Amis Avenue

Amis Avenue is a street in the unnamed city where Alex and his droogs operate. It is the location of the Duke of New York, a pub where the gang performs the sammy act—a calculated display of generosity designed to purchase an alibi in advance of their planned crimes. On the evening that opens the novel, Alex, Pete, Georgie, and Dim enter the Duke of New York on Amis Avenue and order four veterans, a drink of rum and cherry brandy, then buy large Scotchmen and bottles of cognac for the old women drinking there, as well as all the meat pies, pretzels, cheese-snacks, crisps, and chocbars in the establishment. They leave without a cent of money in their pockets, having spent all their cash. The old women, grateful and intimidated, later confirm to the police that the boys have been in the pub all evening, providing the gang with a false alibi for the robbery and assault at Slouse's shop that occurs while they are supposedly inside. The street thus functions as a key site in the gang's strategy of deception, a place where they manufacture innocence through conspicuous charity before committing violence elsewhere.