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On my way out of the park at Columbus Circle a bum with a baseball jacket and one milky eye hustled me for a dime toward a pint of wine A few yards to the left of us, two colleagues of his shared a bottle of Night Train and watched our transaction with interest I was going to tell hi him a buck Maybe I was reluctant to shame him in front of his friends He started to thank uess he saw so in my face that stopped him cold He backed off and I crossed the street and headed hoe to call Kim The clerk's supposed to note the time of the call on the slip but this place isn't the Waldorf I asked if he remembered the time of the call and he didn't

I called her and she said, "Oh, I was hoping you'd call Why don't you come over and pick up the money I owe you?"

"You heard froo Everything worked out perfectly Can you coive ot dressed, then decided I didn't like what I earing and changed I was fussing with the knot offor a date

I had to laugh at ot out of there She lived in Murray Hill, Thirty-eighth between Third and Lex I walked over to Fifth, took a bus, then walked the rest of the way east Her building was a prewar apartment house, brickfronted, fourteen stories, with a tile floor and potted palave my name to the doorman and he called upstairs on the intercodeliberately neutral about his manner, and I decided that he knew Ki very careful not to sot off at the twelfth floor and walked to her door It opened as I approached it She stood framed in the doorway, all blonde braids and blue eyes and cheekbones, and for aship "Oh, Matt," she said, and reached to eood hard hug and I felt the pressure of fir of her scent "Matt," she said, drawing rateful to Elaine for suggesting I get in touch with you You knohat you are? You're my hero"

"All I did was talk to the man"

"Whatever you did, it worked That's all I care about Sit down, relax ato drink?"

"No thanks"

"Some coffee?"

"Well, if it's no trouble"

"Sit down It's instant, if that's all right I'm too lazy to make real coffee"

I told her instant was fine I sat down on the couch and waited while she made the coffee The room was a co of solo jazz piano played softly on the stereo An all-black cat peered cautiously around the corner at me, then disappeared froazines- People, TV Guide, Cosmopolitan, Natural History A framed poster on the wall over the stereo advertised the Hopper show held a couple years back at the Whitney A pair of African , its abstract pattern a whirl of blue and green, covered the central portion of the limed oak floor

When she returned with the coffee I admired the room She said she wished she could keep the apartood I can't, you know? Iup You know Men"

"Sure"

"Plus the fact that none of this isin this room that I picked out is the poster I went to that show and I wanted to take some of it hoether but not together, looking off in different directions It got to me, it really did"

"Where will you live?"

"Someplace nice," she said confidently She perched on the couch besidefolded up beneath her, her coffee cup balanced on the other knee She earing the sa with a le under the sweater Her feet were bare, the toenails the sa bedroo down

I took in the blue of her eyes, the green of her square-cut ring, then found h someone had taken each of those colors and beaten them with a hisk

She blew on her coffee, sipped it, leaned far forward and set the cup on the coffee table Her cigarettes were on the table and she lit one She said, "I don't knohat you said to Chance but you really made an impression on him"

"I don't see how"

"He called this ot here I had the door on the chain lock, and so to fear fro?"

I knew, all right The Boston Strangler never had to break a door down All his victims opened the door and let him in

She pursed her lips, blew out a column of smoke "He was very nice He said he hadn't realized I was unhappy and that he had no intention of trying to hold ht that of hiuilty And he hadsoet it back He said, 'You know, I never take a girl back,' and I thought, God, I'ine?"

"I think so"

"Because he's such a con artist Like I' my stake in the corporate pension plan I mean, come on!"

"When do you have to be out of the apartment?"