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From the red-hot vendors and shoe-shine stands to the upscale Stork Club and New York Stock Exchange—money was in constant flow and so were the people.
    Elizabeth could feel the energy of a city at the height of its power and purpose. People walked with a fast pace suited to the jazz rhythms of the nightclubs. Traffic surged along the streets in tempo with the city’s heartbeat. Raucous, dizzying and intoxicating—New York was a party spiraling toward the inevitable calling of the cops.
    The people were well-dressed by modern standards. The only ones casually attired were workmen in their coveralls. She felt as if she’d shown up for a wedding in a potato sack. Or worse. There was sharp disapproval in the eyes of people they passed and something she didn’t want to define in a few of the men. She tugged self-consciously at the hem of her T-shirt.
    “I wish everyone would stop staring,” she whispered to Simon.
    Simon arched a brow and said off-handedly, “I’m sure your T-shirt has nothing to do with it.”
    “What? It’s brand new, mostly. What’s wrong with it?”
    “Nothing a little more of it wouldn’t cure,” he said and looked down at her uncomfortably. “It is rather on the small side, isn’t it?”
    Elizabeth stopped walking and tugged at her shirt again. Getting fashion tips from a man who thought a Windsor instead of a four-in-hand knot was accessorizing was really too much.
    Simon sighed heavily and pulled his sweater over his head, leaving him wearing only a crisp white oxford shirt. He held the sweater out to her, but his eyes wouldn’t meet hers. “Put this on.”
    It was ridiculously large for her. The sleeves fell well past her hands and the hem rested barely above her knees. But it was a good fit in other ways, better ways. It smelled like Simon—clean, with a hint of aftershave. The weight of the soft fabric was comforting, like the pressure of a hand on the small of her back. She let herself snuggle into it and then noticed Simon looking at her with a strange, far off look in his eyes. Whatever he’d been thinking, he pushed it away quickly and found a fascinating spot of gum on the sidewalk.
    Elizabeth pushed the long sleeves up to her elbows. “We should be…”
    Simon put his hands in his pockets and nodded. Slowly they fell into step together again and joined the busy flow of pedestrians.
    They started in mid-town and after a few inquiries headed south toward the lower class sections where pawn shops would most likely be found. Before too long, the neighborhood changed. The streets were a little dirtier, and the people a little harder. The Lower East Side was a haven for immigrants and the working class, all of them trying to find their piece of the American dream.
    “There we go,” Elizabeth said and pointed to a sign: Arbogast J. Smith - Pawnbroker.
    As they stepped inside, she was struck by how every pawnshop was like the next—a sad mixture of lost hope and second-hand dreams. The owner stood behind the glass-cased counter and looked up sharply when the bell at the top of the door announced their arrival.
    He was a tall, thin man with dark eyes that seemed unnaturally large behind the thick lenses of his glasses. Elizabeth shuddered. He looked like the proverbial spider, and she felt like the unwitting fly.
    “Why don’t you see what you can get for the ring and I’ll try to find some clothes,” Elizabeth said. She tried to shake the feeling she was being sized up for something unpleasant and browsed the shop’s wares.
    His large bug eyes followed her as she looked at the merchandise—clothes, jewelry and the inevitable saxophone. Why was it every pawn shop seemed to have a tarnished sax hanging in one corner? A bit of someone’s soul dangling by a thin cord. A piece of someone’s heart taken in trade. She’d left a few chapters of her life behind in glass cases.
    She noticed Simon hadn’t started haggling and nodded her head toward the counter to prod him along.