Before I summited the staircase, I smelled the fire. It was grease, burning dirty. Van Alen was where I had expected him, leaning on his railing, staring at the lights below. Beneath the thick black hair that covered nearly every inch of his body, his skin was tallow white.

“Shut the door,” he said. “You’ll let out the light.”

That did not seem possible. Candles burned on every surface, and at least two dozen lanterns dangled from the ceiling. In the center of the room, steps led up to the platform that held the great light that grinded ceaselessly against the dark. When its blinding beam passed, I saw the room had a second ceiling—a wavering mat of black smoke.

“Hello, Firecracker.”

“Call me Glen-Richard,” he said, relighting the candles that had gone out when I opened the door. “No, no. Call me Dick. Something to drink?”

“A glass of rye would be a welcome sight.”

“I don’t keep liquor here. Takes a sharp eye to keep the flame. But I’ll brew you a cup of tea.”

Somewhere between candles, I found someplace to sit. Van Alen was old, but he was gigantic. He wore an apron the size of my kitchen table, and in his hands, the cast-iron kettle looked the size of a tennis ball. He moved slowly, not with the trembling agony of an old man, but with the care that comes from a lifetime of being too big for this world. He set a chipped porcelain teacup down in front of me. The tea was green as sulfur and stank like a swamp. I left it alone, wondering if it would eat through the cup.

“My Italian boy said something about a war,” he said, in a low, rough whisper.

“Barbarossa feels she has been provoked. She’s called every son of the Lower West to her banner.”

“You think I hadn’t heard?”

“Do you know when she plans to attack? Do you know where?”

“I do not,” he said, chuckling. “I do not, at that.”

He knelt on the floor and dragged a heavy piece of canvas from under the couch. He kicked, and it unfurled like a carpet, covering the floor. In fanciful watercolors, turquoise and lilac and sage, it illustrated the Borderline, from the river to the fence at Union Square. At each intersection, Van Alen’s guardhouses were drawn like medieval forts, glowing with pure white flame.

“It’s a mile from fence to river,” he said, “and I’ve got a thousand men to hold it. Tell me where she’s coming, and we’ll grind her into glass.”

“If you don’t mind answering some questions first.”

“Hmph.”

“I assume that means, ‘All right, Miss Carr. Whatever you say.’”