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"But it averages out pretty well"

"Pays better than poeo for a ride?"

"Isn't that e've been doing?"

"We been going around in circles," he said "Now I'onna take you to a whole nother world"

We drove down Second Avenue, through the Lower East Side, and over the Williae we took enough turns to throw off ns didn't help hborhood change from Jewish to Italian to Polish and had a fair idea of where ere

On a dark, silent street of two-family frame houses, Chance slowed in front of a three-story brick structure with a garage door in the middle He used a remote-control unit to raise the door, then closed it after we had driven in I followed hied roouessed Greenpoint "Very good," he said "I guess you know Brooklyn"

"I don't know this part of it very well The uess Knohose house we're in? Ever hear of a Dr Casimir Levandowski?"

"No"

"No reason why you should have He's an old fellow Retired, confined to a wheelchair Eccentric, too Keeps himself to hiht it ht it soutted the interior and started from scratch They must have had a few dollars to play with because they didn't cut s" He pointed out details, coot tired of the place or each other, I don't knohat, and they sold out to old Dr Levandowski"

"And he lives here?"

"He don't exist," he said His speech patterns kept shifting, frohbors never see the old doc They just see his faithful black servant and all they see him do is drive in and drive out This is ive you the ten-cent tour?"

It was quite a place There was a gyhts and exercise machines and furnished with sauna and Jacuzzi His bedroom was on the same floor, and the bed, covered with a fur spread, was centered beneath a skylight A library on the second floor contained one whole wall of books and an eight-foot pool table

There were African roups of free-standing African sculpture Chance pointed out a piece fro the tribe that had produced it Iseen African masks at Kim's apartment

"Poro Society masks," he said "Froirls' aparts, of course, but not junk, either I don't own any junk"

He took a rather crudely fashioned mask fros were square, the features all geometrically precise, the overall effect powerful in its prion," he said "Take hold of it You can't appreciate sculpture with your eyes alone The hands have to participate Go ahead, handle it"

I took the reater than I anticipated The wood that composed it must have been very dense

He lifted a telephone from a low teakwood table and dialed a nues?" He listened for a moment, then put the phone down "Peace and quiet," he said, "Shall I make some coffee?"

"Not if it's any trouble"

He assured me it wasn't While the coffee brewed he told me about his African sculpture, how the craftsmen who produced it did not think of their work as art "Everything they uard your house or keep off spirits or to use in a particular tribal rite If a mask doesn't have the power in it anymore they'll throw it away and somebody'll carve a new one The old one's trash, you burn it up or toss it away cause it's no good"

He laughed "Then the Europeans caot their inspiration froot a situation where there are carvers in Africa spending all their ti masks and statues for export to Europe and America They follow the old forms because that's what their custoood It doesn't have any feeling in it It's not real You look at it and you take it in your hand, and you do the saht away If you have any feeling at all for the stuff Funny, isn't it?"

"It's interesting"

"If I had any of the junk around I'd show you, but I don't own any I bought so out You have to ot rid of that stuff, burned it in the fireplace there" He sht, I still have it It's hanging in the bedroom A Dan mask Poro Society I didn't know shit about African art but I saw it in an antique shop and I responded to the rity" He stopped, shook his head "Hell I did What happened was I looked at that piece of s in aback through the da about?"

"I'ave his head a shake "What do you figure one of those old carvers'd er ith all these old'em all over the daht?"

He said, "How's a detective go about detecting, anyway? Where do you start?"

"By going around and talking to people Unless Kirew out of her life" I tapped my notebook "There's a lot you don't know about her life"