pockets and his head cocked to one side. He was wearing a denim jacket over a T-shirt and jeans. You would have thought he'd be roasting in that jacket, but the heat didn't seem to bother him.
He said, 'I seen you yesterday and I seen you all day today. Back an' forth, back an' forth. What you lookin' for, man?'
'Nothing.'
'Shit. Everybody on the Deuce be lookin' for somethin'. First I thought you was a cop, but you ain't a cop.'
'How do you know?'
'You ain't.' He took a long look at me. 'Are you? Maybe you are.'
I laughed.
'What you laughin' at? You actin' strange, man. Man asks do you want to buy reefer, do you want to buy rock, you just give your head a quick little shake, you don't even look at the man. You want any kind of drugs?'
'No.'
'No. You want a date with a girl?' I shook my head. 'A boy? Boy and a girl? You want to see a show, you want to be a show? Tell me what you want.'
'I just came here to walk around,' I said. 'I had some things to think about.'
'Sheeeee,' he said. 'Come on down to the Deuce to think. Put on my thinkin' cap, come on down to the Street. You don't say what you really want, how you gonna get it?'
'I don't want anything.'
'Tell me what you want, I help you get it.'
'I told you, there's nothing I want.'
'Well, shit, plenty of shit I want. Say you gimme a dollar.'
There was no menace to him, no intimidation. I said, 'Why should I give you a dollar?'
'Just 'cause you an' me be friends. Then maybe on account of we friends, I be givin' you a jay. How's that sound?'
'I don't smoke dope.'
'You don't smoke dope? What do you smoke?'
'I don't smoke anything.'
'Then gimme a dollar an' I won't give you nothin'.'
I laughed in spite of myself. I glanced around and no one was paying attention to us. I got out my wallet and handed him a five.
'What's this for?'
' 'Cause we're friends.'
'Yeah, but what do you want? You want me to go somewhere with you?'
'No.'
'You just givin' me this here.'
'No strings. If you don't want it-'
I reached for the bill and he snatched it away, laughing. 'Hey now,' he said. 'You don't be givin' an' takin' back. Didn't your mama teach you better'n that?' He pocketed the bill, cocked his head and gave me a look. 'I still ain't got you figured out,' he said.
'There's nothing to figure,' I said. 'What's your name?'
'My name? Why you want to know my name?'
'No reason.'
'You can call me TJ.'
'All right.'
' 'All right.' What's your name?'
'You can call me Booker.'
'What you say, Booker?' He shook his head. 'Shit, you some-thin', man. Booker. One thing you ain't, you ain't no Booker.'
'My name's Matt.'
'Matt,' he said, trying it out. 'Yeah, that's cool. Matt. Matt. An' that's where it's at, Matt.'
' 'And that's the truth, Ruth.' '
His eyes lit up. 'Hey,' he said. 'You hip to Spike Lee? You seen that movie?'
'Sure.'
'I swear you hard to figure.'
'There's nothing to figure.'
'You got some kind of a jones. I just can't make out what it is.'
'Maybe I haven't got one.'
'On this street?' He whistled tonelessly. He had a round face, a button nose, bright eyes. I wondered if my five dollars would go for a vial of crack. He was a little chubby for a crack head and he didn't have the look they get, but then they don't get it right away.
'On the Deuce,' he said, 'everybody got a jones. They got a crack jones or a smack jones, a sex jones or a money jones, a speed-it-up or a slow-it-down jones. Man ain't got some kind of a jones, what he be doin' here?'
'And what about you, TJ?'
He laughed. 'Oh, I got me a jones jones,' he said. 'I all the time got to be knowin' what kind of a jones the other dude's got, and that be my jones, an' that's where it's at, Matt.'
I spent a few minutes more with TJ, and he was the best five-dollar cure I could have found for the Forty- second Street blues. By the time I headed back uptown I had shaken off the pall that had cloaked me all day. I had a shower and ate a decent dinner and went to a meeting.
The next day the phone rang while I was shaving, and I rode the subway to Brooklyn and got some work from a Court Street lawyer named Drew Kaplan. He had a client who was charged with vehicular homicide in a hit-and- run death.
'He swears he's innocent,' Kaplan said, 'and I personally happen to think he's full of shit, but on the chance that he's actually telling his attorney the truth, we ought to see if there's a witness somewhere who saw somebody else run over the old lady. You want to give it a go?'
I put in a week on it, and then Kaplan told me to let it go, that they'd offered to let his client plead to reckless endangerment and leaving the scene.
'And they'll drop the homicide charge,' he said, 'and I very strongly advised him to go for it, which he finally agreed to do once he got it into his head that this way he won't be serving any time. They're gonna ask for six months but I know the judge'll agree to probation, so I'll say yes to the deal tomorrow unless you just happened to find the perfect witness since I talked to you last.'
'I found somebody just this afternoon.'
'A priest,' he said. 'A priest with twenty-twenty vision who holds the Congressional Medal of Honor.'
'Not quite, but a strong solid witness. The thing is, she's positive your guy did it.'
'Jesus Christ,' he said. 'This is somebody the other side doesn't know about?'
'They didn't as of two hours ago.'
'Well, let's for God's sake not tell them now,' he said. 'I'll close it out tomorrow. Your check, as they say, is in the mail. You're still a guy who doesn't have a license and doesn't submit reports, right?'
'Unless you need something for the record.'
'As a matter of fact,' he said, 'what I need in this case is to not have something for the record, so you won't submit a report and I'll forget this conversation that we never had.'
'Fine with me.'
'Great. And Matt? Somewhere along the line you ought to think about getting yourself a ticket. I'd give you more work, but there's stuff I can't use you on unless you've got a license.'
'I've been thinking about it.'
'Well,' he said, 'if your status changes, let me know.'
KAPLAN'S check was generous, and when it came I rented a car and drove up to the Berkshires with Elaine to spend some of it. When we got back Wally at Reliable called and I got two days' work in connection with an insurance claim.
