He bangs his shoes on the first wooden porch step and hears his name shouted out across the street. He turns and sees One-Two waving from the south door of the Windsor. He is waving Lincoln over.

Lincoln turns and crosses Third Avenue while One-Two takes a final drag on his cigarette. He is the biggest Indian, the biggest person Lincoln has ever known. He is six feet two and three hundred pounds. He fills the doorway to the old Windsor Hotel. They call me One-Two cause that’s all it took when I was bar fightin, he’d said. But I don’t do that no more on account of my bad back.

“Well now, Delivery. You look like you’re guilty of somethin. Might as well work off the guilt. I need a hand downstairs.”

Lincoln nods and follows One-Two down the steps into the basement. One-Two and his shadow eat up all the light ahead of Lincoln. He looks like a huge mole squeezing his bulk along the narrow hallway.

“Got to fix some ducts. Insulation’s been ripped off,” he explains. They stop and he points up at the pipes by his head.

“See? I need you to hold this here trouble light.”

There is ample light for the work but Lincoln holds it anyway and directs the beam toward One-Two’s huge hands as they nimbly wrap insulation around the pipe. He holds it with one hand and secures it with a piece of duct tape.

“Did you know I got an uncle?” ventures Lincoln.

One-Two doesn’t look at him.

“Yep. Used to work with him before I took that fall. Worked high steel with him. Went from workin at the top to workin at the bottom.”

Lincoln can’t help asking more.

“What’d you do?”

“Built skyscrapers. Me and Simon did the IDS Tower downtown. Indians built all a them. But I took a three-story dive off the IDS and busted up my back.”

“Did my uncle ever fall?” The words “my uncle” are strange and exciting on his tongue.

Oh, he fell, fell about as far as a man can, One-Two thinks.

“Him? Naw. He was too good to fall. He never fell off no building, that’s for sure.”

“You know my dad?”

This time One-Two looks down at Lincoln. He can tell he is on uncertain ice.

“They must call you Delivery cause you serve up too many damn questions.”

Lincoln blushes and hangs his head.

Softer now. “I knew him, too. But I don’t remember all that much. He wasn’t but eighteen when he died.”

He finishes taping and takes the light from Lincoln and clicks it off. His face is cast in darkness and Lincoln feels him looking straight down at him.