“You are outnumbered and badly disliked. This could be an amusing anecdote for your fellows on the Eastside, or it could be a tragedy. What would you prefer?”

He chuckled. His laugh sounded like slime. In a room without a wall, he was backed into a corner, and I really didn’t know if he’d give up or lash out. I believe I was ready for either. His friends made the decision for him, cinching their scarves and slinking for the exit. Seeing that he really was outnumbered—even rich boys must learn some arithmetic—he broke his grip on Judy’s ankle and followed them out.

Even through the cold, my face felt hot. I drained my drink, grateful it had survived the sermon. Judy jumped down and wrapped me in a welcome embrace.

“Gilda Carr,” she said. “My favorite sinner. God truly takes all forms.”

“Are we getting the gospel tonight, Judy, or ain’t we?” asked one of the men at the bar.

“Give ’em a show,” I said, and she launched back into her sermon, howling of thumbscrews and broken bones, eager demons and weak flesh, evil liquor and the healing power of God’s infinite grace. And she told about the coming resurrection, when our dead would rise from their graves and walk the Westside streets, when all the wounds we bandaged with liquor would finally be healed. She punctuated every paragraph by sweeping another heap of the mess she’d made over the edge of the vanished wall, where it crashed onto the street to startle the fleeing slummers. I reached behind the bar for an unbroken bottle, dropped a dime in the bucket, and poured myself a fresh one.

Before I could settle in, a hand brushed my elbow. Behind me was a sallow white man in a perfectly tailored suit that would have been the height of fashion thirty years before. His hands were bare, despite the cold, and he held a tidy wad of pamphlets that offered scriptural backing for Judy’s unpredictable testimony. He was her brother, Enoch Byrd.

“A tract, Miss Carr?”

“I’m afraid I’ve read them all.”

Enoch was at least a decade older than me, but there was something boyish about him. While his sister spoke in a rambling torrent, he chose his words with care, pausing for seconds at a time as he searched for one that fit. He reminded me of the sort of boy I met too few of as a young girl, who were too tongue-tied and pathetic to ever seem a threat.