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It doesn’t reallycalled Bookshop at Noon, on West Thirtieth Street They introduced the speaker and he said his name and that he was an alcoholic, and then he just looked at the twenty or thirty of us aiting for hi," and opened it up for discussion

Nobody criticized hi his duty, and in fact a couple of people co it simple Later I reported the incident to Jim, and we considered the possibilities--that he’d told his story so often recently that he couldn’t face repeating hi memorable, or that he’d had a slip within the past three , but wasn’t ready to own up to it in public We conjured up a few h, and concluded that it didn’t one on, and it had done me no harm I was still sober, wasn’t I?

And I was still sober nohen the an and when it ended

"It’s hard to knohat to do," Dennis Red to be any evidence, hard or soft I’ll go through the files, see if they ever even looked at hih I can’t see what difference it would make You knohat you could do?"

"What?"

"What’s he drink? Not Maker’s Mark"

"Scotch Johnnie Walker, I think it was Why?"

"Get the brand right," he said, "and send hi as it takes"

"As long as what takes?"

"As long as it takes for him to become an alcoholic Then he can join that club of yours, and he can climb up those famous steps, and when he writes out his confession we can fall on him like a ton of bricks"

"Hoe know?"

"You can be his rabbi, except that’s not what you call it"

"His sponsor"

"Right on the tip of ue His sponsor You can be his sponsor, and you can rat him out But a sponsor wouldn’t do that, would he?"

"It’s not part of the job description"

"I was afraid of that Well, in that case I’m out of ideas Of course we could put a wire on you, but that wouldn’t work, would it?"

"He’d never say anything we could use"

"No, and even if he did it ht not be adets pulled in for anything, and if he’s hooked into the Jersey City ot aith two et aith two or three uess I’ll have to"

"And so will I When you’re on the job a few years you find out you can live with alned, didn’t you? Had a gold shield and gave it back So I guess you found so you couldn’t live with"

"But it wasn’t the job," I said "I’d have told you it was at the tiht There’s an eleraphical solution Guy moves to California because New York is the problem Then he moves to Alaska because California’s the probleoes, there he is"

"So you were the probleht about it "Well, now you’re Even Steven’s probleeography hasn’t got a lot to do with it How are we gonna keep you alive?"

"I’ve been wondering that myself"

"I can’t even offer you police protection at this stage, and that’d be a joke anyouldn’t it? We assign so happens, and we reassign theht where you are now, because he’s s as he needs to You have a gun?"

"No"

"If you had, you know, an unregistered weapon--"

"I don’t"

"Well, if you should happen to get your hands on one, it ht not be a bad idea to carry it As a matter of fact…"

His voice trailed off I looked at him, raised my eyebrows in anticipation