“She looked like my daughter,” he said, “but she was a devil. She took Juliette. She burned my office to the ground. The same wind that brought that devil to me, it brought you. Gilda Carr. The city has missed you. My angel.”

“We have to get to your yacht.”

“Oysters. First, oysters.”

“Are you insane? We don’t have time for—”

“Do you know where they’re going?”

“Not yet.”

“Then we eat.”

Beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, we found Dover Street, an alley scarcely wider than the two of us. Fishermen trudged in from the waterfront, work done, in search of food and liquor. At the end of Dover was a sagging square house whose pink bricks shone in the early afternoon sun. A squat man in a black apron stepped outside and dumped a bucket of gutted fish on the pavement. Three cats scrambled out of the alleyway and began to feast.

“That’s Robbins,” said Copeland. “He’ll take care of us.”

The main room was stifling, warmed by a potbelly stove surrounded by mariners fighting to chase off the morning damp. The air was heavy with garlic. Straight-backed chairs ringed wobbly tables, and a dozen fishermen crowded around the small counter, raiding a free lunch of cheese, salami, and paper-thin onions. They parted for Copeland.

“A dozen Mattitucks,” said Copeland. “A dozen Cape Cods. A dozen Saddle Rocks. Quick, and with lemon.”

“And we got in some of the black clams,” said Robbins.

“Thank god. Thank the lord above. Two dozen of those, Gilda, and I swear our luck will turn around.”

The oysters came by the bucketful, accompanied by two earthen cups of steamy, sludgy, blessed coffee.

“You hang on to that knife?” said Copeland. I passed it to him, and he noticed my burnt hand for the first time. He dug deep into the icy bucket and pulled up the largest oyster I had ever seen. He pried it open with a single quick motion and pressed it into my hand. The shell was frozen and soothed my aching palm. The meat was the size of a fried egg. I tried not to think of Starlight Angie, naked and wriggling.

“Take it,” he said. “One shot, and drink the juice, every bit of it.”

He worked like a machine, bad wrist and all, prying the shells open and casting the tops aside, handing half the oysters to me and taking the rest himself. We moved through the first dozen in two or three minutes, and he did not slow down. As he worked, he talked, staring straight past me and into the fire. The oysters were frigid and salty enough to scrub the smoke from my lungs, clear my sinuses, and uncloud my eyes. Between mouthfuls, I explained what I could.