Babe drew herself up stiffly in her wheelchair, feeling naked and vulnerable. She couldn’t get out, so she’d have to get through. “It’s a long story.” All those years, she thought. Gone like one tick of the clock.

“You always find a reason to disgrace yourself, don’t you.”

“Mama, please. Let’s not have a fight now.”

“All right, we’ll have it later.”

Lucia led the way to Bill Frothingham’s office, and Babe wheeled behind her.

Bill Frothingham offered his best smile. His hands grasped Babe’s tightly and she squeezed back, grateful for his touch. She hadn’t realized till that moment how much hurt and rage there was in her.

She reached out and took the pen from the silver Tiffany inkstand. “Where do I sign?”

Babe handed back the two volumes of NY-P-3567 PEOPLE V. SCOTT DEVENS.

“There was an appeal,” she said. “Could I see that record?”

The librarian looked at her chair and then at her. He was a man of about fifty and he had a pinkish porcelain face. “You’ll have to give me the number.” His breath had the disinfectant smell of eucalyptus oil and she instinctively knew he had been drinking on his lunch hour.

She gave him the number, neatly typed on a sheet of Bill Frothingham’s firm stationery.

He vanished into the stacks, throwing one doubtful look back at her. Finally he returned, empty-handed.

“I’m sorry. Those records are sealed.”

The limousine stopped at the Greene Street address and the driver came around and helped Babe into her chair. The sky above SoHo was bright blue.

There was an art gallery in the elegantly renovated storefront on the ground floor. Babe glanced at the paintings in the window—hyperrealistic still lifes of food wrapped in plastic, spattered with supermarket price stickers. The name of the gallery owner triggered a memory—Lewis Monserat: she knew him from dinner parties and gallery openings. Then her mind corrected: that had been seven years ago; she had known him.

Babe’s driver wheeled her into the vestibule. The elevator—a refurbished freight lift—was waiting.

“Thanks, I can manage from here,” Babe told the driver. She pressed six, Cordelia’s floor.

Cordelia opened the door and looked at her mother with a surprised and happy smile. “Mother—why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

“I won’t stay but a minute.”

“Let me show you around. Do you need help with that chair?”

“No, I’m getting pretty good at it.”

Cordelia went on ahead, and Babe wheeled behind.

“This is the living space.” Cordelia’s braceleted arm swept out an arc, tinkling like a wind harp with gold and plastic and dime store charms. “And that’s the sleeping space, and there’s the eating space. It’s all partitioned space, you see. Someday the plumbing will be done, and then I can get on to something fun—like putting up shelves. Would you like coffee? I was just having a cup. It’s French roast, I get it from DeLuca’s downstairs.”

“That would be wonderful.”

Babe watched her daughter at the gas range, neatly setting up the Melitta and spooning coffee into the gold mesh filter and then sprinkling cinnamon on top and finally, careful as an action painter dribbling color on a canvas, pouring in the boiling water.

Babe sat holding a hand-painted Provençal mug. Feeling embarrassed, almost shy, she stared down at the coffee and then she looked up at her daughter. “Is Lewis Monserat still alive?”

Cordelia laughed. “Of course he’s alive. Why?”

“I used to know him, and I saw his name downstairs.”

“He’s the most successful art dealer in town.”

“He always was.”

Cordelia sipped. “How’s your coffee?”

“Perfect.” Babe hadn’t tasted her coffee. She tasted it now. “Cordelia—I was wondering—I was wondering if you’d want to—if you’d consider living at home again.”

Cordelia came across the room and knelt at Babe’s wheelchair and hugged her mother’s knees. “Oh, Mother, that’s so sweet of you. I had a feeling you were going to ask—but I don’t think so, thanks.”

Babe sat motionless, looking at the floor that had been taken down to the bare oak and varnished, then again at Cordelia.

“I love you, Mother—and I understand—really I do. But you’ve got to understand me. When you—went away—my world fell apart. I did the only thing I could. I learned how to take care of myself. Now that you’re back you want to take up from where you left off. You want me to be twelve years old again, and don’t you see, I can’t be. I’ve accomplished too much. I have my life, my career, my home—I can’t give them up.”

“I wouldn’t try to make you dependent.”

“Oh, Mother, semantics isn’t going to get me back to Sutton Place. I’ve grown up. I’ve moved on. And there was a lot of pain, more than you realize, and I’m not going to go back to it.”

Babe sat hovering between hurt and acceptance.

Cordelia unhooked a set of keys from a peg over the kitchen sink and pressed them into Babe’s hand. “Look—these are yours. Keys to my place—so you won’t ever feel shut out.”

Babe’s hand closed around the keys. “I know now how hard it must have been for you.” A burning lump had stuck like half-swallowed food in Babe’s throat. “I read the transcript of the first trial.”

“Why in the world did you do that?”

“I’m sorry you had to go through it. It must have wounded you terribly.”

“Wounds heal, Mother. But they’ve got to be left alone. Your wounds and mine.”

“They told me the transcript of the second trial is sealed.”

Cordelia looked at her mother.

“What happened at that trial?” Babe asked.

“You don’t actually think I remember.”

“You must remember something.”

“I was twelve years old and scared to death. I don’t remember any of it, I don’t want to remember any of it. And I really think you should put all that behind you too.”

It was raining when Babe got home. As the elevator lifted her upward, there was a gentle throbbing between her eyes.

She wheeled down the hallway into her bedroom and sat staring out the window. The low slate roofs of the neighboring town houses glowed damply.

She picked up the phone and dialed Ash Canfield. A machine answered. “Ash,” she said at the beep, “it’s me, pick up.”

Ice rattled in a glass. A voice said, “What’s up, sweetie?”

“That’s a terrible message, you sound dead.”

“I can’t help it, I feel dead. You don’t sound so full of beans yourself.”

“I was down at the courthouse reading the trial transcript.”

“Yuck.”

“They’ve sealed the record of Scottie’s second trial.”

“Just as well. You don’t want to poke around in all that muck.”

“I want to know what happened.”

“It’s no secret what happened. Scottie got off with a week at that country club where they sent Martha Mitchell’s husband and now he’s playing the piano at the Winslow and he’s a great hit with all the ghouls in town.”

“How did he get off?”

“How do I know?”

“Come on, Ash, you always used to know everything.”

“I still know everything. I just don’t happen to have the details at my fingertips. But I can get them.”

“How soon?”

“Are you still attached to that wheelchair and nurse?”

“Just the wheelchair.”

“Meet me for lunch Friday at Archibald’s.”

“What’s Archibald’s?”

“A very posh, very in, dining spot on the Upper East Side. And the food’s half edible, too.”

27

THURSDAY NIGHT AT THE Inferno. pounding music hammered through Siegel’s skin. The smell of liquor and sweat seeped through her pores.

Her friend with the clone moustache was really letting her have it, his whole philosophy of living and loving. “Nothing beats good sex,” he said.

“Nothing,” Siegel agreed.

“I was married for eight years but it wasn’t good sex. Good sex is what it’s all about.”