“Oh, you are a kind girl, and here I am, about to break your heart. That night at Lasko’s, it was freezing cold, with the snow blowing in through the cracks in the walls, and Barbie was doing her act. Did you ever hear of her act?”

“Only that it was infamous. The details have been lost.”

“A shame. It was a unique piece of the Westside’s cultural history. For the evening crowd, she sang and danced a little, and my that woman could not sing. But after two, when the slummers went home, she stripped, and it was legendary. She dropped her clothes without ceremony, like she was the only person in the room, and then she called for an oyster.”

“Dear god.”

“God had nothing to do with it. She’d crack it open with her bare hands and slide the meat onto her forehead, and then she’d start to writhe. She could shake that oyster all the way down to her collarbone, to her waist, down the inside of her leg, and onto the top of her foot.”

“And then what?”

“She’d kick it right back up in the air, catch it on her forehead, and start all over again.”

“That is vile.”

“Maybe. But it was certainly unique. Andrea was halfway through the act when she saw Viv come through the door. As she told me later, she knew her by silhouette. Viv was drunk—Viv was usually drunk—and with Andrea gone berserk, she didn’t stand a chance. Andrea jumped about fifteen feet off the stage, landed square on Viv’s chest. Snatched the bottle right out her hand, smashed it, and that was that. The band never even slowed down.”

“But why?”

“For Clubber. He was the greatest brawler on the Lower West. What else would two girls fight for?”

“Barbarossa loved my father?”

“And he loved her too, like fire loves gasoline, from the age of fourteen until . . .”

“Until when?” I said, so softly that through the noise he may not have heard me at all.

“Until he died, child.”

“Virgil Carr loved Mary Fall.”

“He may have. But he always loved Barbie more.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Those gloves you’re wearing. They were your mother’s?”

“A gift, I think, from my father.”

“A twisted gift indeed. Before she bottled her first batch of bootleg liquor, Barbie had a very brief, very undistinguished career in a leather shop on Seventh Avenue. The Fists were long finished then, and she sent us these hideous gloves as a token of better days. I’m not sure why she gave Virgil women’s gloves, but if he passed them on to your mother, well . . . he must have been laughing at her.”

I emptied my drink and slammed the glass down hard enough to crack the table. Brass whistled again, and I wished my father was there to break his spine.

“Where can I find her?”