“The waiters at the Hyperion Hotel. Slip them a dollar, and they’ll spike your coffee with atrocious whiskey. For a few weeks, it was a lark. Finally, I had a secret of my own, and the hotel was light and beautiful and gay. But the crowds became unbearable. They were all so happy.”

“So where did you end up?”

“I read about it in the newspaper. Merrill’s. The Sentinel called it one of the most wretched dives of the whole Westside. Do you know it?”

“My knowledge of the Westside stops at sundown.”

“The thought of venturing somewhere so vile, it terrified me. It made me sick. But when I dressed that night, I shook with excitement. I tried my hardest to look, well, cheap. I took a taxi to the fence and bribed a guard to let me through. He looked at me like I was suicidal. He may have been right.”

“That was a stupid risk you took, just to get a drink.”

“I thought you didn’t fear the Westside.”

“I’m learning all the time.”

“I couldn’t believe how dark it was. It was like a nightmare. Nothing to see, but the sounds . . . the sounds were terrible.”

“And still, you marched on into the dark.”

“I felt my way forward—it took me an hour just to get from the fence to Sixth Avenue. But I found my way, and they let me in, and I had—oh, Miss Carr, I had the most marvelous time.”

“I’m terribly happy for you.”

She didn’t react to my sarcasm. “It was like I was another woman. Unmarried. Unencumbered. Happy, you know? The liquor was awful and the place stank of human filth, but the music was so loud, I forgot to be afraid. I wanted a man, the way I’d never wanted one before.”

“Did you find one?”

“He was Italian. Handsome, in an ugly sort of way, or ugly in a handsome sort of way. You know how Italians are. He had a scar down the side of his face, the left side, and maybe it was the liquor—that awful, wonderful liquor—but I swear it was shaped just like Manhattan. He had the roughest, most wonderful hands.”

“What was his name?”

“I don’t know. Why would I want to? I hardly spoke to him. I was so drunk. The last thing I recall, we were dancing. I’d never danced like that before. And I kissed him, and it must have been more than I could bear, because the next thing I remember was waking up on the bench across the street from my apartment, with a spike through my brain and one glove gone.”

She pressed a token into my hand. A poker chip, with a rabid dog in the center, and “Merrill’s” in green letters around the edge.