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mark or sometimes a little of each. When you stepped through the eastern gate, before you’d taken ten steps up the Street, you were permanently cast as one or the other. Hustler or mark. There was no third choice, but I was going to have to learn that the hard way. As usual.
    I wasn’t hungry, but I forced myself to scramble some eggs. I ought to pay more attention to my diet, I know that, but it’s just too much trouble. Sometimes the only vitamins I get are in the lime slices in my gimlets. It was going to be a long, hard night, and I was going to need all my resources. The three blue triangles would be wearing off before my meeting with Hassan and Abdoulaye; in fact, it figured that I’d show up at my absolute worst: depressed, exhausted, in no shape at all to represent Nikki. The answer was stunningly obvious: more blue triangles. They’d boost me back up. I’d be operating at superhuman speed, with computer precision and a prescient knowledge of the lightness of things. Synchronicity, man. Tapped into the Moment, the Now, the convergence of time and space and life and the holy fuckin’ tide in the affairs of men. At least, it would seem that way to me; and across the table from Abdoulaye, putting up a good front was every bit as good as the real thing. I would be mentally alert and morally straight, and that son of a bitch Abdoulaye would know I hadn’t shown up just to get my ass kicked. These were the persuasive arguments I gave as I crossed my crummy room and hunted for my pill case.
    Two more tri-phets? Three, to be on the safe side? Or would that wind me too tight? I didn’t want to go spanging off the wall like a snapping guitar string. I swallowed two, pocketed the third just in case.
    Man, tomorrow was going to be one godawful scurvy day. Better Living Through Chemistry didn’t mind lending me the extra energy up front, in the form of pretty pastel pills; but, to use one of Chiriga’s favorite phrases, paybacks are a bitch. If I managed to survive the stupefying crash that was coming due, it would be an occasion for general rejoicing all around the throne of Allah.
    The pace picked up again in about half an hour. I showered, washed my hair, trimmed my beard, shaved the little places on my cheeks and neck where I don’t want the beard, brushed my teeth, washed out the sink and the tub, walked naked through my apartment searching for other things to clean or rearrange or straighten up—and then I caught myself. “Hold on, kid,” I muttered. It was good that I took the two extra bangers so early; I’d settle down before it was time to leave.
    Time passed slowly. I thought of calling Nikki to remind her to get going, but that was pointless. I thought of calling Yasmin or Chiri, but they were at work now, anyway. I sat back against the wall and shivered, almost in tears: Jesus, I really didn’t have any friends. I wished I had a holo system like Tamiko’s; it would have killed some time. I’ve seen some holoporn that made the real thing seem fetid and diseased.
    At seven-thirty I dressed: an old, faded blue shirt, my jeans, and my boots. I couldn’t have looked pretty for Hassan if I’d wanted to. As I was leaving my building, I heard the crackle of static, and the amplified voice of the muezzin cried “laa ‘illaha ‘illallaahu” —it is a beautiful sound, that call to prayer, alliterative and moving even to a blaspheming dog of an unbeliever like myself. I hurried through the empty streets; hustlers stopped their hustling for prayer, marks overcame their cullibility for prayer. My footsteps echoed on the ancient cobblestones like accusations. By the time I reached Hassan’s shop, everything had returned to normal. Until the final, evening call to prayer, the hustlers and the marks could return to their rock ‘n’ roll of commerce and mutual exploitation.
    Minding Hassan’s shop at that hour was a young, slender American boy everyone called Abdul-Hassan. Abdul means “the slave of,”