Detective

suit. But I always take it home again, and leave it there. So when a heavy shower starts up in the middle of the day, I’m always unprepared.
    I was thinking this as I drove along in my car, and at about Shea Stadium I started giggling uncontrollably. Here I was on my way out to Rosedale in the hope of taking a picture of where someone’s foot used to be, en route to picking up a tape recording that would tell me if a bunch of hoods were taking out a contract on me, and suddenly my biggest problem is that I’m caught in the rain.
    I left my jacket and tie in the car, put the New York Post (god love it, the ink doesn’t run like the Times ) over my head, and sprinted for the house.
    It only took ten rings before they let me in. I suppose I shouldn’t have expected anything better from a man with no legs, but it was his wife who answered the door, and she had two of ’em.
    I’ve taken some pretty gruesome injury pictures in my day: an eyeball hanging in a man’s socket by a few stitches and a prayer; a scar that ran from the cheekbone to the hip; and a penis sliced open in a motorcycle accident and stitched back together again, to name a few, and I’ve become pretty inured to them. But there’s something about an amputee, particularly a double leg amputee, that is disturbing. I mean, they just lie there helpless as you photograph the stumps, and you can’t help feeling sick. And it’s not because the stumps are gory—the wounds have usually completely healed before you get a camera on ’em. It’s just somehow so moving.
    Today, I felt nothing. The old man’s plight was pitiful indeed, but I couldn’t focus on it. As his wife pulled the sock covers off his stumps, all I could see was the assignment I had to shoot. I shot it, wished them well, and got the hell out of there.
    It was pouring harder now, and suddenly I blessed the rain. Nobody would be out on a day like this. It was perfect.
    I sped down to Pluto’s. The rain was still coming down in buckets. I pulled up right behind the rented car, got out, and opened the trunk. The tapes had both been used, though neither was moving. I changed them quickly, got back in my car, and drove off. It was a piece of cake.
    My beeper went off on my way back over the Triboro Bridge. I didn’t want to answer it, but if I didn’t, they’d start calling my wife again, and I was running out of excuses for why my beeper wasn’t working.
    I came off the bridge and went through the toll booths. I automatically asked for a receipt, as if the damn dollar seventy-five really meant anything to me at that moment.
    On the right side of the toll plaza there was a bank of pay phones by the side of the road. I pulled up next to them. The rain had eased down to a slight drizzle. I got out and called the office.
    Susan answered, and for once I was glad. I didn’t feel up to dealing with Kathy. She had a new case for me. I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to do it anyway. I’d just called to stop them from bugging me. I planned to call the client and stall him off till tomorrow.
    But I couldn’t do it. Susan informed me in a cheery voice that drove me to the point of despair that the client had called from work, was now on his way home, and had no phone, and she had therefore made the appointment for me, and I was to be at his place at five.
    I told her I was sorry, but I just couldn’t do it. She told me to hang on, and put me on hold. I was debating whether or not to just simply hang up when there was a click on the line, and Richard’s voice exploded in my ear.
    “What do you mean you can’t do it?” Richard cried. “Of course you can do it. You have to do it. You went out to Rosedale, didn’t you? You’re on your way back from there, aren’t you? Well, this is right on the way. All you gotta do is swing by and see the guy.”
    “I can’t, Richard, I—”
    “Yes you can. This is a big case. The guy’s got severed tendons, he may lose the use of his arm. The top of his window fell on him when he went to open it, it’s defective, it smashed on the floor, for Christ’s sake. Be sure you get the pictures before they fix the damn thing.”
    “But—”
    “Look, I got nobody else who can do it, the guy doesn’t have a phone, so you have to do it. You want this job, you gotta do this job. Stop bellyaching and sign the guy up.”
    There was a click and the line went dead.
    I was hopelessly torn. The tapes that held my future were right there in the car, and I