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eye, handed me a damp towel after I’d returned home drunk and gotten sick in the downstairs powder room, then yelled at me the next morning—even though he was more upset with my having swilled wine from a box than the sin of drinking to excess. (“Rotgut makes the hangover that much worse, kid. Stick to corks.”)
    My father was pretty much over the whole parenting thing by the time I came along—although to be fair, he did wait to relocate the family headquarters from Westchester County to Florida until the day after I left for college. And having no childhood nest to retreat to turned out to be a blessing after I’d graduated and moved to the Village. I’ve long held that the best time to tackle New York is at the youngest possible age, when one has nerve and grit and the constitution to survive on an unrelenting diet of instant ramen and chocolate chip cookies from the 99 Cent Store.
    “You look good, kid,” Dad would tell me on my rare visits from college to the Estates at Waterway Village. “Now, take this,” he’d invariably add, pressing Tom-Tom’s phone number into my palm. “I expect you and your school friends will be going down to the city once in a while. If anything happens, at least you’ll have somebody to call.”
    “Oh, Dad. Nothing’s going to happen.”
    “Make your old man happy. Keep it in your wallet.”
    For once—twice if you count the boxed-wine tip—I’d listened to his advice. It turned out to be a wise decision after I found myself imprisoned in the Manhattan detention complex—more commonly known as the Tombs—one ill-fated spring break, when I was a dumb sophomore out on the town with my even dumber boyfriend, George Landis (or George Landis-in-Jail, as my half brother eventually renamed him).
    “How could this
happen
?” Tom-Tom shrieked when I called collect from the pay phone in my holding cell. I couldn’t tell if he was shrieking in shock or because he was struggling to be heard over what sounded like the wildest party north of Rio de Janeiro.
    “My boyfriend bought a dime bag of pot,” I whimpered, taking pains to avoid stepping on a junkie in full-scale withdrawal, who was sprawled at my feet doing a masterful impression of bacon frying on a griddle. “We were walking down Saint Mark’s Place—”
    “Oh, sweetie. I know we’ve never met, but take some advice from your big brother. You’ve really got to start dating smarter men. Why didn’t he score in Tompkins Square Park like any reasonably intelligent person?”
    I couldn’t answer the question, but I had a feeling the image I’d been harboring of a stodgy old queen was about to undergo a radical transformation.
    “You’re in luck,” he continued. “One of the best criminal defense attorneys in town is attending my little soirée tonight. He’ll get your charges thrown out in no time. We’ll be on our way just as soon as he changes.”
    “Changes?” I echoed, wincing at the word “criminal.”
    “Clothes, sweetie. It’s a costume party. Really, how would it look if Marie Antoinette took the stand for the defense?”

    I punched in two digits of Tom-Tom’s number before remembering he was in London all week, bidding on Impressionist masterworks for assorted captains of industry. I made a note to call back later, then tried to remember what had been going on before the phone rang.
    Of course: Ray Devine was alive.
    “Guess Renée saw right through your Simone Saint James act,” Elinor Ann said.
    “Either that, or she tells everybody he’s dead.” For all I knew, scores of women had shown up at her open houses to make discreet inquiries about her father. I remembered Ray coming to work one morning, putting his hand in his pocket, and withdrawing a half dozen scraps of paper in bewilderment. They turned out to be phone numbers. A half dozen women from the gallery opening he’d attended the previous evening had slipped them into his pocket when he wasn’t looking. He’d laughed about