The airlines still hadn’t lost our suitcase. I rescued it, and we had breakfast there at the airport and killed time until it was late enough to call people. I took a batch of dimes to the phone booth and started dialing. Two of the people I tried had moved, and four more were already at work, and I was beginning to run out of contacts. I looked up one of my less hopeful prospects in the telephone book and dialed his number, and the man who answered sounded as though he had been drunk for at least eight months.
I said, “Mr. Pryzeshweski?”
“Yeah.”
“Mr. Jerzy Pryzeshweski?”
“Yeah, thiz Jerry. Whozit?”
I said, “Mr. Pryzeshweski, my name is Evan Tanner. I don’t believe we’ve ever met, but I’m a very good friend of-”
He said, “See ya, friend,” and hung up.
I looked at the phone for a few seconds, then invested another dime and called him again. This time he sounded a little more awake. He told me I was a goddamned sonofabitch and he had to get some sleep.
So I said, in Polish, “Jerzy, comrade, my good friend Taddeusz Orlowicz told me to call you if ever I needed assistance in Buffalo. I am on vital business for the movement, Jerzy, and I am calling you because-”
“Jeez, you a Polack?”
“Yes, I-”
“You know Tad?”
“He is my good friend. I-”
“Well, what do you know!” He laughed loudly into the phone and I pulled it away from my ear. “How is the old drunk broadchaser? I’ll be a son of a bitch, Tad Orlowicz. I thought he was dead.”