The bottle made a final circuit. We were just feeling the warmth when a rock crashed through the branches and smashed the bottle out of my hand. Ten stories below, I saw the tiny shape of a massive woman, Hellida Krag, rearing back to hurl another stone. I waved for her to stop. She shook her fist and yelled. The words were lost in the wind, but I knew what they meant.

“The sun is setting,” said Bex Red. “Gilda has to go home.”

“You should know better than to stay out so close to sundown,” said Hellida. “Your father always warned against the Westside night.”

“My father was not to be trusted.”

“Hmph. And I don’t like you wasting your time with those artistic types. Swilling cheap whiskey in the tower of a church. You disgrace your family.”

“What family?”

“You disgrace me.” She poured a cup of sludgy Swedish coffee, cradling her silver coffeepot like it was a newborn child. “Drink up.”

“It’s boiling hot.”

“Yes.”

The coffee scalded my tongue. I tried not to wince. Hellida grunted, pleased to see me in a little pain. Hellida Krag was hired by my mother years ago, and outliving both my parents has given her a blistering arrogance. I can’t fire her. Originally my nanny, she’s now my tenant, living rent-free in a basement apartment—an imposition I accept because it’s easier to keep her close than kick her out. Once a teenage discus champion, she’s only a few years past fifty. Whenever she’s irritated with me, she’ll twirl a dinner plate in her left hand and I have no doubt she could place it right between my eyes. The Westside night may not frighten me, but Hellida clings to her superstitions like a drowning man to a shard of driftwood. For her sake—and for her sake alone, I assure you—I had not stepped outside after dark for two years.

“Did you accomplish anything with your day, or have you been drinking since breakfast?”

“I worked. All day.”

“Did you learn anything interesting?”

I lay the two gloves on the table. She groaned.

“Yes?” I said.

“Two left hands. That’s a grave omen.”

“You see omens everywhere.”

“Because omens are everywhere.”

“If I can’t find out where he bought the glove,” I said, bypassing her metaphysical statement, “I might have to follow him.”

“Why?”

“His wife says he’s been acting strange.”

“This woman hired you to find a glove, not stalk her husband. Don’t make this bigger than it is.”

“Of course not, but if the case demands it . . .”

She rinsed my cup, dried it, and put it away. Her basement rooms were as tightly organized as an ocean liner stateroom, and every surface held a glowing candle. Through the narrow windows in the top of the wall, thin clouds glowed pink.