I kicked open the flimsy warehouse door. Thorne followed, stepping lightly, like he didn’t trust the floor to hold his weight. He was right not to. The floorboards were half rotten, springy like floors should not be. The stairs were half iron and half rust. Through the shattered windows of the stairwell, the sun sank over the river. The stench of waterfront was in the air.

“So your boys killed Barbarossa,” I said.

“I fired the shot myself. Right between the eyes I got her. Burned her body like we burned the others. It was better than she deserved.”

“Barbie was an awful woman, but she was better than you.”

“I’m a cop. I brought down a notorious criminal. Don’t that make me some kind of hero?”

From the sickly pride in his voice, I could tell he was smirking, but also earnest—somewhere in his pickled mind he thought he’d done something noble. I was tempted to turn around and kick him in the face, kick him hard enough to send him tumbling down to the first floor bloodied and broken. I saw it vividly in my imagination, and the ease of it terrified me. I kept climbing. Barbarossa was not worth defending.

“And what about my father?”

“I loved that man. I never had a dad, you know? Clubber was . . . he was it. And I’ve always tried to look out for you. I sort of owed it to him.”

“You were his Brutus.”

“His who?”

“When the knife went in his back, you were the one twisting it. And when he was finished, I don’t recall any visits to the house. I don’t recall any notes of sympathy. I don’t recall, Edward Thorne, that you did anything at all.”

“And what the hell do you know about it?” he said, banging his fist on the flaking whitewashed wall. He did not look as big as he wanted. “When Clubber Carr spent his whole career breaking me down. His whole damned life. Kicking me in the side. Calling me names. Put a few drinks in him, and all he’d have to do is look at me to fall down in a heap of laughter. Ever since we was kids, wasn’t a day passed that he didn’t . . . Jesus. All I ever wanted . . . And he never gave a damn.”

“Of course he didn’t. My father had no time for human trash. Stop sniveling. Take a drink, if that’s what you need.”

He took a long pull from a nickel-plated flask. It quieted him. We continued up.

The door opened onto the roof, where the soft black tar was streaked with silver. Its west side sloped upward, and the lip overlooked the docks. I walked to the edge. Most of the dock where Copeland died had been washed away by the river. What remained was blackened and twisted. No sign of the yacht. Juliette had taken it home.