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freeze.
    ‘He’s … a friend, too. Nice guy. Not like most supers,’ he said lamely.
    ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘If you remember anything, call me.’
    In the corridor I lit a cigarette, and swore. I didn’t care if Ted Marshall liked orangutans, but if he swung both ways, and wanted to hide it, the mess could be complicated. If he did swing two ways, and wanted to hide it, he wasn’t going to be much help. He would stay far away from the heavy boots of the police.

Chapter Six
    I called Sarah Wiggen from a booth on Sixth Avenue. She sounded alone, and nervous.
    ‘No, I haven’t heard anything from her, Mr Fortune.’
    ‘No news? The police? Ricardo Vega been around?’
    ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I know the police still think she just went away. Perhaps she did. She does things that way.’
    ‘When she asked you to go home? You believe that?’
    A silence. ‘No, I don’t believe that.’
    ‘Sit tight. I’ll call back. Maybe she’ll show.’
    Maybe she would show, Anne Terry. I was tired, my missing arm was aching. You’d think I’d been walking on the stump. Nuts! The lost arm didn’t hurt when I was tired, it hurt when I was upset, low. It’s my monkey, that missing wing, where the nerves are raw. Anne Terry was still missing. In a way, I’d been with her all day. I was getting to know her, and what I knew so far, I liked, and I didn’t think she was going to show up now—not on her own.
    All around me the mobs of people were on their way home from the offices, stores, the work-services, the small factories—stepping on each other’s feet like refugees fleeing. Five-thirty p.m. Some brisk and hurrying, some dragging themselves, but hurrying or dragging to what? To tomorrow. Never more than one dimension at a time: ciphers at work, TV at home. Flat men in a flat world, or who could know for sure what we are? Work and perish for the sake of a copper penny. A quote? Yes, a quote. From Isaak Babel, a writer who had died the victim of a different future, but a future just as one-dimensional.
    (There we go again, the malady of the sailor at sea, the dweller in solitary cafés—reading. Worse: reading and remembering. Isaak Babel’s words, and my thoughts. ‘A worthy labourer who perished for the sake of a copper penny.… Ladies and gentlemen! What did our dear Joseph get out of life? Nothing worth mentioning. How did he spend his time? Counting other people’s cash. What did he perish for …?’
    Tired thoughts on a street corner with the hordes of people pushing around me. Missing arm thoughts. Anne Terry thoughts. Was she dead somewhere for the sake of a copper penny? Had she gotten much from her life beyond Ted Marshall and Ricardo Vega? She had wanted a lot, and where the hell was she, and was Vega part of where she was? What the hell was I doing anyway? Out to get Ricardo Vega, sure. No, not now. Trying to find a girl who might not be doing anything but enjoying herself. A girl I had come to like in half a day. No liked her that first night in the rain; the beautiful, direct, bony face; the gentle touch in a bare cafeteria; the realistic voice:
    ‘You better fade out, Gunner.’
    Direct and simple—and surrounded by parasites, scavengers? Sarah Wiggen who resented not being in her life all the way, who hated her verve, spark, and who had lost Ted Marshall? Not that Anne would have had to ‘take’ Ted Marshall.
    ‘I don’t need losers, Gunner. Bring me the winner.’
    A world of nothing worth mentioning for Anne Terry who only wanted to work hard for what she knew was inside her? Integrated, full, needing no hlp.
    ‘I don’t guess so. Mind your own henhouse?
    ‘Who minded Ricardo Vega’s henhouse?’
    ‘I really dig the guy, too, except he’ll never be sure enough to relax. Too bad.’
    Too bad ? How? For her? No, she wasn’t a woman who worried about ‘Too bad’ for herself, tougher. Too bad for Vega that he wasn’t man enough to be her man, so had to be something else for her? Too