The Heat of the Sun

God-knows-where: uptown tourists in spangly gowns. For a time Trouble expatiated to me on the subject of my aunt (‘Why can’t she be my aunt? She’s
wasted on you’), before skittering off, leaving Le Vol to launch into fresh rhapsodies about Wyoming until Trouble returned, dragged Aunt Toolie back into our clench, and declared that the
lady (he had it on the best authority) had left earlier, bound for the Plaza.
    Through gathering snow we hauled ourselves towards Sixth, where a cab, flagged by Trouble, swept us uptown.
    ‘The Plaza?’ I said to Aunt Toolie. ‘The new fellow can’t be quite the lowlife you thought.’
    At the Plaza I feared the doormen would turn us back, but all that came were acknowledging nods for Trouble, who made his way around the Palm Court with the efficiency of a minesweeper before
informing us, in a bemused voice, that the young lady and the gentleman had finished their meal and taken themselves off to a certain coloured establishment.
    Of the club in Harlem I remember little, only jostling elbows and shiny dark faces whirling in a raucous subterranean haze; then we were in the night again, piling into a flivver driven by one
of Trouble’s pals, our destination a roadhouse on the city limits, where the young lady and the gentleman had, apparently, said they were headed. Blearily, I thought we should let Miss Day
be. What were we doing, chasing this silly girl? We were on a fairground ride, whirling faster and faster. Speed was all that mattered; the speed was too much, but we couldn’t stop. All we
could do was go round and round.
    The roadhouse was a dive more disreputable than the last, but Trouble, after abandoning us with a party of pinstriped gangsters, informed us after an hour or so that we’d made a little
mistake. The lady and the gentleman were in Manhattan after all, at a party on the Upper East Side.
    ‘What? You’re crazy! You’re as bad as you were at Blaze!’ Le Vol, enraged, flung himself at Trouble, but I calmed him, saying that we were all overwrought. Trouble
brushed aside the incident (‘Hot-tempered, aren’t they, the redheads?’) and the next thing I knew we were standing on the highway, hitching our way back into Manhattan.
    Trouble picked up a ride for us soon enough.
    When it ended, we stood before a vast, imposing apartment building that soared above Park Avenue. We crossed a marble lobby; we rode in an elevator – a universe of its own, bright as
summer, all mirrors and gold and engraved floral curlicues – ascending dreamily as if towards the heavens. Gates opened, disgorging us into a glittering panorama. An orchestra sounded; there
was the plash of a fountain; laughter rippled, civilized, urbane.
    Bedazzled, we wandered through this palace of mahogany and gold, one magnificent chamber opening into another, miles above the darkened city. Oil paintings, sumptuous portrayals of Christian and
classical themes (a Titian? – a Rubens? – a Raphael?), flared gorgeously from each panelled wall; ceilings, pendulous with chandeliers, seethed with gilt and mouldings thirty feet
above; drawn-back curtains of red velvet framed in what looked like proscenium arches the spangled geometry of the city at night.
    Dominating a central chamber was a broad imperial staircase of marble and gold, sweeping up towards mysterious higher reaches of the penthouse. The place might have been a Renaissance palazzo,
spirited to the heights of a Manhattan skyscraper. When Le Vol asked me what prince this palazzo might belong to, I could only shake my head. Trouble exclaimed delightedly. I asked Aunt Toolie if
we could still be in the same city of Wobblewood and ‘Eggs’ and the Captain’s Log, but her attention remained fixed on the object of our odyssey.
    That object came upon us like a vision, as if, in the culmination of a quest, we had penetrated to the heart of the world. In the middle of Manhattan was a penthouse; in the middle of the
penthouse was a dance floor; and in the middle of the dance floor, on slick parquet, a creature of jewels and silver, too radiant to be real, circled in the arms of a darkly handsome man.
    Aunt Toolie gasped: ‘Agnes... Copley!’
    Trouble turned and laughed at us. He sounded crazy.
    ‘I knew! I knew all along! They told me at the Captain’s Log! I’ve led you all on a wild goose chase!’
    Champagne floated by, borne on sparkling salvers; Trouble – ready, it seemed, for fresh pleasures – slipped into the