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And I’ve no fucking idea why I do it.
    How did I come to be this compulsive liar? It must have started with that imagination of mine—the one Mom thought was so wonderful when I was little. The one that got me out of Elmhurst and took me to Paris. That always seems to land me in some new pot of soup no matter how sensibly I’m trying to comport myself.
    Anyway, if the morning crowd thought I was nuts, they weren’t far wrong. I was running the streets of Manhattan with sixty grand zippered into my overalls.
    I circled like a Comanche that day. From Nineteenth Street on the south to Sixty-first Street on the north. From Park on the east side to Ninth Avenue on the west. Then back in the other direction. I was looking for street players. Looking for leads to Sig’s lady friend.
    And I found street players, in all their infinite variety. Jazz is hardly the only idiom of street music. I figured, however, that the kind of music they played was a lot less important than how they played it—outside, for tips. I thought there would be an automatic brotherhood among the various genres. So I talked to them all. Sax players. Violinists. Steel drummers. Flutists. Guitarists. Truth is, I had heard some pretty good stuff by the time I decided to knock off for a while. But I hadn’t found a single musician who knew Sig or the Mrs.
    After lunch, which was a sodden piece of microwaved spinach quiche I had at a coffee bar in midtown, I headed for Grand Central Station.
    I made my way leisurely through the cavernous rotunda. It had been longer than I realized since I’d been in there. God, how the place had changed! The homeless and the all-purpose psychos, who had for a time transformed the terminal into a haven for lost souls, like something out of nineteenth century London, had disappeared. The station had been face-lifted within an inch of its life: murals restored, ceilings repainted, brass burnished and shining like new shoes. This was the deco era Grand Central of a high budget movie.
    And then, as if to underscore the illusion, the music began.
    A saxophone—and a very accomplished one indeed—was treating the crowds to Out of Nowhere . I followed the melody, the music growing louder as I neared its source. As soon as this guy finished playing, whoever he might turn out to be, I would start my rote interrogation—Hey, man, you play pretty. Know a white musician who calls himself Sig?
    But that’s where the screenplay took an unexpected turn. When I was a few feet away from the soloist, I saw that he wasn’t alone. Nor was he your average street player. He was part of a combo of middle-aged men in uber conservative Brooks Brothers suits. On a folding table nearby they had set, not a hat for donations, but a briefcase, lid open, containing a couple of dozen copies of their latest CD. I looked at the sign next to the case, which listed each of their names and announced that this free lunchtime concert was being sponsored by the City Arts Council as a courtesy to the patrons at Grand Central Station—your basic quality of life innovation. The trio was well known to the so-called jazz cognoscenti. They played all the smart clubs uptown and were unerringly tasteful. No way would any of them know a scruffy guy like Sig.
    I kept walking, past the tasteful strains of the next number, but threw a dented quarter into the briefcase, just to put a little shit in the game. I headed down one of the long corridors toward the revolving door that let out onto Vanderbilt Avenue.
    Two young black men sporting matted Rasta braids had set up a card table against the window of an empty store in the corridor. One was loudly touting the myriad wares spread out on the table top, at the same time keeping a wary eye out for the cops who might come along at any moment and roust them.
    I made a hurried survey of the merchandise—the usual crap: scarves, incense, factory second gym socks, ear muffs,