A few minutes later the producer picked up the receiver again. This time he consulted the scrap of paper and dialed the cripple’s number. The telephone rang and rang and rang. The producer remembered the cripple saying, “It takes me a while to get to the phone, so let it ring.” Just as he was about to take the telephone away from his ear, he heard a phlegmy voice say, “Yeah?”

The producer told the old cripple his name.

“Well, hello!” said the cripple. “Didn’t recognize your voice. But then why should I? It’s not like we speak to each other every day, is it? I’d just about given up on you. So look, let’s meet. I think for safety’s sake we should meet here, at my place.”

“For safety’s sake? Why do you say that?”

The cripple could hear the worry in the producer’s voice. “Just a precaution. Possibly a bit neurotic on my part. I just don’t want anybody following me to your apartment with the tape in my hand. Don’t want to get conked on the head and have my idea stolen from me at this late—”

“Listen,” said the producer, “why don’t you spend a minute or two telling me a little about—”

“Not on your life! You out of your mind? If you want to hear what I have to say you’ll have to come to my place. It’s a crummy room but it’s better than nothing. I know once you hear me out and see what I have to show you, and we sign all the necessary papers that say we split the profits fifty-fifty, you’ll run like a banshee with my idea. You were the most powerful television producer the industry’s ever known. Still are, for that matter. Believe me, you’ll see the beauty of this idea in a New York minute and what’s more—”

“What’s your address?”

“I’m in the West Village, 273 Bleecker Street. My room’s over a guitar shop. Umanov Guitars. Push the buzzer. I’ll let you in. My room’s up a flight of stairs. In the back. Come here as soon as—”

The cripple began to cough.

The producer waited.

The old cripple stopped his hacking and said in a gravelly voice, “As soon as you can. So when can I expect you?”

“Tomorrow.”

“What time?”

“Around noon.”

“Great.”

The line went dead.

Cripple quit while he was ahead, thought the producer. Hung up before I could change my mind.

The next day the producer walked along Bleecker Street in the Village until he came to number 273. The address was a guitar shop. Umanov Guitars. Just where the old cripple said it would be. The producer could see a window that was probably an apartment above the store. He didn’t feel like going up to the cripple’s room. Not just yet. He wasn’t ready for the hacking, burbling, saliva-ridden, spastic profligate. He wondered if ever he would be.

Anyway, he was early.