"Three hundred dollars," I said.

"No cost compared to other sports," Feinsinger said. "Look what you'd spend on a single ski weekend, let alone buying your equipment. Look at the hourly rates they're getting for tennis courts. All you have to do to get the full benefits of running is get out there and run, and isn't it worth it to spend a few dollars on the only feet God gave you?"

"And running's good for me, I guess."

"Best thing in the world for you. Improves your cardiovascular system, tones your muscles, keeps you trim and fit. But your feet take a pounding, and if they're not set up to handle the task-"

Three hundred dollars still seemed pretty pricey for a custom version of the little arch supports they sell for $1.59 at the corner drugstore. But it dawned on me that I didn't have to pay it now, that a thirty-dollar deposit would keep everybody happy, and in three weeks' time they could sit around wondering why I hadn't shown up. I handed over three tens and pocketed the receipt the redhead handed me.

"Running must be great for podiatrists," I ventured.

Feinsinger beamed. "Nothing like it," he said. "Nothing in the world. You know what this business was a few years ago? Old ladies with feet that hurt. Of course they hurt, they weighed three hundred pounds and bought shoes that were too small. I removed corns, I wrapped bunions, I did a little of this and a little of that and I told myself I was a professional person and success wasn't all that important to me.

"Now it's a whole new world. Sports podiatry is my entire practice. Feinsinger orthotics were on the road in Boston last month. Feinsinger orthotics carried dozens upon dozens of runners to the finish line of the New York Marathon last October. I have patients who love me. They know I'm helping them and they love me. And I'm a success. You're lucky I had a cancellation this morning or I'd never have been able to fit you in. I'm booked way in advance. And you want to know something? I like success. I like getting ahead in the world. You get a taste of it, my friend, and you develop an appetite for it."

He dropped an arm around my shoulders, led me through a waiting room where several slender gentlemen sat reading back copies of Runner's World and Running Times. "I'll see you in three weeks," he said. "Meanwhile you can run in the shoes you're wearing. Don't buy new shoes because you'll want to have the orthotics when you try ' em on. Just go nice and easy for the time being. Not too far and not too fast, and I'll see you in three weeks."

Out in the hallway, the Pumas felt incredibly clumsy. Odd I'd never noticed their ungainly width in the past. I walked on down the carpeted hall to the elevator, glanced over my shoulder, looked around furtively, and went on past the elevator to open the door to the stairwell.

I wasn't sure what effect Morton's Foot might have on stairclimbing. Was I running a heavy risk of the dreaded Climber's Fetlock?

I went ahead and took my chances. Murray Feinsinger's office was on the fourth floor, which left me with seven flights to ascend. I was panting long before I reached my destination, either because my feet lacked the benefit of orthotics or because my cardiovascular system had not yet been improved by long-distance running. Or both of the above.

Whatever the cause, a minute or two was time enough for me to catch my breath. Then I eased the door open, looked both ways much like a tractable child about to cross a street, and walked past the elevator and down another carpeted hallway to the door of Abel Crowe's apartment.

Well, why else would I be getting my feet tickled? I had awakened a few hours earlier, had a shower and a shave, and while I sat spreading gooseberry preserves on an English muffin and waiting for my coffee to drip through, I recalled my reconnaissance mission to Riverside Drive and the telephone call that had interrupted my sleep.

Someone wanted the coin.

That wasn't news. When an object originally valued at five cents has increased over the years by a factor of approximately ten million, the world is full of people who wouldn't be averse to calling it their own. Who wouldn't want a 1913 Liberty Head Nickel?

But my caller not only wanted the coin. He wanted it from me. Which meant he knew the coin had been liberated from Colcannon's safe, and he knew furthermore just who had been the instrument of its delivery.

Who was he? And how might he know a little thing or two like that?

I poured my coffee, munched my muffin, and sat a while in uffish thought. I found myself thinking of that impregnable fortress where my friend Abel had lived and died, and where the coin-my coin!-survived him. I pictured that doorman, a gold-braided Cerberus at the gate of hell, a three-headed Bouvier des Flandres in burgundy livery. (The old mind's not at its best first thing in the morning, but the imagination is capable of great flights of fancy.) I visualized that entrance, those dull rosy marble columns, the bronze plaques. Three shrinks, a dentist, a pediatrician, a podiatrist, an ophthalmologist-

Whereupon dawn broke.

I finished breakfast and became very busy. I hadn't remembered the names on those plaques, or bothered noticing them in the first place, so for openers I cabbed up to Eighty-ninth and Riverside, where I sauntered nonchalantly past the entrance and quickly memorized the seven names in question. A few doors down the street I took a moment to jot them all down before they fled my memory, and then I continued east to Broadway, where I had a cup of coffee at the counter of a Cuban Chinese luncheonette. Perhaps the Cuban food's good there, or the Chinese food. The coffee tasted as though each roasted bean had been tossed lightly in rancid butter before grinding.

I turned a dollar into dimes and made phone calls. I tried the psychiatrists first and found them all booked up through the following week. I made an appointment with the last of them for a week from Monday, figuring I could always show up for it if nothing else materialized by then, by which time a shrink's services might be just what I needed.

Then I looked at the four remaining names. The pediatrician would be tricky, I decided, unless I wanted to borrow Jared Raphaelson for the occasion, and I wasn't sure that I did. The dentist might be able to fit me in, especially if I pleaded an emergency, but did I want some unknown quantity belaboring my mouth? As things stand, I get free life-time dental care from Craig Sheldrake, the World's Greatest Dentist, and I'd last seen Craig just a couple of weeks ago when I'd dropped by for a cleaning. My mouth was in no need of a dentist's attention, and I didn't feel much like saying Ah.

The ophthalmologist looked like the best choice, better even than the shrinks. An eye exam doesn't take long, either. I'd have to make sure he didn't put drops in my eyes, since that could make lockpicking a far cry from child's play. And wasn't I about due to get my eyes looked at? I had never needed glasses, and I hadn't yet noticed myself holding books at arm's length, but neither was I getting younger with each passing day, and they say it's a good idea to get your eyes checked annually so that you can nip glaucoma in the bud, or the pupil or iris, or wherever one nips it, and-

And I made the call and the guy was in the Bahamas until a week from Monday.

So I called Murray Feinsinger's office, wondering upon what pretext a podiatric appointment might be booked, and a young woman with a Bronx accent (and, I was to learn, with red hair as well) asked me the nature of my problem.

"It's my feet," I said.

"You a runner or a dancer?"

Dancers look like dancers. Anybody can look like a runner. All you have to do is sweat and wear funny shoes.

"A runner," I said, and she gave me an appointment.