“Where did they find it? Did he tell you?”

“Italian Harlem, under the bridge at First Avenue.”

On the chart, the Harlem River was a thin silver band that ran along the north end of Manhattan, from the Hudson to the East River, a little stretch of water that divided a great borough from a lowly one. I walked its banks each summer, on mornings before a game at the Polo Grounds. It was wide, flat, gray, and cold.

“Don’t think so hard,” he said.

“Quiet. I’m close.”

“Have a black clam.”

“Quiet!”

He pried open the clam and pushed it across the table. I tilted it into my mouth. It slid down my throat like an electric shock. It was small and sweet as penny candy, with a salty bite that made me sit up straight in my seat. Without thinking, I reached for another.

“There was an article in the paper, the day after my father disappeared. A headless body washed up in my city, in Jersey, actually, along the base of the Palisades. His head came here; his body stayed on the other side. They must have killed him smack in the middle of the gate.”

“The animals.”

I traced my finger along the water that carried my father’s body away. Where the Harlem River emptied into the Hudson, right between where they found my father’s head and where they found his body, I recognized a name.

“Spuyten Duyvil,” I said. “What is it?”

“A creek. Means ‘Spouting Devil.’ Nasty spot.”

“Copeland—my Copeland, that is—he once saved a pair of twins he found swimming in Spuyten Duyvil.”

“That’s a miracle. That’s some of the roughest water in the city. But I was always a good swimmer.”

“Take me there,” I said. “Take me there now.”

I jabbed my finger at the map. Spuyten Duyvil.

Right smack in the middle.

Copeland leaned on the throttle, and his yacht pulled into the East River current. He held the wheel loosely, gnawing his lip and staring dead-eyed upriver. We turned west into the rough waters that separated Manhattan from the Bronx. The island’s heights loomed over us as if we were passing into the hall of some great king. The water frothed white, and on either side the rocks loomed large.

“Is this the spot?” I said.

“Spuyten Duyvil, indeed.”

“Steer toward the shore.”

Copeland did, reluctantly. The boat shook.

“Closer.”

“There’s safer channels up ahead.”

“Closer!”

He wouldn’t dare, so I jerked him backward by the collar, and the wheel spun free. He crashed into the deck, smashing his nose on the wood. He rolled over, spilling blood across the little ship. On the shore, the great shadows cast by the island’s heights began to move our way. The ship whipped toward the rocks. Copeland tried to get up, but my foot kept him down. The shadows swept over the engine, and we stopped dead.