“I’ve got two million people on this side of the fence. Two million people in eleven square miles. You think the stem is crowded? Walk two blocks east. It’s the Battle of the Somme. Every day, we got four or five murders, on top of dozens of rapes, assaults, burglaries, and god knows how many crimes people don’t bother to report. You hear what happened on Third Avenue last night? An inferno. Fire department was completely overmatched. They just let it burn. Three city blocks, right down to cinders. At least thirty dead, but they’re still pulling out bodies, so that number’ll rise. And you want me chasing shadows.”

“Westsiders are still citizens. They—”

The desk sergeant tapped my shoulder. On his arm was another woman, with a young body and an ancient face, in need of an audience with Detective Shearing. I gave her the chair and headed south.

“When all else fails,” my father said more than once, “return to the scene of the crime.”

All else had failed. In ten hours, Barbie’s war machine rumbled north, with Cherub Stevens and the One-Eyed Cats on the front line. I had done nothing to save them.

I crossed back into the Lower West and passed my house without going inside. I still didn’t know what to tell Hellida, and I could not bear to be tempted by my bed. I was not just hungry for sleep, I lusted after it, as desperately as I had ever lusted after any Westside tough. Trouble was, I needed hours of sleep, and I could not afford a minute.

The charred remains of the pier stank like wet charcoal. One dock south, where the rusted trawler had sunk a few inches deeper into the mud, Copeland’s yacht bobbed softly in the river. The deck was blackened on one side, whitewashed on the other, and peeling salt-stained gray in the middle. Wielding a paintbrush like a conductor’s baton, Juliette Copeland attempted to reverse the damage. Her hair was pulled back in a sweaty bun, and she had somehow managed to keep from splattering any paint on her starched black dress. The sun was bright, but she did not squint.

“Oh god,” she moaned, as tenderly as one might greet an open sore. “You.”

“A few days ago,” I said, “you didn’t know this boat existed. Now you’re painting it?”

“The coast guard delivered me a stern telegram, saying that if I didn’t take ownership of the yacht, she would be impounded. I’m a Copeland. That means I will never let the government take that which is mine by right. I came aboard this morning, intending to sail her to the East River, and found her infested with rats, her lines a tangle, her deck peeling and scorched. I’ll be on my way as soon as she is presentable enough to sail.”

“You’re not uneasy, working on the Westside?”