Date was the fifteenth of October, 1988. Which happens to be my father-in-law's birthday, only he's been dead for ten years and we been divorced for six, so I don't suppose I have to remember all that, do I? Heller was on his way home from work. It was his usual train. He worked two blocks from the station and he normally rode that train to Times Square and caught the express to Brooklyn, which is where he lived. The point is it was natural for him to be there. I gather you're looking to determine whether it was suicide or accidental death."

"Or homicide," I said.

He cocked his head. "Well, you can't rule it out," he said, after a moment's reflection. "It was rush hour, the platform was packed with commuters heading for home, and he was at the edge of the platform with the train coming. Maybe he stopped for a drink after work, maybe he was loaded up on antihistamines and it affected his sense of balance. Maybe somebody backed up into him accidentally."

"Or maybe he jumped."

"Right, and how can you ever say? Sometimes they plan it. Sometimes they survive and you find out later they never planned it, never even thought about it, that the impulse just swept over them and took 'em right over the edge. Maybe that's how it was with Heller. Or maybe somebody got next to him and timed it just right and gave him a shove or a body block, sent him flying. Again, planned or unplanned, I'll tell you something, I think there's a fucking ton of that goes on."

"People killed that way?"

"You bet your ass." He stood up, pushed through the crowd at the bar, and brought back a fresh gin and tonic for himself and another Coke for me. I tried to pay for the round but he waved me off. "Please," he said, "I'm enjoying myself. You know who drank here? O. Henry. You know, the writer. They're very proud of the fact, they don't let you forget it, but I have to say I love drinking in places like this that are older than God. You know McSorley's down in the East Village? 'We were here before you were born,' that's their motto. Nowadays their crowd is all college kids, Christ, the World Trade Center was there before they were born."