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“Thanks, Red,” I said.
    “Sure thing, Ranelli. We’re gonna miss you around here.”
    “Red, I was here before you were born.”
    “I know. You’re like my goddamned uncle or somethin’.”
    “Take care of yourself, Red.”
    “You too, Ranelli. Just go on down to Roscoe, there, and he’ll escort you to where you gotta go.”
    “Thanks.”
    As I walked down that hall of cells, guys I’d become friends with—and enemies, too—they all said goodbye and good luck. I waved and smiled at them. I didn’t want to stop and talk. I didn’t want to draw it out. Fuck ‘em.
    Roscoe was one of those stone-faced guys who’d been there forever. The place had some friendly guards, but most were coldhearted assholes who didn’t give a shit about you. Roscoe was one of those.
    We went through a series of doors that opened and closed as a buzzer sounded. I passed Julio, another lifer who’d been in since the early seventies. He was paintin’ a wall or something, some kind of work detail he was on.
    “Hey, old-timer,” he said. “You really leavin’ us, huh?”
    “Better take a good look at my ass when I walk out,” I answered. “It’s the last you’ll see of it.”
    “Take care, Roberto.”
    “Thanks, Julio. You, too.”
    “Wish it was me, man.”
    “It will be someday. Don’t give up.”
    “Right.”
    We went through another couple doors and finally entered the office where they gave you the official send-off. I’d already filled out all the paperwork, got it signed and approved and everything. There wasn’t much more that needed done.
    Some ancient guy—probably a lifer even older than me—worked the unit where they kept prisoners’ personal belongings. Sing Sing had over two thousand inmates, so there was an awful lot of junk in there. I often wondered what they did with the crap that belonged to guys who died in prison. Did the guards use it for currency and play poker with it?
    I signed the paper and they handed over a little plastic bag. Inside was my wallet I’d had in my pocket when I was arrested. Damn, it looked just like new. I opened it up and found my old driver’s license, fifty years out of date. A business card from my bank with an account number scribbled on it. A few black-and-white pictures of my mother and father, and one of my brother Vittorio.
    Vittorio. He would’ve looked just like me now if he’d lived.
    There was also a comb, a wristwatch that didn’t work anymore, a tiny notepad, a key ring, and a hundred and three dollars and sixty-two cents. That was the amount of money I had on me at that stupid New Year’s Eve party. I stuffed the money into the billfold and stuck it in my pocket. The comb I shoved in my back trouser pocket. The wristwatch was useless, so I dropped it in the trashcan by the counter. I picked up the notepad and flipped through it. It had some names and addresses in it. At first I didn’t remember why I’d had it. Then it came back to me. It was my little black book, so to speak. I was never good at rememberin’ addresses and phone numbers, so I carried that little notepad around with me. The key ring—that was somethin’ I needed. There were three keys on it. One opened my old apartment andanother was for my long-gone Studebaker—those were garbage now—but the third key was important. I slipped the bad keys off the ring and tossed them in the trash. The good one I kept and put in my pocket.
    “You need me to call you a cab?” the old man asked.
    “I thought they said my ride was here.”
    The guy looked confused. “You had a ride comin’ for ya?”
    “No. I think it was just an expression.”
    “Oh. So you want me to call a cab?”
    “No.”
    The geezer shrugged. His eyes looked me up and down. “How long you been in here?”
    “In here ? Sing Sing? Or how long has it been since I was arrested?”
    “Whatever.”
    “I was arrested New Year’s Eve—er, rather, early New Year’s Day, nineteen fifty-eight.”
    The guy whistled.