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The accusations had little impact, however, on his public persona as a raffish celebrity who was a fixture in gossip columns, a personal brand crystallized by the name of his music label: Bad Boy.

Afterward, he started to communicate with living Redondan notables and to research the micro-nation’s various rival monarchs, including a raffish ship’s captain known as King Bob the Bald.

Now combined into a single storefront, the current retail space retains raffish details of its liquor-store days, including a retro red-and-blue neon sign and period gilt window lettering advertising cognacs and cordials.

But logic isn’t the point of a story populated by a cast of colorfully raffish hit men, ne’er-do-wells, a precocious chaos merchant and an ever-looming crime kingpin called the White Death.

Stevens begins his account with an introduction to his ancestors, all of whom were show people in the gloriously raffish tradition.