Dark Maze

here he was on his feet in front of me, close enough so I could hear his raspy breathing. Here he was, curious in a funny way. As in not funny, actually.
    I looked at my wristwatch: half-past ten. I also looked at the block-letter streamer on the cover of his tabloid: statue of elvis found on mars. And I told myself, All right, so here is this neighborhood geezer who has innocently come outdoors for the nice fresh air; so what of it?
    Finally I answered him with a question of my own: “How do you know I’m a cop?”
    He turned to somebody standing beside him. Only there was nobody there, of course. “This one, he says, 'How’d y’know?’ Can you beat it?” he said to Nobody.
    Then to me he said, “Friendly, if you want, I can take you to the beach and if there’s a cop there I can pick him out, easy’s pie. Even if he was wearing one of them bathing suits with little sailboats on the bum, I could make him as a cop from everybody else laying around in the sand half bare-assed. How is this? Because of the fact that I have a very great power of observation is how, okay?”
    “Okay.”
    He smiled. “Haw! If you could just get a load of your own puss right now, you’d see cop written all over it, same as I see.“
    “How so?”
    “Well, for one thing, you’d see yourself looking me over like some high-flying buzzard looks for blood down on the snow. The way you’re looking at me now, you got to be either a dopey little kid or a cop. And it’s kind of hard for me to figure you were ever cute enough to have been a little kid.”
    “I see... ”
    “There’s another thing that tells me you’re a cop. You’re listening close. A cop, he’ll listen to anybody no matter if he’s nothing but a slobbering drunk or a strung-out junkie or a Jesus-jumping loon.”
    “We’re supposed to listen.”
    “I ain’t saying you’re not. I am only saying this is what I have observed, okay?”
    “Okay.”
    “Also I observed by your hands how you’re a cop.”
    “My hands?”
    “Don’t take this wrong, friendly, but even somebody who does not have my power of observation can see that you’re a guy who is the lunch-bucket type. But, you have got no callouses on your hands, which from experience says to me you’re a cop, since cops are guys who gravitate into the department because they are mainly lunch-bucket types such as yourself who don’t want to actually do any manual labor on the job. Now, ain’t that right?”
    “Maybe,” I said. Too true, I thought. I said, “So it’s nothing for you to make any cop in town?”
    “It’s relatively pretty much of a snap, yeah. Except for your lady cops. They’re trickier since they’re females. But give me the time and I can mostly make them, too.”
    “I see... ”
    “Of course you do. Like I said, I got a great power. Besides which, I have been watching you in case you didn’t know… “
    Watching me? “No, I didn’t know that.”
    “So now you know.” He shrugged. “Anyhow, I made you for a cop from day one. And you are now telling me how right I was. Ain’t that right?”
    He did not wait for my answer. Instead, he turned to Nobody next to him, and said, “Damn straight I’m right.” Then he folded the tabloid that dangled from his hand. He stuffed the paper into the side pocket of this thrift-shop jacket, which was a cream-colored linen number that might have been good in its day. He fished out a lacquer-paper packet of skinny cheroots from the other pocket and put one of them between his lips and offered me one, too. We lit up, then we both turned our heads to watch the Tenth Avenue traffic roll along uptown. Neither of us said a word for about a minute. He had his thoughts, I had mine.

    In a city unsubtle in all other moods, this geezer here talking to me and to Nobody was one of the true heralds of spring in New York. In most other places during the month of April, you can suddenly see lots of ladies in housedresses hanging out laundry in the sweet new winds, and robins digging up fat worms from wet grass and fragrant mud. In New York, you can be certain that winter has died when you see girls in schoolyards jumping rope double Dutch; when you see how every third guy in a business suit is wearing a yellow necktie; when clusters of people with apprehension in their fair-skinned faces are walking around midtown Manhattan with street maps growing out of their back pockets; and when neighborhood parks see the return of old coots who sit in