It was at least twenty feet from the lip of the saloon to the fence, but that didn’t stop us trying to expectorate clear over the barrier to the Eastside. Long nights were passed in drunken argument about the proper angle to launch one’s missile, the ideal texture for flight, and the correct place to stand in order to harness the wind. No one had ever seen anyone clear the fence, but every drinker there insisted that once, just once, they had made it.

My mouth was drying and my projectiles were growing feeble when Bex Red appeared at my side, wrapped in every layer of fabric she owned. Born in Florida, but a fixture on the Westside art scene since before the fence was raised, Bex had never embraced the brutality of the New York cold. Sharp blue eyes peeked out through a slit in the scarves that swaddled her head, yet her voice was unmuffled by the cloth.

“Every time I see you, Gilda, you’ve managed to find a worse bar,” she said.

We sat at my table, a few inches from the edge, and I sloshed some gin into a chipped cup. It ran like sludge, and the glass was cold enough to cling to her lips, but she lifted a scarf and drained it. She dug her mittened hand into a coat pocket and pulled out a carefully folded square of thick homemade paper marked up with ninety-nine shades of blue.

“This is every blue I can mix,” she said, “and that’s every blue there is, from the not-quite-black of deep river water to this washed-out near white that’s too fragile even for a robin’s egg.”

“They all look blue to me.”

“You have always lacked an artist’s temperament.”

“Thank you.”

“Any of these look right?” she said with a theatrical sigh. I ran my finger down the page, squinting until my eyes crossed.

“Blue 72, maybe. Or it could be 74.”

“This was my whole afternoon, you know. Do I get paid for the time?”

“You get paid when I get paid.”

“Are you going to get paid?”

“Probably not.” I put the color chart away.

“Well, while we’re on the subject of wasted time . . .”

From deep in her coats she drew a worn paper envelope as soft as an old dollar bill. Inside were three portraits: two I would force myself to look at, and one I could not stand to see. The first showed a man with a gut as round and heavy as a pumpkin, shirtless at a table, a forkful of sausage and cabbage poised before wet red lips. The other was of a woman, handsome but joyless, waiting in line at an Eastside bank.

“These are good,” I said.

“Better than last week?”

“Last week’s were fine.”

“But you like these more.”

“Perhaps. They are so, so ordinary.”