The nice thing about two o’clock in the morning is you’re not subject to the aggravation of New York traffic. We skim down Fifth Avenue, pausing only when some light turns red before us. I don’t speak, and neither does Fox. Like me, he’s looking out the window, contemplating the blur of facades. Only they aren’t a blur to him, I’ll bet. Sumner Fox likely drank nothing stronger than ginger ale, certainly not while on duty. He probably sees each building as an individual edifice—notices all the fine architectural details—will remember them tomorrow.

“So why’d you quit football?” I hear myself ask.

“There was a war on.”

“Are those your real teeth?”

He laughs—actually laughs, for the first time—and turns to me. “Fellow named Greenwald knocked the two front ones out of me at the Dartmouth game.”

“Was he sorry?”

“He was sorry afterward. Offered to pay for the dental work.”

“I’ll bet you scored your goal anyway.”

“Touchdown,” he says.

The taxi slows and turns left on Fifty-Ninth Street to make its way east. Across Fox’s face, the city lights roll and flash. He stares right back, cold sober, which is about the most terrifying thing you can imagine. I don’t flinch, however. Maybe I’m too drunk to focus, maybe I’m too drunk to care. The air is fresh for June, as clean as you can possibly hope for at the beginning of a Manhattan summer, and the windows are cranked down to allow this miraculous breeze inside.

“Let’s stop here and walk,” I say. “I could use the air.”

Fox leans forward to the driver and says something. The taxi pulls to the curb at the corner of Lexington Avenue. My palms are damp around my pocketbook. Fox pays the driver and jumps out to swing around the bumper and open my door. For once, I don’t beat the gentleman to it—not that I don’t appreciate niceties, you understand. I’m just too impatient under ordinary circumstances, too eager to get on with wherever it is we’re going. Tonight there’s no rush, and I need the help. I need a steady arm to draw me from the taxi and set me on my feet on the good solid New York sidewalk.

WE DON’T SAY AN awful lot. Sumner Fox doesn’t seem to talk much, as a rule. Nor does he touch me, except when I stumble, stepping off the curb at First Avenue. We turn down Sutton Place to the sound of the traffic whisking along the East River Drive, the horns and distant shouts and nighttime music.

“How do you like the city?” I ask.

“It’s all right. It’s like they say, it never sleeps.”

“You strike me as a country boy, that’s why I asked.”