Red Fred, as a consequence, put on a clean shirt (for had not Big Patsy once remarked in Aunt Annie’s that if there was one thing he could not abide, it was a slob?) and made haste to keep his appointment.

The loft building in point was a massive; brooding structure more reminiscent of a tyrannosaurus coprolite than a hideout for wayward horse-players. Big, black, brooding, it hovered over the corners of Bleecker and Bank as though it was hungry. Red Fred had the distinct impression it was hungry for him.

Red Fred’s height was five feet six inches, and his hair was not only thinning in front but—as though anxious to do its part all down the line—was also departing steadily from the rear. The shades he wore were corrective lenses ground along the thickness lines of a cathode ray tube. He was, in short, short and balding and near-sighted.

He was also a coward, a thief, and scared out of his gourd.

The loading dock door of the old loft building stood ominously ajar, as though someone had been standing behind it, waiting for Red Fred to come in sight through a crack in the splintering jamb. Red Fred whistled a tremulous note or two from “The Peat Bog Soldiers” and opened the door, stepping through quickly.

When the length of rubber hose connected with his skull, it was arithmetically-placed at that soft juncture of temple and ear known to exponents of the sage art of karate as peachy-keen for sending an opponent to the land of turquoise torpors.

Red Fred gracefully settled across the polished shoes of Big Patsy’s chief arm-man, Wallace “Gefilte” Fish. The name now becomes of importance. Carry on.

It is not to be thought that Wallace was fond of gefilte fish; in point of fact, he detested it, but, just as a man with two left feet may admire the ability to dance, so did Wallace admire intelligence, a quality in which he was, lamentably, deficient. His knowledge of science could have been covered by a 1¼ grain kiddy aspirin tablet, and belonged—if it belonged anywhere—to the era of high-buttoned shoes and one-piece underwear: Wallace was convinced that sea-food was good for building up the brain.