“They came that way!” said Van Alen. “I got ’em from the boys’ home on Fifty-Fifth, near the river, which closed down when the fence went up. Ida found them, and she came to me, and said, ‘Hey, boss, something awful was going on here. We got three dozen boys had their tongue cut out by the bastards running this place. They got nowhere to go.’”

“That’s vile,” I said.

“You were here in ’14. You remember. There was a lot worse than that.”

“There was.”

“So I took them in, gave them work. They wanted to stick together—they told me, with this sign language they’ve worked out—and Ida takes good care of ’em.”

“But that isn’t the best part,” said Mrs. Greene.

“It ain’t. The guy who done it? The cretin run that boys’ school? He thought he was safe over on the Eastside, but we found him, and we let him have it. You know what Ugly here did to him?”

“Cut out his tongue?”

“No. Hell, that would have been good. Ugly just beat him till the marrow leaked out through his nose, threw him in the river. Shit. I like your way better, but you can’t have it all.”

“So you see,” said Mrs. Greene, “at worst we are thieves, and we steal for a righteous cause. We do not stoop to violence unless provoked.”

She took that step toward me.

“I still think you lie,” I said.

“And that simply breaks my heart. Now, Dick—”

“I know, I know. The schedule,” he said, and we turned the corner and I felt the heat of the biggest fire I’d ever seen. It stretched three stories high, throwing sparks a mile into the sky, lighting up Haven Avenue as bright as the surface of the sun. Guards ringed the base, clubs at their side, protecting the flame. A hundred or more people stood on the sidewalk, not minding how the heat scorched their skin, occasionally venturing forward to toss an offering onto the blaze.

“What are they burning?” I said.

“Whatever they like.”

There was laughter at every corner—the honest, unstoppable wave of ordinary human mirth. Young boys played stickball, and couples danced in the firelight—not the miserable shuffling of the Hyperion Hotel, but a sweeping waltz, sloppy with life. Old men played the accordion, and others kept time on bass or bucket or anything else they had at hand. A grand piano blocked the sidewalk and thundered out ragtime. Hellida was right. She would be very happy here.

“Come on,” he said. “One more stop.”

As the fire disappeared behind us, Ugly got close, carrying a torch to keep his lord bathed in light.

“If you didn’t take the guns,” I said, “your thieves may know who did.”