Mirror’s centerfold photo of you on the courthouse steps, for one thing.’ ‘What was so wrong with it? I was dressed well, looked good, big smile, wasn’t in cuffs.’ “The lousy change, nickels and dimes, falling through your pants pocket and rolling down the steps and you chasing after it like a snorting hog.’ ‘What’s the snorting? What’s with these pigs?’ ‘Panting. You were out of shape. But for the money, is what I mean. The same kind of man running after petty change where he could break his neck or get a stroke, would try to save a few dollars in fines by bribing a building inspector. Whatever it was, that’s why they took it and used it and it was ugly.’ ‘I told you to sew those holes.’ ‘That’s hardly my point. Besides, you cram so much change and keys in them, your pockets are always going to have holes.’ ‘I need the change for the bus and subway. And newspapers.’ ‘Since when do you buy your own newspaper?’ ‘I buy it.’ ‘Maybe the Sundays. The rest you take out of garbage cans.’ ‘Sometimes if it’s a clean one and just laying there on top, but obviously clean and looking almost unread, why not? Why waste? So many people waste. I was brought up poor and taught not to.’ ‘Sometimes some of the ones you brought home had spit on them, and once, dog doody.’ ‘I didn’t see. The subway station was poorly lit or something. But one out of a hundred. So what?’ ‘Let’s drop the subject and concentrate on the other one.’ ‘What other one? If it’s what I think it is, there isn’t any other one.’ ‘Three people have already sent that photo to me through the mail. All anonymously. What did you do to make so many enemies? Anyway, it’s an example of how many people know about it regarding the children.’ ‘I didn’t make enemies. If I made a lot more money than most other dentists, maybe that’s why. Jealousy, and this is how they get even with me, but behind my back. Or there are thousands of crazy people in the city who do nothing all day but read the papers. And when they see a man down, someone they’ve never even laid eyes on but through the papers think they know, they get their kicks pushing him further. But believe me, people will forget. In a year, two at the most. I’ll be old news, or their minds don’t remember that far. The few who don’t forget, the hell with them. I’ll tell all those nutjobs and sickies that I did it standing on one foot.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘That it was easy — this is — and in some ways, even good for me. I’ve met lots of decent people here. Gentlemen. Men of means. Big successes in all kinds of fields. Future clients, some of them. They have me working in the prison clinic’ ‘I know.’ ‘So, for one thing, I’m able to stay in touch with the latest dental gadgets and machines. It’s very well equipped. But best yet, I see twenty patients a day, all men from the prison. No thieves or killers but tax evaders, embezzlers, extortionists, but not strong-armed ones, plus some draft dodgers. Those I don’t especialy like, in what they’re doing, but that’s their business. And then the conscientious ones who won’t go into the army for their own more personal reasons. Moral, religious, none of which I go along with or else don’t understand, but at least they’re better types. And they all got teeth. Most, I just look in their mouths, pick around a little and take an x-ray or two to satisfy them, since they usually have nothing wrong with them a quick prison release wouldn’t cure or else need major bridgework, some of them complete upper and lower plates, which the prison’s not going to put out for. They let me extract and fill and even do root canal to as many teeth as I want, since they don’t want their immates walking around in pain and maybe kicking someone over it. But they feel the more expensive work, which means sending it out to a dental lab, the prisoner should pay for himself on the outside. All of which is to the good, since when a lot of these men get out they’ll come to me.’ ‘How? You won’t have a license to work when you get out.’ ‘Ill get it in a year, maybe two.’ ‘You might get it in ten years if you’re lucky. That’s what I’ve been told.’ ‘By who?’ ‘The license people and Democratic club leaders you sent me to speak to for you.’ ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get it much sooner. But till I do I’11 get different kind of work and do very well in it. I did in dentistry — started with borrowed money and no more skills than the next dentist — I can do well in other things. And by working at it long and hard and mixing in the right places a lot. I bought a house for us from it, didn’t I? A building, Five stories of it and you decorated it to your heart’s content.’ ‘Fine. One where it cost more to keep up than the rents we get plus all the problems that go along with it.’ ‘What problems? Be like me. Tenant complains, tell him to move out if he doesn’t like it. And we also got our apartment from it. Two floors. And my office, so those were supposed to make up the difference. And it was an investment if the neighborhood ever turned good. Not only that, we had other things. A full-time maid. One left, another came the next day. And a car whenever we needed one. And summer vacations for all of us but especially all summer for you and the kids. So stop complaining. I can do all that again no matter what I go in to. And maybe a little dentistry — the hell with them — you know,’ and he makes jabbing motions with his thumb over his shoulder, indicating he’ll do it on the side or behind their backs. ‘Till everything comes through.’ ‘That’s exactly what you shouldn’t do. They’ll find out-one of your good friends who’s an enemy will squeal — and you’ll land right back here getting acquainted with all the latest dental instruments.’ ‘Anyway, no job is that complicated unless it’s a real profession like dentistry and medicine and law. But I’m sure I won’t have to do anything else for very long. The people you spoke to were being extra cautious. You’re my wife? How do they know you also weren’t working for the state, in return for helping to reduce my sentence or getting my license back, by letting them say “Well, now, you want him to get his license back sooner than ten years you’ll have to pay for it.” They’re no dopes. I never should have sent you to them, but thanks for trying. Because of course they built up the time to you till I get my license back and pretended to be saints. But when I see them I’ll talk to them like a boy from the boys. And on a park bench — no one in fifty feet of us or where the air can be bugged — and not in a restaurant or room. I know what to do.’ ‘What? Bribing them?’ ‘Shut your mouth. That one they heard. Say something quick and silly as if you were joking.’ ‘They didn’t hear. And like how,’ she whispers, ‘by bribing them?’ ‘Shut up with that word. I’m serious. Smile. Make believe you’re laughing, the whole thing a joke.’ She smiles, throws her head back, closes her eyes, opens her mouth wide and goes ‘huh-huh-huh’ through it. ‘OK,’ her face serious again, ‘what’ll you do? The same stupid thing?’ ‘That time was a mistake. I did it to the wrong inspector.’ ‘He was a city investigator, not a building inspector.’ ‘I thought different. He was an impersonator, that’s what he was — a lowlife