ATDTDA (12) - NYC synopsis Part 2

[David Morris]

Dally's "Chop Suey Stories" street performances are a big hit,
attracting many regular fans, including RW Vibe.  He vows his intent
to sign her on to his future "Shanghai Scampers," and start sending
large amounts of production money to her way, though it is unclear
why.  But "at this point" '" Real Life"' Chinese mafia wars break out
in the vicinity, thus ending this gig.

Dally goes to RW looking for work, but instead of giving her a job, he
introduces her to Con McVeety, a producer of bottom of the barrel
Vaudeville acts, who hires her as a Card Girl.  Very silly stage acts
are then described.

"Meantime" Katie brings news of a party Saturday night at RW's, and
the two set off to I.J.&K. Smokefoot's department store, passing
between the "Guardians of the Temple" doormen into the Veil-separated
double world inside.  They first explore the "artfully illusory" side,
and after numerous "hayseed" embarrassments, Dally (like Kit in the
previous section) has a moment of "Clarity," seeing a female
"apparition" across the abyss of the paradisaical courtyard, and has
to restrain herself from yelling out "Mamma!" for fear of being
cataclysmically embarrassed.  The remainder of her shopping experience
is "nebulous incoherence" and concludes with their descent into the
store's sub-basement.

Next we find Dally & Katie traveling through "Saturday night in
Kipperville" to attend RWV's shindig.  His sumptuous Italianate
townhouse seems incongruous in this neighborhood of questionable
characters outside, and inside we are treated to another array of
"exotic" creatures.  Immediately deserted by Katie, Dally wanders out
to the roof garden where she encounters a tall young man that she sees
is "nowhere nearly grown," and is a bit flustered by him before he
just disappears, a skill she will understand the source of in the next
chapter.  Back into the party she is first pressed-upon by a midget
with a famous organ, and next by a "smooth gent" offering incandescent
beverages.  But just before she is carted off for real into white
slavery, she is whisked on stage into the magician's "CABINET OF
MYSTERY."  Next she finds herself, due to an "eclipse of time," next
to Katie back in the "Kansas" of her rooming house, and she is unable
to remember anything except, as Katie points out, she "knew all
along," but was unable to process this knowledge until Mamma came for
her.