Lamb stroked the pistol along Koszler’s face, drew it back, and brought it down hard, smashing it on the sidewalk until the butt splintered and the mechanism broke into a dozen pieces.

“You’re lucky I’m still half priest,” he said and tossed the remains of the pistol into the storm drain.

“Can you walk?” I asked Lamb.

“A bit.”

“Then get him on his feet. He’s due back at the Fourth Precinct.”

A long time ago, I promised my father that no Carr would ever again enter a precinct house. That day, with Emil Koszler’s blood seeping down the sleeves of my dress, I broke my pledge. The Fourth was an antiseptic green pit. Dim light crept in through boarded windows. Overturned filing cabinets and smashed wood desks littered the floor, and vile script covered every wall.

Three empty barrels of Barbarossa’s finest lay broken at the bottom of the stairwell, and the cops still felt the whiskey’s effects. They slumped in corners, across sagging benches, their uniforms stained with vomit and blood—some of it theirs, and some, no doubt, belonging to the men and children whom they had slaughtered. They moaned, and Koszler moaned back, and the sleeping cops told him to shut up.

“Some friends,” I said, and Koszler mumbled something hateful. Lamb and I wrapped his arms tight around our shoulders and hefted him up the stairs.

I’d spent a lot of time here as a child, coming after school to play hide-and-seek beneath the desks of the detectives. I knew my way around. My father’s old office was on the second floor, and I did not doubt Thorne had taken it for himself. We were dragging Koszler down the hallway when the office door opened and out stepped the immaculate figure of Ida Greene. Ugly stood behind her, ax on his shoulder, the faintest smile on his lips.

“A half-dead cop,” said Mrs. Greene. “What a lovely sight. Miss Carr, you continue to surprise.”

“Why are you here?”

“Dick—Mr. Van Alen—was quite upset at last night’s unpleasantness. He does not want that kind of horror to befoul the Upper West. We came to offer truce.”

“I’m surprised he made it out alive.”

“It took three guards to drag him back from the battle. He wanted to die with his men.”

“I’m sure. Another chapter for the schoolbooks of the Upper West: the Battle of Eighth Avenue and Van Alen’s heroic retreat. What about Barbie?”

“Dead, thank god. Gunned down by her own bought cops. It’s a lesson, Gilda, to invest in quality.”

“What did Thorne say to your offer of peace?”

“Nothing at all.”

“The bastard’s drunk,” said Ugly. “Could hardly open his eyes.”