I pull Herk up and he leans in to me, conspiratorially, which isn’t easy to take, as he smells like he looks.

“We’re going to break into George Schermer’s apartment!” he yells.

“Jesus, shut up!” I try to shake him by his lapels but he doesn’t move a gratifying amount. “What are you trying to do?”

“See?” he says happily, looking around him at the crowd of people waiting for the light. Then, privately to me: “They don’t give a shit. That’s the beauty of it. When you’re homeless it’s like you’re mute. No one listens to a word you say. And, if they can help it, they don’t look at you either. Since what we’re about to do—what you’re about to do—isn’t strictly one hundred percent legal, I thought it would be good if we discouraged people from looking at us.” He pumps his fists, mock-victorious, and, ululating, makes lively humping motions at a guy in a sharp, English-looking suit, who pretends he doesn’t notice anything. Then, again, to me: “See? What do you think?”

Herk uses his camera to zoom in on the guy’s ass, upon which he dirty-dances at very close range, but the guy just keeps on inspecting his folded newspaper as if nothing is happening.

“I think...,” I say, blinking, “I think you’re a genius.”

Thanks to the supplies Herk had the foresight to bring along in his burlap bag, I am now attired in an oversized, duckbill-orange raincoat that looks like it has been used for fifty years or so in the service of mud-puddle gallantry to women with sharpened stilettos, one of those foam hands fixed in a Number One position that you see at sporting events, and a flaccid tam-o’-shanter with an enormous, anemone-like ball. I have also been put in charge of the shovel, which I use as a walking stick, pointy side down. We smell of unchecked biological processes, airplane glue, and fortified wine, but we are able to cruise completely unimpeded down Second Avenue. People say nothing, avert their gaze, mambo out of the way. We even split a phalanx of tourists loitering outside of Elaine’s trying to get a look at the Thursday night posttheater crowd.

“How do we know he’s out?”

“Checked the schedule. He’s on a gig till midnight.”

“That doesn’t give us much time.”

“Enough.”

“You sure you know what we’re doing?”

“Trust me.”

Suddenly, half a block from Eighty-sixth, Herk skids to a stop, yanks out his camera, and zooms in on the corner.

“Oh shit.” He spins around, hiding his face. “Tell you what. You keep going. I’m going to cut over a block or two and meet you there. You got the address. See ya!”

“Wait. What is it?”

Herk sighs with something like defeat.

“Janice DeMayo,” he says, as if the name should mean something. “Ex-Goldfish.”

“Which one?”

“Under that awning. Brown hair, these beautiful blue eyes, an ass that shakes like a doublewide maraca.”

“She big?” I say, searching for her in the crowd.