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"Or what? Or else, I suppose Or you get what she got, so so you can decide whether it's worth it or not?"

"Who's the warning come fro bush?"

He drank off some of his vodka "Somebody talked to somebody who talked to somebody who talked to ive you the person who talked to me, but I won't, because I don't do that And even if I did it wouldn't do you any good, because you probably couldn't find him, and if you did he still wouldn't talk to you, andto whack you out You want another ginger ale?"

"I've still got 's frouess it's soet absolutely nowhere trying to find anybody who saw Dakkinen on the toith anybody but our friend Chance Now if she's going with somebody with all this firepower, you'd think he'd show her around, wouldn't you? Why not?"

I nodded For that matter, ould she need ?

"Anyway," he was saying, "that's the e You want the opinion?"

"Sure"

"The opinion is I think you should heed the otten nastier in the past couple of years People seeer a lot quicker than they used to They used to need more of a reason to kill You knohat I ot a reason not to They'll sooner kill than not It's an automatic response I'll tell you, it scares me"

"It scares everybody"

"You had a little scene uptown a few nights back, didn't you? Or was so up stories?"

"What did you hear?"

"Just that a brother jumped you in the alley and wound up with multiple fractures"

"News travels"

"It does for a fact Of course there's el dust"

"Is that what he was on?"

"Aren't they all? I don't know I stick to basics, myself" He underscored the line with a sip of his vodka "About Dakkinen," he said "I could pass a e?"

"That you're letting it lay"

"That ht not be true, Danny Boy"

"Matt-"

"You remember Jack Benny?"

"Do I remember Jack Benny? Of course I remember Jack Benny"

"Reuy says, 'Yourpause, and Benny says, 'I' it over?"

"That's the answer"

Outside on Seventy-second Street I stood in the shadows in the doorway of a stationery store, waiting to see if anyone would follow an's I stood there for a full five ht about what Danny Boy had said A couple of people left Poogan's while I was standing there but they didn't look like anything I had to worry about

I went to the curb to hail a cab, then decided Iin the right direction By the tiht and I was in no hurry, and an easy stroll fifteen blocks down Coluood, make sleep come that much easier I crossed the street and headed don and before I'd covered a block I noticed thatonto the little gun

Funny No one had followedin the air

I kept walking, displaying all the street se of the sidewalk near the curb, keeping ht, and now and then I turned to see if anyone was er resting lightly alongside the trigger

I crossed Broadalked on past Lincoln Center and O'Neal's I was on the dark block between Sixtieth and Sixty-first, across the street from Fordham, when I heard the car behindacross the wide avenue toward me and had cut off a cab Maybe it was his brakes I heard, maybe that's what made me turn

I threw myself down on the paves, came up with the32 in htened out I'd thought it was going to vault the curb but it wasn't And the ere open and soin his hand-