore, where men with grappling hooks were waiting to pull the boat in so they could disembark.
Only then did Sarah realize that in her terror she had thrown her arms around Malloy and that she was still clinging to him desperately.
“Oh!” she cried, mortified, and released him at once, except she couldn’t exactly release him because he was clinging to her, too, in equal desperation.
But his reaction was only an instant later than hers, and they sprang guiltily apart, or at least as far apart as they could get in the crowded boat. For a moment their gazes locked and they shared their mutual embarrassment, but a moment was all they could stand. They looked away, up or down or anywhere but at each other.
Good heavens, what had come over her? Sarah wasn’t clingy or helpless or at all the kind of woman to clutch at a man for
anything.
Or at least she wasn’t in the normal course of her life. The normal course of her life had not, until now, involved a terrifying plummet down a water-filled chute to what felt like certain and imminent death, however. That, apparently, changed her into a quivering mass of feminine weakness.
And it had turned Malloy into a quivering mass of male weakness, too, it seemed. He was the first one out of the boat when the attendant had secured it to the wooden wharf, and he let the attendant help her out, too. Which suited Sarah fine. She didn’t feel quite ready to have Malloy’s hands on her again.
She immediately changed her mind, however, when she discovered that her knees were trembling as she made her way toward the exit. She could have used a steady arm to support her, but one look at Malloy’s expression told her not even to consider it.