The Ruby Fang was located atop The Pastoral Building, a hotel on the far West Side. The name came from the shape—the building was a pointy curve, with the top few floors made of red-tinted glass. The architects had intensified the general effect by lighting the tip from below. At a distance the building really did resemble the tooth of an animal. But it was a lonely fang surrounded by squared-off, more herbivorous shapes. The gumline of the neighborhood was crowded with boutiques, restaurants, and nice apartments. This neighborhood used to be the docks. Zone of rutting for money, import and export, smuggling and blood. These streets had been sanitized, and now a mural of donkey laborers was the only thing that referred to this neighborhood’s old flavor.

While Mitchell popped into a bodega for cigarettes, Alfonzo waited outside studying a luxury advertisement that read “We live in a golden age of pants.”

Alfonzo’s grandparents had avoided coming here for fear of hearing rude propositions, or getting mugged or trampled in some spontaneous stampede. Alfonzo now avoided the area because it made him feel poor and angry. Proximity to the moneyed filled Alfonzo with dread. He didn’t have to fear direct violence, as he did in other neighborhoods. Rather, he reacted to all the menace that lay hidden. While chatting with rich animals, it was too easy to forget that what they had was derived from exploitation of workers, or plastics, or oil, or the manipulation of addictions, markets, or politicians. Abuse ran underneath wealth like utility wires and pipes beneath city streets. Alfonzo wasn’t worried about getting robbed; he was afraid of being infected by the bad logic of those fancy animals.

“Is Dawn, you know, or is she just aspirational?”

“Well, she’s from Westchester, so you draw your conclusions,” Mitchell drawled. “But this is only a party. Relax. Maybe this will be a chance to meet someone cuddly.”

Mitchell was trying to help, but when it came to affection, Alfonzo could only think of Vivi. Viviana Lopez-Cuña, poised daughter of leftist vicuñas. Like his mother’s family, they were émigrés who ended up in New York. But unlike Alfonzo’s upbringing, Vivi had grown up among artists and intellectuals. Vivi’s father became something of a celebrity in America. Vivi’s parents had settled upstate in the town of Bovina, but they retained a worldly glamour that transcended the rural surroundings. The Lopez-Cuña household was rustic and formal; ancestral rugs hung on the walls beside fine drawings made of insect blood and berry-juice ink on bark paper. Vivi’s father had a library and smoked a pipe. Alfonzo was intimidated and awed by the family. No one else had yet mesmerized him the way Vivi did.