“You work in the city?” Rose asked.

“In the music business.”

William Master stepped in now. He liked Broadway musicals. He’d been at the opening of Kaufman’s The Cocoanuts just the week before—the Marx Brothers were the stars. He asked Peaches if she’d seen it, and was favored with a smile. “It’s good,” she acknowledged.

“Think it’ll run?”

“Yes. Then it’ll tour. The Gershwins have a premiere later this month, too.”

“I know. Tip-Toes. We have seats. Do you and Charlie want to join us?”

This provoked another smile.

“We’ll come,” said Charlie. “When Father went to the Rhapsody in Blue concert last year,” he told Peaches, “he said it was the most beautiful piece of music he’d ever heard.”

“That’s good.” She turned to William. “I could use another drink.”

“You like to drink?” remarked Rose.

“She always carries some hooch with her,” said Charlie cheerfully.

Rose glanced at the little handbag Peaches had been carrying. It was too small to hold more than some lipstick and powder. Peaches laughed.

“Not there,” she said. She stood, and pulled up her short skirt. Halfway up her thigh was a garter. And above that, tucked into the top of her stocking, a silver hip flask. “Here,” she said.

Rose stared. She noticed that her husband was also gazing at the girl’s thigh, without disapproval.

“Well, dear, I’m glad it’s somewhere convenient.”

Only when they were on their way home afterward did Rose express her true feelings to her husband. “It’s time,” she said firmly, “that you gave Charlie some work to do.”

It was at the start of the following June that Salvatore took Angelo to Coney Island. Anyone who’d last visited the place half a century earlier, when it was a seaside village, would have been astonished to see it now. First came a carousel, next a roller coaster, then vaudeville houses and amusement parks. By the end of the nineteenth century, more than a hundred thousand visitors might go there on a summer day. You could even take the subway to Coney Island now.

The day was warm. Angelo was enchanted with the place. They strolled along the boardwalk past the Brighton Beach Hotel, then along Oriental Boulevard. They had sundaes at an ice-cream parlor. Salvatore encouraged Angelo to look at the pretty girls bathing in the sea.

They were standing near the garish lights of the Luna Amusement Park when he noticed the two young women. They looked as if they might be Italian, but he wasn’t sure. One of them was too tall for his taste, but the other caught his attention. The light sunburn on her face suggested she might come from a farm. She was wearing a cotton dress. Her breasts were not large, but full, and her legs were nice, a little plump. He liked that. Her brown hair was swept back in a bun, and her eyes were kind.