As the cab pulled off FDR Drive, somewhere in the early Hundreds, a low-slung Tomahawk full of black guys came sharking out of lane, sliding off to the right across our bows. The cab swerved and hit a deep crater in the road: to the sound of a rifle-shot the roof dropped down and smacked me on the core of my head. I really didn’t need that, with my head and face hurting a lot all the time anyway, and still drunk and crazy from the plane.

‘Oh, man,’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ said the cabbie from behind his screen. He was fortyish – balding, but what a rug he had falling straight and damp over his shoulders. I couldn’t see that much of his face. The back of his neck was mottled and pocked, with traces of adolescent virulence – ‘of fire, of flame’ – in the crimson underhang of the ears.