He had been. Whenever he wasn’t talking, he wheezed out a jaunty little refrain that cut through me like the wind in January. He promised to stop, but I wasn’t sure he could.

“Is this really what you came to talk about?” he said.

“No. It’s not.”

A waiter sailed by and I relieved him of two highballs. I offered neither to my new friend. The white lights of Broadway shimmered through the gin like gasoline in gutter water. Past the stem, the darkness of the Lower West stretched out like a carpet. Above the Borderline, Van Alen’s night-fires flickered on, one by one.

“You knew my father,” I said.

“I loved him like a brother.”

“Then what is the meaning of this?”

I bent my wrist toward him, like I was presenting my hand to be kissed, to show the brand on my mother’s glove. Brass pressed his hand against his eyes and may have been holding back tears.

“Oh, Clubber,” he said, “Clubber, you break my heart.”

“What does it mean?”

“Truly? He never told you?”

“I’m beginning to think he never told me anything at all.”

“What do you know of your father’s wayward youth?”

“He was a street tough.”

“A street tough! He was the greatest brawler in the history of the Westside. His arms were like sledgehammers. His eyes were blue ice. Every hood west of the stem lowered their gaze when he passed. Women threw themselves at his feet. He was a legend and a demon, and he gave it up for a shiny little badge.”

“I knew he had a gang.”

“He had a six-man army, the gang to end all gangs. We were nothing until he came along, until that night he kicked open the door at Pinky’s, and the snow swirled in after him, and he screamed he’d cut every throat on Grove Street if he didn’t get a drink of gin.”

Funny. I had never known Virgil Carr to drink gin.

“He was a vintage Sixth Avenue lunatic. I doubt he was older than fourteen, but he was past six feet, with shoulders as wide as Broadway. He drank like a man, and he fought like a god. That first night, he grabbed us by the necks and hauled us into the street. Said we had a debt of honor to defend, that a clan of misfits from across the street had insulted all those who drank at Pinky’s, and they must be destroyed.”

“Why? Why risk your neck for a man you just met?”

“Your father had a way of inspiring people.”

“I never saw it.”

“You never had him standing behind you, club in hand, promising to crush your skull unless you charged. It was very inspirational indeed. Those other boys were doomed from the start. We stained the snow with their blood, and your father danced in the gaslight, and a magnificent legend was born.”