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The ht of ray topcoat My suit could have stood pressing and my hat would have looked no worse if the wind had taken it, and here I stood, isolated between these two fashion plates with their wide shoulders and exaggerated lapels and fabric-covered buttons The pimps used to line up at Phil Kronfeld's Broadway store for suits like that, but Kronfeld's was closed and I had no idea where they went these days Maybe I should find out, e account and I could trace him that way

Except people in the life didn't have charges because they did everything with cash They'd even buy cars with cash, bop into Potamkin's and count out hundred dollar bills and take hoer at the bartender "Put it right in the salass," he said "Let it build up a taste" The bartender filled his glass with a jigger of Hennessy and four or five ounces of cold milk They used to call that combination a White Cadillac Maybe they still do

Maybe I should have tried Potamkin's

Ortension and I could feel it thickening the air in the little room Sooner or later soht I was doing there and it was going to be hard to come up with an answer

I left before it could happen A gypsy cab aiting for the light to change The door on my side was dented and one fender was crumpled, and I wasn't sure what that said about the driver's ability I got in anyway

Royal had mentioned another place on West Ninety-sixth and I let the cab dropto tire I went into yet another bar where yet another blackpiano This particular piano sounded out of tune, but it ht have been me The croas a fairly even mix of black and white There were a lot of interracial couples, but the white woirlfriends than hookers A few of the men were dressed flashily, but nobody sported the full pialia I'd seen a mile and a half to the north If the roo and cash transactions, it was nevertheless subtler and more muted than the Harlem clubs, or the ones around Times Square

I put a dies The desk clerk that night was a h-syrup habit that never see He could still do the Times crossword puzzle with a fountain pen I said, "Jacob, do me a favor Call this nuave him the number He read it back and asked if that was Mr Chance I said just Chance

"And if he co up"

I went to the bar and almost ordered a beer butand a kid answered it He looked like a college student He called out, asking if there was anyone there named Chance Nobody responded I kept an eye on the bartender If he recognized the na attention

I could have played that little game at every bar I'd been to, and maybe it would have been worth the effort But it had taken me three hours to think of it

I was so all the Coca-Cola in Manhattan and I couldn't find a goddaot hold of the son of a bitch

There was a jukebox, and one record ended and another began, so, made some ht a cab going don on Coluot off at the corner of Seventy-second Street and walked half a block west to Poogan's Pub The clientele was a little less Superspade and a littlefor Chance anyway I was looking for Danny Boy Bell

He wasn't there The bartender said, "Danny Boy? He was in earlier Try the Top Knot, that's just across Columbus He's there when he's not here"

And he was there, all right, on a bar stool all the way at the back I hadn't seen hirown and he wasn't any darker

Danny Boy's parents were both dark-skinned blacks He had their features but not their color He was an albino, as unpigmented as a white mouse He was quite slender and very short He clai by an inch and a half or so

He earing a three-piece banker's-stripe suit and the first white shirt I'd seen in a long time His tie showed hly polished I don't think I've ever seen him without a suit and tie, or with scuffed shoes

He said, "Matt Scudder By God, if you wait long enough everybody turns up"

"How are you, Danny?"

"Older It's been years You're less than a mile away and when's the last timeeach other? It has been, if you'll excuse the expression, a coon's age"

"You haven't changed much"

He studied me for a moment "Neither have you," he said, but his voice lacked conviction It was a surprisingly normal voice to issue from such an unusual person, of medium depth, unaccented You expected him to sound like Johnny in the old Philip Morris cohborhood? Or you caan's first They told ht be here"

"I'm flattered Purely a social visit, of course"

"Not exactly"

"Why don't we take a table? We can talk of old tiht you here"

The bars Danny Boy favored kept a bottle of Russian vodka in the freezer That hat he drank and he liked it ice-cold but without any ice cubes rattling around in his glass and diluting his drink We settled in at a booth in the back and a speedy little waitress brought his drink of choice and Coke for lass, then raised the back souess"

"Moderation," he said "I tell you, Matt, those old Greeks knew it all Moderation"

He drank half his drink He was good for perhaps eight like it in the course of a day Call it a quart a day, all in a body that couldn't go more than a hundred pounds, and I'd never seen hiered, never slurred his words, just kept on keeping on

So? What did that have to do with me?

I sipped my Coke

We sat there and told each other stories Danny Boy's business, if he had one, was inforot filed away in histheh dollars to keep his shoes shined and his glass full He would bring people together, taking a slice of their action for his troubles His own hands stayed clean while he held a limited partnership in a lot of short-term enterprises, most of them faintly illicit When I was on the force he'd been one of my best sources, an unpaid snitch who took his recompense in information