The car was just as I’d left it. Must be a pretty crime-free neighborhood-this was two times running.

It was almost evening and I wanted everything secure before I called this James character, so I stopped at a pay phone on Fourteenth Street to reserve a ride for the night. I have this arrangement with the dispatcher-I call him, he gives me a cab for the night shift, and I don’t have to return it until morning. I keep whatever I earn for the evening on the meter and he gets a flat hundred bucks. I also keep a hack license for Juan Rodriguez (the same guy who makes his living working in that Corona junkyard) behind the false wall at the rear of the Plymouth’s glove compartment.

You have to be fingerprinted to get a hack license in New York. It costs you an extra fifty to bring your own fingerprint card already made out for the inspectors. I have a couple of dozen cards stashed, already fingerprinted, but with no names or other information on them. I don’t know the real names of any of the guys who would match those prints, but I know the cops would have a hell of a time interviewing any of them.

The old man who works as a night watchman in the city morgue told me how the cops sometimes fingerprint a dead body while it’s still fresh so they can make an identification. He showed me how it was done. I got the blank cards easily enough, waited a few weeks, and the old man let me make a few dozen prints from a corpse that came in on the meat wagon one night. Nasty car accident-the guy was headless, but his fingers were in perfect shape.

Driving a cab in New York is the next best thing to being invisible. You can circle the same block a dozen times and even the local street-slime don’t look twice. The cops do the same thing in their anticrime cars-only trouble is their union won’t let them work the cars alone, so when you see two guys in the front seat of a cab, you know it’s the Man. Very subtle.

I drove past Mama’s to check her front window. Usually there are three beautiful tapestries of dragons on display-one red, one white, one blue. Tonight the white one was missing-undercover cops of some kind were inside. If the blue was gone, it would mean the uniformed police. I kept rolling like I was supposed to do. I could have gone inside, since only the red dragon standing alone meant danger, but I needed to find Max and he wouldn’t be inside, at least not upstairs with the customers. When Max wanted to leave he climbed down to the sub-basement, below the regular storage area. It was pitch-dark down there, and dead quiet. I was there once when two uniforms came looking for him. The young cop wanted to go down there after him but his partner had more sense. He just told Mama to ask Max to stop by the precinct because they wanted to talk to him. Going down in that basement after Max would be about as smart as drinking cyanide and have the same long-term effect.

I pulled into the warehouse with the headlights off, rolled down the window, lit a cigarette, and waited. It was quiet there, so quiet that I heard the faint whoosh of air before I felt the gentle thump on the car’s roof. I stared straight ahead through the windshield until I saw a hand press itself against the glass, fingers pointed down. I told Max that one day he would break his fool neck jumping from the second-story balcony on to the roof of cars. He thought that was hilarious.

We went into the back room and I pointed to one of the chairs, then spread my hands to ask “Okay?” When he nodded, it meant he’d wait there for me. He knew I’d explain when I got back.

The basement of the warehouse was my next stop. The only light down there came from the diffused rays of a streetlight through one of the dirty narrow windows, but it was bright enough for me to find the exit door behind a pile of abandoned shipping pallets. Inside one of the pallets was a rubber-covered dial telephone with two wires ending in alligator clips and a set of keys. One of the keys let me into another basement halfway down the alley, and the second got into the telephone wire box for the commercial building on the corner. It was peaceful-the collective of Oriental architects who inhabited the place in the daytime never worked at night. I checked my watch. Another three or four minutes until James would be expecting the call. I opened the telephone junction box, hooked up the handset, checked to see if anyone else was on the line, got a dial tone, and waited. At fifteen seconds to six I dialed the number James had given to Mama. Someone answered on the first ring.

“Mr. James’s wire.”

“This is Burke.”

“One moment please.” I was supposed to think I was calling an office. James came on, another voice, so at least two of them were in on the game. “Burke. I’ve been trying to reach you. You’re a hard man to catch.”

“Why didn’t you just stop by the house, pal?”

“I don’t know where you live.”

“That’s right, you don’t. What do you want?”

“I’ve got some business for you; something right up your alley. There’s a considerable sum involved. Can we meet?”

“You know somebody I know?”

“I don’t want to say names on the phone. But let’s say I know your reputation, and this would be something you would want to do.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I do think so,” his voice turning what he thought was hard and forceful, meaning that he was going to be a continual pain in the ass and stay on my case. It was better to meet him once and have done with it.

“Okay, pal. Tonight-all right?”

“Tonight’s fine. Just tell me where.”

“I’ll send a cab for you. The driver will bring you to me.”

“That’s not really necessary.”

“Yeah, it is.”

There was silence as he thought for a minute, not that there was much for him to think about. He was probably going to tell me to send the driver to some fancy hotel and he’d be standing out in front like he belonged there. It was time to show him we weren’t going to spend the evening being stupid. “Look, here it is. The cab will be there at ten o’clock on the dot. You and your friend just get in the backseat, don’t say anything. The cab will have its off-duty light on and it will blink its lights twice when it comes up on you. Just get in and it’ll bring you where I am. You get out when the cabby stops, wait on the corner, and I’ll pick you up and take you to the meeting place.”

“That sounds a bit complicated.”

“Suit yourself.”

Another short silence. Then, “Okay, Burke, tell your cabby to meet us at-”

“Never mind all that. The cabby will be at the same corner you’re standing on right now. And don’t waste your time trying to talk to him, he won’t say a word. Yes or no?”

Silence, a muffled conversation. Then, “Yes, we’ll-” I unhooked the alligator clips, terminating the conversation. If they weren’t on the same corner as the pay phone when the cab rolled up, that would be the end. I went back the way I’d come, returning the equipment and the keys, and rejoined Max in the warehouse.

When I put the hack license on the table in front of Max his face broke into a joyful grin-he loved to drive the cab. I got out paper and a marking pen, showed him the corner where he’d pick up the two clowns, and gestured that he should bring them back to this neighborhood. He nodded and I diagrammed that he should bring them only to the far corner, make the turn, stash the cab in the back of the warehouse, then go back and escort them inside.

Max patted his face with both hands, shrugged his shoulders, and spread his palms out wide, asking me if they wouldn’t recognize him as the driver of the cab when he brought them inside. I held up one finger, got up, and walked over to the big trunk where we kept our supplies-hats, wigs, false beards, face putty, stuff like that. Max was in seventh heaven now. This was perfection-not only would he get to drive the cab, but he’d have a disguise too. We brought the mirror out from the bathroom and tried on a few different versions of Max’s face. His favorite was the Zapata mustache, which, together with mirror-finish sunglasses and a fat cigar in his mouth, made him impossible to recognize. I added a jaunty beret in a dashing shade of pink. Max wasn’t crazy about the color but he did smile at the sight of the hat, no doubt remembering the would-be mugger who had donated it to our collection one dark night last summer.