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"At the nuht If you reach me I'll be able to keep the appointht"

I talked a little while longer, cal alarmed her with the call in the first place At least I knew she hadn't died on West Street At least I could sleep easy

Sure I killed the light and got into bed and just lay there for a long tiain The thought cae off and let ht but I could make myself stay where I was, and when four o'clock caet it because the bars were closed now There was an after-hours on Eleventh Avenue but I conveniently forgot about it

I turned off the light and got in bed again and thought about the dead hooker and the housing cop and the woman who'd been run over by the subway train, and I wondered why anyone would think it a good idea to stay sober in this city, and I held onto that thought and fell asleep with it

Chapter 3

I got up around ten-thirty, surprisingly well rested after six hours of ski the surface of sleep I showered and shaved, had coffee and a roll for breakfast, and went over to St Paul 's Not to the basement this time but to the church proper, where I sat in a pew for tenfifty dollars into the poor box At the post office on Sixtieth Street I bought a two-hundred-dollar money order and an envelope with the stamp embossed I mailed the money order to my ex-wife in Syosset I tried to write a note to enclose but it caetic The money was too little and too late but she would know that withoutto tell her I wrapped the money order in a blank sheet of paper and ray day, on the cool side, with the threat ofand it cut around corners like a scatback In front of the Coliseu, and I reached up reflexively and gave a tug to the brim ofI didn't have enough of Kim's advance left to necessitate formal financial transactions I went tomonth's rent on account By then I had only one of the hundreds intact and I cracked that into tens and twenties while I was at it

Why hadn't I taken the full thousand in front? I remembered what I'd said about an incentive Well, I had one

My resse from Chance Not that I'd expected one

I called his service and left another ot out of there and stayed out all afternoon I took the subway a couple of ti to rain but it kept not raining, and the wind got even et my hat I hit two police precinct houses and a few coffee shops and half a dozen gin mills I drank coffee in the coffee shops and Coca-Cola in the bars, and I talked to a few people and made a couple of notes I calleda call from Chance but I wanted to be in touch in case Kim called But no one had called me I tried Kim's nuot one of thoseand talk to each other I didn't leave any es

Toward the end of the afternoon I ducked into a Times Square theater They had two Clint Eastwood s by shooting the bad guys The audience looked to be co They cheered wildly every tietables at a Cuban Chinese place on Eighth Avenue, checked 's and had a cup of coffee I got into a conversation at the bar and thought I'd stay there awhile, but by eight-thirty I'd et out the door and across the street and down the stairs to the

The speaker was a househo used to drink herself into a stupor while her husband was at his office and the kids were at school She told how her kid would find her passed out on the kitchen floor and she convinced hihed

When it was ht"

Kelvin S narrow rooth of it and a row of banquette tables opposite the bar There's a small bandstand all the way at the back, and on it two dark-skinned blacks with close-cropped hair and horn-rilasses and Brooks Brothers suits played quiet jazz, one on a s brushes on cymbals They looked and sounded like half of the old Modern Jazz Quartet

It was easy for me to hear them because the rest of the room went silent when I cleared the threshold I was the only whitelook at me There were a couple of white women, seated with black men at the banquette tables, and there were two black wo a table, and there must have been two dozen th of the rooh for pro basketball was cohtened hair The scent of his pomade vied with the sharp reek of ether under one of those hot-air dryers The tallon his hair when I left

Conversation died again when I eain, walked slowly and let my shoulders roll I couldn't be sure about the ured there wasn't a man in the roo dealers, gamblers, policy men Nature's nobleht my eye It took a second to place hiht hair, but noearing it in a reen and his shoes were the skin of soered species

I moved my head toward the door and walked on past him and out I walked two doors south on Lenox and stood next to a streetla loose-limbed and easy "Hey, Matthew," he said, and extended his hand for a slap "How's my man?"

I didn't slap his hand He looked down at it, up at erated shake, clapped his hands together, dusted thes, then placed them on his slim hips "Been some time," he said "They run out of your brand don? Or do you just come to Harlem to use the little boy's room?"