He was on his feet quickly, but I was quicker, charging through the costume shop, knocking dresses down behind me to slow his pursuit. I clattered down the rusted stairs and burst into the heavy afternoon heat. I ran down Forty-Eighth Street, toward the Eastside, toward civilization, toward the spot where Alice Pearl began her final lonely walk.

I threw myself against the chipped iron fence. Mrs. Greene and her men spilled out of the Longacre’s lobby and ran in my direction. I pounded on the fence, kicked at it, screamed at it, until the little iron grate snicked open.

“The door,” I said. “Open the door.”

“No access here,” said the guard, and the Longacre men came closer.

I jammed my license through the slot.

“I’m on police business,” I said. “Deputized by the Fourth Precinct. Ask Lieutenant Edward Thorne. Ask your sergeant. Ask the mayor. But just open the goddamned door.”

“Sorry, girlie, I can’t help you.”

“Open this gate now, you rat-faced incompetent, or I’ll drag you through this slot nose-first.”

The vanguard of Mrs. Greene’s phalanx reached for me. I smelled their breath and felt the heat of their hands, when the gate opened and I fell into the Eastside. The Longacre men did not follow. On the steps of the theater, Ugly stood with his ax over his shoulder and winked as the gate slammed closed.

Ten

“I remember your father,” said the detective. “His work was . . . inconsistent.”

The Times Square precinct house was as crowded as anywhere else on the Eastside, every surface stained with sweat, the air pregnant with mildew. I shifted in the wobbly wooden chair and steadied my voice as best I could.

“There is a tunnel under the fence at Forty-Eighth Street,” I said, “where mutilated men bring all manner of stolen goods to hand over to Van Alen. In a tangentially related but still quite important matter, a shipment of pistols has been stolen, pistols that work beyond the stem, and tonight there will be a war.”

“Yes. That sounds like something your father would say.”

His name was Shearing. He was blond and packed into his uniform like meat into a sausage casing. He must have been used to handling hysterical women, for he wore a smile that might have been comforting if it had not seemed so rehearsed. He had the glazed look of someone who wants to help everyone but has resigned himself to helping no one at all.

“I can take you to the tunnel,” I said. “I can bring your patrolmen to the place where Barbarossa makes her moonshine. I can help you break the Westside.”

“And what do you want in return?”

“Protection.”

“For yourself?”

“For a friend.” Shearing straightened the stacks of paper on his small, rickety desk and snuck a glance at the clock. “Why aren’t you writing this down?”