‘With the beer I’ll be cool inside and out,’ I said.

Her apartment is a big, rambling affair. A typical Village apartment: old, inadequate, comfortable, and expensive. The furniture was added one piece at a time because she wanted each piece for itself. Antiques are her major hobby. She refinishes them herself. (That is one of the moments I will remember no matter what happens to me in the end: Marty in a white shirt smeared by wood stain, her face dirty, her hands the colour of old leather, her small body encased in torn dungarees, her hair in her eyes, the eyes bright as she works over an old table she loves.)

She is a small girl, and the hair in her eyes is red just now. It has been other colours in our three years. She has big eyes and a small face that could be the face of a boy. Her mouth is her gimmick — the mouth of a sad little boy on her woman’s body, and the combination makes the drunks drool. Her manner is brisk. She strides when she walks. Her walk is almost a run. She does everything fast and eager. She is very alive, and she looks too young for me. She is not too young, but she will probably ruin me.

‘Bring me up to date,’ she said. ‘Who hit you?’

We were on the couch that she bought at a sell-off of old hotel furniture. It is big enough for a giant to stretch out on, if there were any giants any more. I like that couch. I lay at one end, and Marty lay at the other. Our legs touched. I told her about Swede and the Olsens. She frowned.

‘Can you drop it? It has a smell, a stink.’

‘I took the fifty. I’ll go a little longer.’

‘This Jo-Jo has trouble, baby,’ she said. ‘He took his own way out. Maybe he doesn’t need you.’

I said that she changed her name because she wanted a new identity and that I tell stories about my lost arm because I don’t like the real story.