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had six kids and he wanted them all to go to college. So far they’d all dropped out of high school. He had three left to try his luck on.
    â€œJim here yet?” I asked him.
    â€œIn the kitchen,” he said, pointing at a door in the back with a sour face. “Please, get him out of there before the guys kill him.”
    I said I would give it a try. Sure enough, there was Jim, arguing with the cook over a big pot on the stove. The guys who worked in the kitchen stood around and watched silently.
    â€œOregano!” Jim shouted. “There ain’t any oregano in here!” Everyone watched as he tasted whatever was in the pot. Then he scowled like he might spit it out. “How come a goddamned Jew,” he said, “a damn Jew from the Lower East Side has gotta come in here and tell you guys from Italy how to cook?”
    First Vincent, the head cook, started to lose it. Next the other boys cracked up and soon they were all in hysterics.
    â€œI mean where the hell are you guys really from, eh?” Jim yelled. “Vincent, how about you—you’re a Polack, you gotta be, making crap like this in the kitchen.” Vincent doubled over with laughter. “And you,” he said to one of the line cooks, “you’ve gotta be Irish, you—”
    He would have gone on all night but he saw me standing by the door. “Hey,” he said, putting down his spoon. “Gentlemen, watch your language already. There’s a lady in the room.”
    Of course that got another round of laughs because no one except Jim had said a word. Jim shook hands with the men and then followed me out of the kitchen and over to a table by the window in the dining room, where a platter of food was already laid out for us. Everyone at Lenny’s loved Jim. He was their favorite customer.
    Jim served us each baked clams and eggplant from the platter and then asked how my meeting with the Nelsons went. I told him all about it.
    â€œSounds good,” he said, nodding his head. “How’d they find you?”
    â€œThey said Nick the Greek set it up.”
    He asked which Nick. I told him I didn’t know, and we went over the possibilities of all the different Nicks for a while.
    â€œAnyway,” I said, “you know either of them?” I showed him the photo of McFall and Nadine.
    Jim looked at the photo for a minute and then made a face. “Not the girl. But the man, yeah, I know him. Jerry Mc-Something, right?”
    I nodded.
    â€œI haven’t seen him in five years, maybe,” Jim said. Since Jim had left the business he hadn’t had anything to do with junk or the people who sold it. Most of the fellows who used to know him thought Jim had gotten too big for his britches. He didn’t care. Even though he’d never sold on the street, only by the pound, it still turned his stomach a little. He’d always hated the junkies and their dealers and had been happy to wash his hands of the whole business. “Sold some dope to him once, tried to rip me off for the payment. Never had anything to do with him again. How about you, you know him?”
    â€œYeah,” I said. “I bought from him once. Real lowlife. He didn’t just want money, if you know what I mean.” Jim nodded. “Just once. I don’t know why I even remember it.” But I did know. Because he did what he wanted and afterward I felt kind of sick and I told myself, This is the last time. It wasn’t, of course. But it was the beginning. Out of all the things I did for dope, that was the one I remembered the most, even though it only took a few minutes. Maybe it was the one that kept me from going back. “Anyway,” I said, “I’m sure he doesn’t remember me. And I don’t know where he is now.”
    â€œSo are you gonna find the girl,” Jim asked, “or just take the thousand and forget about it?”
    I thought about the one time I had met