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was comfortable.
    “That goes to the roof,” Jericho said, pointing to a fire escape outside her window. “You can see most of the city from up there.”
    “Oh,” Evie managed to reply. “Swell.” She intended to do more than watch the city from the roof. She would be in the thick of it. Her trunk had arrived, and she unpacked, filling the empty drawers and wardrobe with her painted stockings, hats, gloves, dresses, and coats. Her long strands of pearls she draped from the posts of her bed. The one item she did not put away was her coin pendant from James. When she’d finished, Evie sat with Jericho and Uncle Will in the parlor as the men finished a supper of cold sandwiches in wax paper bought from the delicatessen on the corner.
    “How did you come to be in the employ of my uncle?” Evie asked Jericho with theatrical seriousness. Jericho looked to Uncle Will, whose mouth was full. Neither said a word. “Well. It’sa regular mystery, I guess,” Evie went on. “Where’s Agatha Christie when you need her? I’ll just have to make up stories about you. Let’s see… you, Jericho, are a duke who has forfeited his duchy—funny word,
duchy
—and Unc is hiding you from hostile forces in your native country who would have your head.”
    “Your uncle was my legal guardian until I turned eighteen this year. Now I’m working for him, as his assistant curator.”
    The men continued eating their sandwiches, leaving Evie’s curiosity unsatisfied. “Okay. I’ll bite. How did Unc—”
    “Must you call me that?”
    Evie considered it. “Yes. I believe I must. How did Unc become your guardian?”
    “Jericho was an orphan in the Children’s Hospital.”
    “Gee, I’m sorry. But how—”
    “I believe the question has been answered,” Uncle Will said. “If Jericho wishes to tell you more, he will on his own terms and in his own time.”
    Evie wanted to say something snappy back, but she was a guest here, so she changed the subject. “Is the museum always that empty?”
    “What do you mean?” Uncle Will asked.
    “Empty, as in devoid of human beings.”
    “It’s a little slow just now.”
    “Slow? It’s a morgue! You need bodies in there, or you’re going to go under. What we need is some advertising.”
    Will looked at Evie funny. “Advertising?”
    “Yes. You’ve heard of it, haven’t you? Swell modern invention. It lets people know about something they need. Soap, lipstick, radios—or your museum, for instance. We could start with a catchy slogan, like, ‘The Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult—we’ve got the spirit!’ ”
    “Things are fine as they are,” Will said, as if that settled the matter.
    Evie whistled low. “Not from what I saw. Is it true the city’s trying to take it for back taxes?”
    Will squinted over the top of his slipping spectacles. “Who told you that?”
    “The cabbie. He also said you were a conscie, and probably a Bolshevik. Not that it matters to me. It’s just that I was thinking I could help you spruce the place up. Get some bodies in there. Make a mint.”
    Jericho glanced from Will to Evie and back again. He cleared his throat. “Mind if I turn on the radio?”
    “Please,” Will answered.
    The announcer’s voice burbled over the wires: “And now, the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, playing ‘Wang Wang Blues.’ ” The orchestra launched into a swinging tune, and Evie hummed along.

CITY OF DREAMS
     
    The girl was exhausted and angry. For seventy-eight straight hours, she and her beau, Jacek, had loped through the dance marathon with hopes of winning the big prize, but Jacek had fallen asleep at last, nearly toppling her. The emcee had tapped them on the shoulder, signaling the end of the contest, and with it their dreams.
    “Why’d ya have to go and fall asleep, you big potato!” She punched him in the arm as they left the contest and he staggered, barely able to stay awake.
    “Me? I held you up four different times. And you kept