Then it came back to me! Yes, of course, Ginger, the hatcheck girl at Morley’s. I never knew how much to tip. That, and a weakness for Mexican midgets, were my fatal flaws. But how often do you meet a Mexican named Ginger?

Her father had worked on Hitler’s atom bomb project and had to slip out of Germany in the confusion following the collapse of the Third Reich. Went to Argentina where he met Ginger’s mother. They decamped to Guadalajara where they ran a hotel for Nazis on the run fronting as a youth hostel.

Ginger married an American diplomat who got her into the U.S. but dumped her in Chicago. Our paths crossed at Morley’s every other Thursday night.