The Crossroads of New York

A dew-kissed hayseed—gullible as a milk-cow calendar—descends into the asphalt inferno of Manhattan clutching a gilded letter that promises, like some Prohibition-era holy relic, automatic ingress to the penthouse class. Instead, the city’s pneumatic hiss and clanging El trains hand him a broom and a tin pail; he becomes a nocturnal ghost sweeping up the cigar ash and ticker-tape of strangers’ dreams. His boarding-house matriarch, a thrice-widowed spider with a perfume of cabbage and ambition, lures him into a betrothal that feels more like indenture than romance. Then—cue the syncopated jazz of happenstance—he collides with a porcelain socialite whose laugh tinkles like bootleg gin in crystal. Their hearts spark, but before he can trade the broom for a tux, news arrives that the deep-pocketed uncle has exited life, leaving behind a jackpot the size of a small skyscraper. Instantly a sequined siren—equal parts cleavage and litigation—materializes, slapping him with a lawsuit so audacious it could only hatch under Broadway’s electric glow. Our hayseed is now a reluctant Hamlet, caught between the clacking teeth of marriage, the velvet snare of true love, and the fangs of a gold-digging vamp who wants to vacuum every last cent of his windfall inheritance.