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a big muscle-bound fruit hustler standing there. I just looked hard at him for a second, and he fell apart and slithered away. Then I saw two con guys leaning up against a wall flipping a quarter, hoping to get a square in a coin smack. I stared at them and they got nervous and skulked around to the parking lot and disappeared.
    The arcade was almost deserted. I remember when the slimeballs used to be packed in there solid, asshole to belly button, waiting to look at the skin show in the viewer. That was a big thing then. The most daring thing around. The vice squad used to bust guys all the time for masturbating. There were pecker prints all over the walls in front of the viewer. Now you can walk in any bar or movie house down here and see live skin shows, or animal flicks, and I don’t mean Walt Disney stuff. It’s women and dogs, dykes and donkeys, dildos and whips, fags, chickens, and ducks. Sometimes it’s hard to tell who or what is doing what to who or what.
    Then I started thinking about the camera club that used to be next door to the arcade when nudity was still a big thing. It cost fifteen bucks to join and five bucks for every camera session. You got to take all the pictures of a naked girl you wanted, as long as you didn’t get closer than two feet and as long as you didn’t touch. Of course, most of the “photographers” didn’t even have film in their cameras, but the management knew it and never bothered putting in real camera lights and nobody complained. It was really so innocent.
    I was about to head back to my car when I noticed another junkie watching me. He was trying to decide whether to rabbit or freeze. He froze finally, his eyes roaming around too casually, hitting on everything but me, hoping he could melt into the jungle. I hardly ever bust hypes for marks anymore, and he looked too sick to be holding, but I thought I recognized him.
    “Come here, man,” I called and he came slinking my way like it was all over.
    “Hello, Bumper.”
    “Well, hello, Wimpy,” I said to the chalk-faced hype. “It took me a minute to recognize you. You’re older.”
    “Went away for three years last time.”
    “How come so long?”
    “Armed robbery. Went to Q behind armed robbery. Violence don’t suit me. I shoulda stuck to boosting. San Quentin made me old, Bumper.”
    “Too bad, Wimpy. Yeah, now I remember. You did a few gas stations, right?”
    He
was
old. His sandy hair was streaked with gray and it was patchy. And his teeth were rotting and loose in his mouth. It was starting to come back to me like it always does: Herman (Wimpy) Brown, a lifelong hype and a pretty good snitch when he wanted to be. Couldn’t be more than forty but he looked a lot older than me.
    “I wish I hadn’t never met that hangtough, Barty Mendez. Remember him, Bumper? A dope fiend shouldn’t never do violent crime. You just ain’t cut out for it. I coulda kept boosting cigarettes out of markets and made me a fair living for quite a while.”
    “How much you boosting now, Wimpy?” I said, giving him a light. He was clammy and covered with gooseflesh. If he knew anything he’d tell me. He wanted a taste so bad right now, he’d snitch on his mother.
    “I don’t boost anywhere near your beat, Bumper. I go out to the west side and lift maybe a couple dozen cartons of smokes a day outta those big markets. I don’t do nothing down here except look for guys holding.”
    “You hang up your parole yet?”
    “No, I ain’t running from my parole officer. You can call in and check.” He dragged hard on the cigarette but it wasn’t doing much good.
    “Let’s see your arms, Wimpy,” I said, taking one bony arm and pushing up the sleeve.
    “You ain’t gonna bust me on a chickenshit marks case, are you, Bumper?”
    “I’m just curious,” I said, noticing the inner elbows were fairly clean. I’d have to put on my glasses to see the marks and I never took my glasses to work. They stayed in my apartment.
    “Few