“It’s just my female powers of persuasion, Malloy. Since women don’t have any real power in the worldly sense, we have to compensate by using the powers we do have.”
Frank didn’t think he agreed with that. Women might not be able to vote or own property or go into business, but they certainly managed to do whatever else they wanted. “Find out the names of the other girls who were killed,” he said. “I’ll see if there’s any connection between them.”
She sat back in her chair, looking smug. “I’ll have that information for you on Sunday when we go to Coney Island.”
FRANK COULDN’T BELIEVE he was going to Coney Island. He’d never been to the beach in his life, and he had no desire to go now. At least he wouldn’t be expected to bathe in the ocean. He’d done some research on Coney Island and learned that the main attraction nowadays was the amusements and rides that had been built near the beach. You didn’t have to go in the water unless you wanted to, and Frank had no intention of putting on one of those ridiculous bathing outfits and jumping in the ocean. If God had intended for men to go in the water, they’d have fins.
Coney Island had always been a place where people from the city went to escape the summer heat, but the place had eventually been overrun by gamblers, roughnecks, confidence men, pickpockets, and prostitutes, so that decent folks had stopped going. Fires in ‘93 and ’95 had destroyed the worst sections of West Brighton, however, and then a fellow calling himself Captain Paul Boyton built an enclosed park where people of modest means could pay an admission price of ten cents and enjoy themselves all day without being bothered by the riffraff that used to prowl the streets of the island.
From what he’d learned, the park was like a carnival, only larger and far more elaborate. The games of chance and the freak shows were there, but this Captain Boyton had added rides designed to thrill and frighten people. Frank saw plenty of things in his everyday life that thrilled and frightened him. He didn’t need to pay ten cents to have the life scared out of him in a phony boat.
Which explained his foul mood when he met Sarah Brandt early Sunday morning at the trolley. He’d been pleasantly surprised to learn he didn’t have to take a boat ride just to get to Coney Island. Last he’d heard, the ferry was the easiest method of transportation. But progress had come when he wasn’t looking, and now a nickel trolley ride would take anyone out to Captain Boyton’s park.
“Oh, Malloy, you look like you’re going to your own funeral,” Mrs. Brandt said when he found her. “This is supposed to be fun!” She certainly looked ready for fun in her flowered summer dress and broad-brimmed hat.
Malloy cast a jaundiced eye around at the crowd of people waiting for the trolley. There were middle-class families decked out in their Sunday best, children scrubbed and brushed and braided and fidgeting with excitement already. There were young women, girls really, decked out in the kind of finery that pennies could buy. Frippery, his mother would have called it. They looked cheap and gaudy and very, very young. Hovering around them were young men in their checked suits and straw hats, preening for attention from the girls who were studiously ignoring them.
“It’s fascinating, isn’t it?” Mrs. Brandt asked.
“What?”
“Watching the way they act. The girls are so desperate for attention, but the men are equally desperate. You’d think that would make it easier, since they both want the same thing, but it somehow makes it more difficult.”
Frank had no idea what she was talking about, but he did think it was interesting the way the men were sniffing around the girls. He could imagine what his mother would say about those girls, too. They didn’t look like decent females, yet he knew they weren’t prostitutes either. They fell in some mysterious gray area between.
In Frank’s experience, young girls went nowhere unescorted by a chaperon. He himself had never been alone with his own wife until their wedding night. Kathleen’s parents and brothers had seen to that, and he’d understood completely. He’d respected Kathleen as much as he’d loved her and wouldn’t have dreamed of taking advantage of her innocence. Had she flaunted herself the way these girls were doing, he would have been shocked. These girls lived in a different world than the one he’d known, however. The rules were different there, and Frank didn’t understand them.
And he understood Sarah Brandt even less.
“What do you hope to accomplish with this… this…” He gestured vaguely at all the people gathered for the trolley to Coney Island on what was promising to be the first truly nice Sunday of the season.
“Excursion?” she offered, smiling. “I don’t know. It’s awfully hot and uncomfortable in the city. You should thank me for making you go to the country for some sea air.”
Frank was saved from answering by the arrival of the trolley. He and Mrs. Brandt waited until last to board, watching how the other people conducted themselves. The girls got on first, then the families, and then the young men, who jockeyed for position near the girls they had picked out. There was much jostling and arguing, and Frank was glad he and Mrs. Brandt got separated in the crowd. It saved him from making conversation with her on the ride out, even if he did have to stand up the whole way because of the crowd.
After what seemed an interminable time later-but which was less than an hour-they arrived at the station at West Brighton Beach. During the ride, Frank had learned that criminals weren’t the only people who used outrageous slang and that flirting had changed a lot since he was a young man.
Mrs. Brandt was waiting for him when he got off the trolley. She still looked as fresh as she had when they’d left the city, although Frank felt damp and rumpled.
“What do you think?” she asked, surveying the view.
Frank didn’t know what to think. The place looked like something out of a storybook. A band played nearby, apparently to welcome the new arrivals, and in the distance he could see the dark expanse of the ocean, ominous and never-ending. On the other side he saw what must be the amusement park Mrs. Brandt had told him about. Surrounded by a fence to keep out nonpaying customers, it seemed to stretch for acres and probably did. Odd-looking structures rose above the fence, hinting at the wonders inside.
“Look,” she said. “The girls have already paired off with those fellows. That’s so they’ll pay their admission fee to the park.”
The girls who had so studiously avoided the men at the station and had offered only token interest during the ride out were now accepting offered arms and allowing themselves to be escorted through the front gates. As the men fished in their pockets for the fee, the girls giggled and batted their eyes and acted coy.
“How long will they stay with the fellows once they’re inside?” Frank wondered aloud.
“I’m sure they have their idea of what’s appropriate. Maybe if they like the fellow, they let him spend money on them all day long.”
“Whoever called them Charity Girls was wrong. They’re outright thieves.”
“Don’t judge them too harshly,” she said as she started walking toward the entrance gate to the park. “It’s the only way they can have a good time.”
“By making men spend their hard earned money on them?” Frank hurried to catch up.
She gave him a disapproving glance. “Those girls only earn about six or seven dollars a week. After they give their families money for their room and board, they usually have only a dollar or two left for themselves. Out of that they’ve got to buy their lunches, ride the trolley, and keep themselves clothed. With a budget like that, the five cents for the trolley ride out here is about all they can manage.”
“They why don’t they just stay home?” Frank asked reasonably.