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"I get the point"

"You want to get a handle on the Third Step? Here's a two-point program for you A- just turn over the small stuff B- it's all sht, Matt? You're not going to drink, are you?"

"No I'ht"

"Yeah, I' to call you and you're going to tell me what I want to hear"

"Entirely possible But the day that happens is the day you better get yourself another sponsor"

I checked the desk around six and there was a e to call Joe Durkin He'd left for the day but I had his hoht you'd want to know," he said "I talked to the assistant et it He said it was hard to tell where one of them started and the other left off He said, 'Tell your friend to go up to the top of the Erapefruit Then tell hiure out what part of Florida it came fro"

I hung up, thinking that Ji by leaps and bounds, and any minute now I'd be a prie anything We still had nothing, and were going nowhere

I went to a ht

My feet, creatures of habit, started heading for St Paul's shortly after eight I got to within a block of the big old church and so by showing up there

The thought sent a chill throughacross the Great Blackboard in the Sky My aunt Peg, God rest her, would have said that a goose just walked overa virus that could turn the innocent into homicide victims For the first tio to a roup Not unsafe for me, but unsafe for others

I toldI turned and retreated to the corner of Fifty-eighth and Ninth and tried to think straight It was Tuesday Who else had a ot out at Cabrini Hospital, on East Twentieth Thewas in a conference rooray hair and an engaging s account executive and he had been married six times He had sired a total of fourteen children with his various wives, and he had not filed an incoot a little out of hand," he said

Noas a sporting-goods salesman in a discount retail store on Park Avenue South, and he lived alone "Allalone," he said, "and now I've discovered that I like it"

Good for you, I thought

There was no one I knew at the h there were a few fa the discussion and I ducked out before the closing prayer, slipping aithout saying a word to anybody

It was cold out I walked a few blocks, then caught a bus

Jacob was on duty, and he told lanced at e"

"It was a woman?"

"Believe so Same one each time, asked for you, said she would call back Seems like she calls every fifteen, twenty minutes"

I went upstairs and called Elaine, but it hadn't been her We talked for a few

The voice was a rich contralto Without prea chance"

"How?"

"If he knew about this," she said, "I'd be dead He's a killer"

"Who is?"

"You ought to know Your na his picture all over the street?"

"I'm the man"

There was a stretch of silence I could tell she hadn't hung up, but I wondered if she ht have set the phone down and walked away Then, her voice little more than a whisper, she said, "I can't talk now Stay where you are I'll call back in ten minutes"

It was more like fifteen This time she said, "I'm scared, man He'd kill ht kill et back to you"

"Yeah?" She considered this "You got to ot to talk, you know? Before I tell you anything"

"All right Pick a time and a place"

"Shit What tiht Can you do that?"

"Where?"

"You know the Lower East Side?"