Yossie curled the right side of his mouth upward, leaving the other side flat. “And he’d like…scrunch up his eyes when he smiled, too.” He grimaced again, then started to laugh. Decker laughed too, happy that the boy was loosening up. Relaxed people have better memories.

“That’s great, Yossie,” Decker said. “Now tell me this. When Hersh talked, was his mouth also crooked?”

“Uh-uh,” Yossie said. “Only when he smiled.” He looked up at Decker. “It was a real weird smile, made me nervous. That’s why I bought the magazine.”

“Did he threaten you?”

“No.”

“Okay,” Decker said. “Back to the smile. Could you see his teeth when he grinned?”

“On the one side. They were just teeth.”

“Big? Yellow? Did you notice any dental work?”

Yossie shook his head.

“Okay,” Decker said. “A weird, crooked smile. Let’s go on to his chin. Long? Square? Dimpled?”

“Just a chin.”

“That’s fine. Now I want you to move your eyes down from his face to the body. Can you picture his body?”

Yossie nodded, his eyes still closed.

“Good,” Decker said. “Take a nice long look at the body. When you’re done looking, tell me if he’s fat or thin or regular.”

“Thinnish.”

“Okay. How ’bout his shoulders? Are they wide—”

“He’s thin but he has muscles.” Yossie opened his eyes. “I remember now. He was wearing this sleeveless shirt—a muscle shirt I think they’re called—and I could see his arms. He looked like he’d been lifting barbells.”

“Terrific,” Decker said. “Just terrific. Can you tell me anything else about his body? Was it hairy?”

Yossie shook his head.

“Wasn’t hairy or you don’t know?”

“I don’t know.”

Decker said, “Did he walk with a limp?”

“No.”

“His voice. Was it high or low?”

“Medium.”

“All right. Did he talk with a stutter or a lisp?”

“No.”

“Did he have a Brooklyn accent?”

“What do you mean?”

“Let me rephrase that,” Decker said. “Did he sound like he was a native Brooklyn boy? Did he sound like he was from around here?”

“Yeah, I think so. He didn’t talk like a Californian or a Southerner.”

Decker recapped to Yossie the man he had just described. “Does that sound right?”

“Yeah,” Yossie said. “That’s about it.”

“You did fine,” Decker said. “Now this Hersh guy was maybe from Crown Heights?”

“Maybe.”

“But you think he was a local?”

“I guess so.”

“You met him at a liquor store in Crown Heights?”

“Yes.”

“In the black area of Crown Heights?”

“Yeah. It was right past Empire.” He thought a moment. “You know, it might have been on Empire Boulevard.”

“Hey, that’s great,” Decker said. “You’ve got a terrific memory, Yossie. You can be my witness anytime.”

The boy smiled.

“Now you only met Hersh the one time.”

Yossie nodded.

“Did he and Noam seem like good buddies?”