She arranged herself on a chaise so stuffed with pillows that there was hardly room for her to sit down. She patted the seat for me to join her. I did not. “I loved your father, you know. We all did.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“You don’t have to. He and I had a fine stretch. Fifty years. He loved me, Gilda.”

“And you expect I shall love you too?”

“You might consider it.” She worked her face into something approaching a gentle smile. “Those guns are my property. It’s natural I should want them back, isn’t it? So why won’t you find them for me?”

“I don’t mind thieves, because I own nothing worth stealing. I’ve no quarrel with killers, because my life is worth nothing to me or anyone else. But guns . . . after what I have seen this week, I prefer the Westside with no guns at all.”

“The quiet, is that it? You are a daughter of the Lower West, and you love every silent alley, every empty theater, every abandoned promenade. Guns are noisy, greasy, ugly things—nothing to the sweet, sharp beauty of the knife. We were better off without them, yes. You’re right. But when Galen said he could bring them to me, that they would work? I’m hemmed in, Gilda. Van Alen to the north, honest cops to the east, the Volstead boys sniffing around every empty bottle. I suffered a moment of weakness. I told him to get the guns.”

“I don’t believe you’ve been weak one moment of your life.”

“You see right through me. Your father always had that power.”

“Mention my father again, and I’m leaving.”

“I’ll do my best, but he has a way of imposing himself on a conversation. Find the guns, that’s all I ask. Take them back from the bastards who stole them, and then do what you will. Toss them in the river. Hand them over to those who are laughably called the proper authorities. Either way, I’ll survive, but if those guns remain west of the fence, Madame Fournier will not be the last unfortunate to catch a bullet to the brain.”

I parted the curtains and stared out at her long line of stills. I had spent years drinking the toxic filth that bubbled out of them. Even after a mouthful of Boulton’s, I could still taste that sewage on my tongue.

The beast made her point well. A responsible detective would do whatever it took to stop further bloodshed. A sensible one—or a cowardly one—would return to hunting down roast beef sandwiches for an ungrateful gang leader. I was about to ask for another drink when I looked at the table and saw Mrs. Copeland’s glove.