“That is your problem, not mine.” Van Alen took the last four candles out of my bag and dropped them into the pocket of his apron. He opened the front door of the building, whose windows were broken and whose air was stale. This time, he crossed the threshold, taking Ugly’s torch and bounding into the darkness before I could think of a way to make him answer me.

“No one follows,” said Mrs. Greene. “Never.”

“Is that so?” I said and pushed past her. Ugly’s hand snapped out to stop me, but he was still too slow.

I took the stairs two at a time and found Van Alen at the top, standing in front of an apartment door, eyes closed, hands rubbing his temples like a man unsure if he should cry or scream. I watched him for what seemed like a long time before he noticed I was there. His gruff mask went up again, but it did not fit as well as it had before.

“How ’bout you get the hell out of here?” he said. I shook my head. “Just like your daddy. Stubborn as a goddamned statue.”

“Who lives here?”

“My parents been here since 1910, ever since they put enough away to get out of the Village.”

“The lord of the Upper West keeps his parents in a burnt-out tenement?”

“A thousand times I offered to find them someplace better, but no. That’s not what they want. At least, it’s not what my mother wants. My daddy, he’s far gone. The man doesn’t know . . . he doesn’t know where he is half the time. All I can do is make sure they’ve got plenty of candles.”

The door was locked. He knocked, and it opened slowly. Van Alen’s mother was only a few inches taller than me, but she was as solid as a brick wall. She welcomed her son with a wordless hug and cast a suspicious eye at me.

“Gilda,” I said. “Gilda Carr.”

“Clubber’s daughter,” said Van Alen.

“Clubber,” murmured the old woman, and a smile flickered across her face. “Then you’ll need to have something to eat.”

The apartment was small, with one room serving as kitchen, dining room, living room, and everything else. The furniture was ragged but comfortable. A candle stub flickered in a groove cut in the center of the round wood table that dominated the room. Mrs. Van Alen lit the new candle off the old, setting it on the table with holy precision. The spark of flame caught the eye of Firecracker’s father, who sat in the corner, staring out the window at the fire in the distance. His head snapped toward the match, then lolled back to the view.

“Fresh vegetables,” said Mrs. Van Alen, placing a bowl of soup in front of me. “All from Dick’s bazaar. You shop there?”

“Whenever I have the time.”