Specimen Days

Simon did his menacing until seven-twenty. The time between clients was minimum wage, and most players naturally wanted as many bookings as possible. Simon preferred his in-between hours. The park was green and quiet, strung with pale yellow lights. Sometimes on a slow night a full twenty minutes might pass with no tour groups no one and nothing but grassy twilight, chlorophyll-scented breezes. As mandated, he stayed in character even when alone. He prowled and glowered. He sat on a series of benches with his muscles flexed and his tatts demonstrating their phosphorescent undulations. Sporadic tour groups and their guides skittered by, murmuring among themselves. They never strayed far from the green-gold lightglobe that hovered over their guide's head.

Simon passed Marcus twice on his rounds on the edges of the Ramble. He risked a wink the second time, though fraternization was cause for dismissal. Park thugs were not friendly. You could jive with your brothers if you were part of a gang, but white players weren't eligible for gang work. Because there was a steady if modest demand for Caucasians among the general clientele, Dangerous Encounters Ltd. kept a handful on the payroll but insisted they work alone.

Roving gangs of white men terrorizing Central Park was too inaccurate. Old New York had built its reputation on historical fidelity. So Marcus and Simon and the other white players worked solo, as lone wolves who had gone so the brochure said from drunken and abusive families to this scabrous forest kingdom, where their addictions multiplied as their options dwindled, desperate men who scrounged for whatever easy prey might wander innocently into their sectors. He and Marcus and the other singles were the cheapest items on the menu. Getting worked over by a gang cost five times as much.

His seven-thirty level seven would be at Bethesda Fountain. He headed in that direction.

The plaza was empty when he arrived. He was not sorry, even though no-shows paid only their 20 percent deposit, of which his share would be ten. Still, he'd be glad enough to skip the seven, perform his threes and fours, and go home to bed. Maybe he could make it up with some extra bookings tomorrow.

He had to stay for the required fifteen minutes. He stationed himself off to the side, in the shadow of the colonnade, where the client would not see him when he entered, as arranged, from the western stairs. He snarled at a passing tour group. He eyed their adolescent daughters with lupine appetite, muttered about how Chinese snatch was the tastiest, in case any of them understood English. They usually loved something like that. Maybe they would tip him, via their guide, once they were safely out of the park. Maybe the guide would pass the money along.

Thirteen minutes. Fourteen minutes. Then, just before he was officially entitled to walk off and collect the deposit, his level seven arrived.

He was Euro. He was corpulent, fiftyish, maidenly in his ruddy, well-fed baldingness. He looked nervous. Was it his first time? Simon hoped not not at level seven. Bennie from Dangerous Encounters escorted the client as far as the plaza's edge. They had a whispered conversation at the base of the stairs, and then the client stepped into the plaza, unaccompanied. He had blue Astrohair. He wore a mercury suit. He was German, probably, or Polish. The Germans and the Poles loved their novelty hair. They loved their liquid suits.

He was a strider. He had listened carefully to what Bennie would have told him about walking with purpose, about letting it come as a surprise. Relatively speaking.

Simon let the client get past the halfway point, just beyond the blind gaze and outstretched hand of the angel. Then he took off after him. He could see the man tense up. He continued obeying instructions, though. Youll hear footsteps. Dont turn to look. A New Yorker would never do that. Hurry along.

The client hurried along. Light from the halogens sparked in his cobalt hair.

Simon got to his position, beside the client but slightly behind. He said, "Hey, friend. Can I ask you a favor?"

The client kept walking, as a New Yorker would.

"Hey. I'm talking to you."

Still nothing. He had paid careful attention.

Simon took the client's elbow. A mercury suit was always strange to him that watery quality, that faint heat they put out.

Now the client turned to face him. Once physical contact has been made, you're free to respond.

"Was wollen SieT No English, then?

"I need a little loan," Simon said. "I'm down on my luck right now."

"I can't help you," the client answered. Spoke English after all. Good.