242
JOHN HOLLANDER
entire contents of my cup, which contained an English threepenny bit,
tax tokens from various Southern cities, two slugs and a pierced amuse–
ment-park Lucky Piece, stamped with the incomplete message "TOM
AND MATILDA SEE AL . . . ," my own collecteana,
all.
Never
have I drawn a grivenik's profit, Officer, from my attentive wander–
ings.
"Are you shitting me? Where is it?"
"Search me!"
He did. "What
is
it with you people? The crumbiest little con
that doesn't even cover unemployment maybe and you think you're
Yellow Kid Weil." This man was full of the lore of his specialty. I
had by now concluded that "flurching" involved feigned blindness
for the coin of it. And I remained resolute.
"Officer, I've done nothing wrong-I haven't really begged at
all, and I've bothered no one. I'm too old to be part of some initia–
tion prank and I don't feel like lying about what I'm doing, anyway.
I was merely studying the passing parade, you might say. I pretend to
be blind so that nobody I stare at will be offended or overly uncom–
fortable. 1-"
"Okay, Flurch. I've had it. Let's go."
But I hardly needed this injunction, for we were by then involved
in an adroit series of calisthenics and mutterings, ending up hand–
cuffed together, while headquarters was telephoned. In a very few
minutes a car had arrived and we were being finessed through traffic
to some sort of district station. The matter of booking me required
quite a bit of huddled consultation between the bunco cop, as I later
learned that he was called, and a detective sergeant. I surrendered my
paraphernalia, coin collection, wallet, money, keys, belt and shoelaces
and started to protest again. This time, the sergeant listened me out.
"Who is this guy?" he asked my captor.
"I don't know for sure yet. I'll research it later. Wandering Grew
is still in Quentin and all his friends have left town. This one's got
a new story and a nutty line, but I'll crack it yet. My files-"
"Check his prints!"
"Ah, why can't I do it my way? In a couple of hours, I'll trace
these coded bands on his cane here right back to the source.
This
guy looks to be of the old Saratoga Sam school, which means he must
have grown up in, or at least spent a good while in Baltimore. Christ,
it's written all over him, the-"
