“Lila,” he whispered and took another drink.

“Lila.” He said it to the yellow slice of moon, to the black sky, to the smell of the night and the roofs covered in snow.

“Lila.” He put it on the wind, like a fly he didn’t have the heart to kill, and willed it to carry itself to Tulsa.

Luther Laurence, meet Helen Grady.”

Luther shook the older woman’s hand. Helen Grady had a grip as firm as Captain Coughlin’s and a similar trim build, gunmetal hair, and a fearless gaze.

“She’ll be working with you from here on out,” the captain said.

Luther nodded, noticing she wiped her hand on her pristine apron as soon as she took it back from his grip.

“Captain, sir, where’s—?”

“Nora has left our employ, Luther. I noted a fondness between the two of you, and so I inform you of her dismissal with a measure of empathy for the bond you shared, but she is never to be spoken of in this home again.” The captain placed a firm hand on Luther’s shoulder and gave him a smile just as firm. “Clear?”

“Clear,” Luther said.

Luther found Danny as Danny was returning to his rooming house one night. He stepped out from the building and said, “Fuck did you do?”

Danny’s right hand drifted toward his coat, and then he recognized Luther. He dropped his hand.

“No ‘Hi’?” Danny said. “‘Happy New Year’? Anything like that?”

Luther said nothing.

“Okay.” Danny shrugged. “First, this ain’t the best neighborhood to be a colored in, or haven’t you noticed?”

“I’ve been out here an hour. I noticed.”

“Second,” Danny said, “are you fucking crazy talking to a white man like that? A cop?”

Luther took a step back. “She was right.”

“What? Who?”

“Nora. She said you were an act. You play the rebel. Play the man who says he don’t believe in being called ‘suh,’ but now you tell me where it’s okay for a nigger like me to go in this city, tell me how I’s supposed to talk to your whiteness in public. Where’s Nora?”

Danny held out his arms. “How do I know? Why don’t you go see her at the shoe factory? You know where it is, don’t you?”

“’Cause our hours conflict.” Luther stepped to Danny, realizing people were starting to notice them. It would hardly be unreasonable for someone to whack him in the back of the head with a stick or just flat out shoot him for stepping up to a white man like this in an Italian neighborhood. In any neighborhood.

“Why do you think I had anything to do with Nora leaving the house?”

“Because she loved you and you couldn’t live with it.”

“Luther, step back.”

“You step back.”

“Luther.”

Luther cocked his head.

“I’m serious.”

“You’re serious? Anyone in the world looked close at that girl, they saw a whole country of pain had already paid its respects to her. And you, you—what?—you added to it? You and your whole family?”