Generally speaking, people whose pockets have been rifled don’t buy lunch for the rifler. This was the first time in a two-year career that he’d ever been caught. He knew from neighborhood wise guys what to expect from the cops, but this was another thing altogether. He contemplated another run for it, but his back still hurt from the last attempt, and from the corner of his eye he could see a thick turkey sandwich on rye with mayonnaise. Knowing that a full stomach beat an empty one, he decided to play along for a while.

“Your mother get money from you?”

“When she can.”

“You eat regular?” “I get by.” “Right.”

McKeegan delivered the food and Neal wolfed it down.

“You eat like an animal,” said Graham. “You’ll get sick.”

Neal barely heard him. The sandwich was wonderful. When McKeegan, unbidden, served up a Coke, Neal thought he might like to get caught more often.

When he was finished, Graham said, “Now get out of here.”

“Thanks. Thanks a lot. And if there’s ever anything I can do for you-”

“You can get out of my sight,”

Neal headed for the door. He wasn’t one to push his luck.

“And Neal Carey…”

Neal turned around.

“If I ever catch you in my pocket again… I’ll cut your balls off.”

This time, Neal ran.

A week later, Neal was hiding in an alley. It was pretty late at night, but his mother was entertaining a customer and Neal didn’t feel like going home. People in the neighborhood lived on the streets on summer nights like this one, a sticky New York City night, the air as hot and black as tar. The multicolored carnival of a West Side night went on around him, but he was only dimly aware of the decadent beauty that made up this world. He was savoring a Hershey bar filched from a local bodega on Eighty-fifth Street. He was in a quiet mood, wanting to be alone, and that was why he was sitting in an alley, resting, in a position to see a very large man in his underwear come pounding down a fire escape in pursuit of a fleeing Joe Graham.