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 him to piss off, then surprised myself by giving him a buck. Maybe I was reluctant to shame him in front of his friends. He started to thank me more effusively than I could stomach, and then I guess he saw something in my face that stopped him cold. He backed off and I crossed the street and headed home.

There was no mail, just a message 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 from Chance?”

“He was here about an hour ago. Everything worked out perfectly. Can you come over?”

I told her to give me an hour. I went upstairs and showered and shaved. I got dressed, then decided I didn’t like what I was wearing and changed. I was fussing with the knot of my tie when I realized what I was doing. I was dressing for a date.

I had to laugh at myself.

I put on my hat and coat and got 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 palms in the lobby. I gave my name to the doorman and he called upstairs on the intercom and established that I was welcome before pointing me to the elevator. There was something deliberately neutral about his manner, and I decided that he knew Kim’s profession and assumed I was a john and was being very careful not to smirk.