The driver watched the jam through a haze of cigarette smoke. He drew on his cigarette in short puffs, inhaled very deeply, and then blew the smoke out quickly in front of him. Every time he blew the smoke out, he would shake his head three or four times and make a tutting sound. The plastic driver-identity card informed me his name was Enzo Roscantino, and the face that stared out from the cheap photo looked glum and faintly startled. It was a greasy, pug-shaped face, with high jowls, thick eyebrows and straight, thinning hair, covered in grease. For a bulky man, he spoke with a surprisingly gentle voice. ‘Fucking Chreesmiss,’ he said, ‘whole of NewYork go fucking crazy at Chreesmiss. Why they don’t stay at home – why they gotta go out block the strits?’

I didn’t know why they had to go out and block tha strits; I told him.

‘Well, I don’t a know either. You home for Chreesmiss?’

If I came here this time of year much more often, it was going to start feeling like home. ‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m not home for Christmas.’

‘You come to NewYork for Christmas? You crazy?’

‘You got it in one.’

We were driving down Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive, passing around the edge of Harlem. Across the sidewalk, through a wire fence, I could see into a school playground. A teenage negro was standing there, all alone, watching a ball of paper burn. He looked as cheerful as I felt.

Enzo Roscantino dropped me at the Warwick. He studied the fairly generous tip I gave him carefully, his brow screwed in thought as he did his mental arithmetic; either his arithmetic was bad, or his idea of a generous tip and mine differed widely, but he just gave a curt nod and drove off. ‘And a merry fucking Chreesmiss to you,’ I said to the fast-disappearing, dented rear end of the Plymouth.

The front desk at the Warwick found me a room with a balcony that looked across onto an office block that was having a Christmas party on every floor. It was Wednesday afternoon; Christmas was on Friday. Provided I could get into AtomSled, I would have three clear days to go through Sleder’s business to my heart’s content. My heart didn’t exactly leap with joy at the prospect. I flipped open my suitcase and began to unpack. It was nearly dark outside, and I was tired from my flight. I opened the French windows and stepped out onto the green astroturf on the balcony, leaned over the stone balustrade, and looked down at the traffic queuing up the Avenue of the Americas, and down West Fifty-Fifth Street, and listened to the blaring of the horns as taxi cabs and private cars hurled their mournful insults at each other.