Somebody Owes Me Money

That made me feel a little odd. It’s one thing to gamble a bit, put down a bet with a bookmaker from time to time, but it’s another thing to read about yourself in the Daily News, listed as the friend of a murdered bookie. All of a sudden I felt like a Mafia hoodlum or something, and I imagined friends of mine reading that in the paper, and I was both embarrassed and — I hate to admit this — secretly pleased. We all of us would like a dramatic secret life that nobody knows about, that’s the whole idea behind Superman and Batman and the Lone Ranger, and here the Daily News was giving me one for free, by implication. All of a sudden I was the kind of guy who knew secret entrances to apparently abandoned warehouses, unknown passageways in the very walls of the apartment itself, meetings at midnight, people who wore masks and never gave their right names. It made me feel very special, sitting there on the train, surrounded by people reading the News and little knowing that in their midst was the very man they were reading about, the ubiquitous Chester Conway, 8344 169th Place, Jamaica, Queens.

Nobody at the garage had read the paper, apparently, or they hadn’t made the connection, or maybe they were just being very cool. Anyway, nobody said anything. I went in, signed out my car, and took off.

The first place I went was Tommy’s place. I threw on the Off Duty sign as soon as I was out of sight of the garage and went straight down to 46th Street. There weren’t any police cars stopped out front, so I parked by a hydrant — there are no parking places in New York, the last one was taken in 1948, but a cab stopped for a short time by a hydrant is usually left alone — and I went over and rang the bell, but there wasn’t anybody home, so I went back to the cab and at last to work.

I tried a couple of the midtown hotels and jackpotted right away with a fare to Kennedy. Unfortunately, the only thing to do after that is take another fare back to Manhattan, which I did, and then hacked around the city the rest of the afternoon and evening.

I tried Tommy’s place again around seven and there still wasn’t anybody home, and there kept on being nobody at home when I tried for the third time around eleven.

I turned the cab in a little after midnight and took the subway home. I got to the house shortly before one, seeing the light in the kitchen that my father leaves for me when I’m out late, and I went up on the front porch, stopped in front of the door, put my hand in my pocket for my keys, and somebody stuck something hard against my back. Then somebody said, in a very soft insinuating voice, “Be nice.”

6

I was nice. I stayed where I was, facing the door a foot from my nose, not moving any parts of my body, and the hard thing stopped pressing against my back, and then hands patted me all over. When they were done, the voice said, “That’s a good boy. Now turn around and go down to the sidewalk.”

I turned around, seeing two bulky guys in bulky winter clothing and dark hats on the porch with me, and I went between them and down the stoop and down to the sidewalk. I felt them behind me, coming in my wake.

At the sidewalk they told me to turn right and walk toward the corner, which I did. Almost to the corner there was a dark Chevrolet parked by the curb, and they told me to get into the back seat, which I did. I was terrified, and I didn’t know who they were or what they wanted, and all I could think of to do was obey their orders.

One of them got into the back seat with me and shut the door. He took out a gun, which glinted dark and wicked in his lap in the little light that came in from the corner streetlamp, and I sat as close to the other door as I could, staring at the gun in disbelief. A gun? For me? Who did they think I was?

I wanted to say something, tell them some sort of mistake was being made, but I was afraid to. I had this conviction that all I had to do was make a sound, any sound at all, and it would break the spell, it would be the signal for carnage and destruction.

If you spend much time driving a cab around New York City, especially at night, sooner or later you’ll find yourself thinking about anti-cabby violence, and what you would do if anybody ever pulled a gun or a knife on you to rob you in the cab. A long time ago I decided I was no hero, I wouldn’t argue. Anybody with a knife or a gun in his hand is boss as far as I’m concerned. It’s like the old saying: The hand that cradles the rock rules the world.