Hidden Riches

out of mine, and Elaine had an affair with one of her teachers.
    “In the end, they threw up their hands—it was one of the few things they agreed on. They made a deal with Elaine, settled a tidy sum of money on her if she married a handpicked candidate. I went to live with my grandmother. Elaine’s first marriage lasted just shy of two years. I went into the police academy about the same time she was divorced. That really pissed them off.” He picked up the brandy and poured generously. “They threatened to cut both of us out of the will, but they didn’t want to let all those holdings fall out of the family. So Elaine went through another husband, I got my badge. And they died.”
    She felt too much—much more, she knew, than he would want her to offer. The pity for the child, the outrage on his behalf, the sorrow for a family that had had nothing to bind them together.
    “Maybe you’re right,” she said slowly. “I can’t understand how people could stay together when there was nolove. Or how they could be incapable of giving it to their children. That doesn’t mean I don’t understand you.”
    “What you need to understand is that I may not be able to give you what you want.”
    “Then that’s my problem, isn’t it?” She took the brandy and poured. “It occurs to me, Skimmerhorn, that you’re more worried I might be able to give you exactly what you want.”

CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
    D ora had always loved New York. Years before, she had imagined herself living there. A loft in the Village, a favorite ethnic restaurant, a circle of Bohemian friends who always dressed in black and quoted from the latest esoteric literature. And a wacky neighbor, of course, who was always falling in and out of love with the wrong man.
    But she’d been fourteen at the time, and her vision had changed.
    Yet she still loved New York, for its unrelenting pace, its energy, its arrogance. She loved the people hurrying down the sidewalks careful not to make eye contact with anyone else, the shoppers burdened with bags from Saks and Macy’s and Bendel’s, the electronics shops that were perpetually having going-out-of-business sales, the sidewalk vendors with their roasted chestnuts and bad attitudes,and the blatant rudeness of the cabdrivers.
    “Son of a bitch,” Jed muttered as a cab cut him off with little more than a coat of paint to spare.
    Dora beamed. “Great, isn’t it?”
    “Yeah. Right. I doubt a cop’s written a moving violation in this hellhole since the turn of the century.”
    “It wouldn’t be very productive. After all—oh, look!” Dora rolled down her window, craned her neck.
    “You breathe out there, you’re going to die.”
    “Did you see that outfit?” Dora narrowed her eyes, not against exhaust fumes, but to try to make out the name and address of the shop. “It was fabulous. It would just take me five minutes if you could find a place to park.”
    He snorted. “Get real, Conroy.”
    She huffed and plopped back in her seat. “Maybe after we’re done, we could come back by. All you’d have to do is circle the block.”
    “Forget it. Aren’t there enough shops in Philadelphia?”
    “Of course there are. That’s not the point. Shoes,” she said with a long sigh and studied another storefront while Jed fought Madison Avenue traffic uptown. “They’re having their after-Christmas sale.”
    “I should have known better. Goddamn it, get out of my lane!” he shouted, and took the aggressive route by gunning it past another cab. “I should have known better,” he repeated, “than to have driven you through Manhattan. It’s like offering a steak to a starving dog.”
    “You should have let me drive,” she corrected. “I’d be more good-natured about it, and I wouldn’t have been able to look at the shops. Besides, you’re the one who wanted to check out DiCarlo’s apartment.”
    “And we may get there alive yet.”
    “Or we could have taken a cab from the airport.”
    “I stress the word alive. ”
    Dora was feeling very much alive. “You know, we could stay over tonight, book into some hideously expensivemidtown hotel. Catch Will’s play.” She looked longingly at a boutique. “Shop.”
    “This isn’t a sight-seeing trip, Conroy.”
    “I’m just trying to make the best of the situation.”
    Ignoring her, Jed made the turn onto Eighty-third. After a quick scan for a spot big enough to slip the rental car into, he did the sensible thing and double-parked.