IN JUNE, I wrote about a game called featherbowling played on the east side of Detroit. It's a long story. When you win the grand championship in featherbowling, they hang your portrait above two dirt trenches in the back of a bar at the corner of Waveney Street and Cadieux Road. The bar is a realm unto itself. It was once a speakeasy, and once a meeting place for the region's pigeon breeders. The most iconic of the featherbowling portraits was of former grand champion Steve Gosskie, who became terminally ill after claiming the league title. His portrait was stolen almost two years ago and hadn't been seen since. When the story came out on June 18, I got messages from Gosskie's old friends. Steve was "the one to call if you are stranded in 3 feet of snow somewhere in hell," one wrote. He was old Detroit. He lived with a mutt named Weezie in a 19th-century farmhouse down the street from the Cadieux. He was once a blacksmith. Sometimes when he bowled, he wore a stovepipe...