The cab ground to a halt, its motor humming through the falling snow. Its roof and hood were white with snow, and Harry could see the shadowed form of a driver behind the wheel.
"Can you help me, sir?" he yelled. "My friend has fallen!"
The driver didn't budge, so Harry trudged through the snow around the front of the car to the driver's window and knocked on the crusted glass with his cold bare knuckles.
The man inside rolled down the window a few inches. He had an ear-flapped leather cap on his head and a cigar in his mouth.
"You want a cab, or don'tcha?"
"Yes, sir," said Harry, "I would like a cab, but you see, my friend has collapsed into that snowbank over there, and I wonder if you could help me get him up?"
"What do I look like, a good Samaritan?"
"Please, sir, if you could just help me get him into your cab, we'll leave you a nice tip."
"How far you going?"
"Just straight up Bleecker, to Sullivan."
"Sullivan," said the man. "I make that like eight blocks."
"Whatever you say, sir."
"That's what I say," said the cab driver. "Ain't nobody knows this town like I do."
"I'm sure that's so," said Harry. "Now would you please help me get my friend into the cab?"
"What's he doing lying in that snowbank?"
"He, uh, he fell," said Harry.
"He fell down, in a snowbank."
"Yes," said Harry.
"And may I ask why he fell down?"
"He, um, uh –"
"He's drunk, ain't he?"
"Well, it's true he's had a few bocks, but –"
"What if he tosses his cookies in my back seat?"
"I'm sure he won't."
"And what makes you so sure exactly?"
"Well, I can't be entirely sure."
"He throws up in my back seat who's gonna clean it up? You?"
"Look, sir, I believe my friend is fairly well off. If you agree to take us just as far as Sullivan Street, I'm sure he'll make it worth your while."
"What's on Sullivan Street anyway?"
"His house, he lives in a house at the corner of Bleecker and Sullivan."
"One of them big houses?"
"Yes, I think so."
"You think so?"
"I've never been there. I only met him a couple of hours ago."
"Sounds a little fishy to me."
"Please, sir, he could freeze to death out here."
"Ten bucks."
"What?"
"Ten bucks, flat fee."
"Ten dollars to go eight blocks?"
"Take it or leave it, pal. I ain't got all night."
"Yes, but –"
"Ten bucks, up front. Fork it over and I'll even help you get your pal in the cab."
"I don't have ten dollars."
"How much you got?"
"I don't know, a couple dollars maybe, some change."
"You say your buddy's well off, lives in one of them big houses."
"Yes."
"So get a sawbuck offa him, then I'll give yez a ride. Also you don't even got to tip me."
"Wow, thanks."
"Don't be sourcastic with me, mac. You talk like that to me, I leave you here, you and your swell buddy."
"I'm sorry," said Harry. "Look, please, help me get him into the cab, and I'm sure he'll gladly give you ten dollars."
"He'll give it to me all right," said the driver. "I don't know how glad he'll be about it."
"Please, sir."
"Awright, awright," said the driver. "Jesus H. Crackers. Now get away from the door so's I can open it."
"Thank you, sir," said Harry, and he backed away from the door.
The cab driver opened the door and disembarked. He was short and squat, wearing a leather jacket with a fur collar. He still had the cigar in his mouth.
"Awright," he said, "let's get this so-called friend of yours." He shut the door, and then he looked up at Harry and pointed his leather-encased stubby finger at him. "But know this. Your buddy throws up on my back seat the price goes up."
"Okay," said Harry. "Fine."
"Double sawbuck."
"What?" said Harry.
"You hard of hearing? I said double sawbuck. Twenty simoleons, U.S. currency."
"Great," said Harry. "Now please, sir."
"Let's go," said the driver.
He turned and slogged through the snow around the front of the cab, and Harry followed him to the corner.
Livingston still lay face down in the snowbank, and his small but fat body had already been covered almost completely with snow, with just a few patches of his red-and-black checked mackinaw and matching cap visible in the dim light of a streetlamp.
"If he's dead the deal is off," said the driver. "I drive a hack, not a hearse."
"I doubt he's dead," said Harry.
"Make sure," said the driver. "Turn him over."
"Can you help me?"
"I ain't touching him if he's dead. You turn him over."
Harry squatted down, put his cold hands on Livingston's upper arm and shoulder, and after only forty-five seconds and several heaves and pushes, managed to turn him over onto his back.
Livingston's face was wet and mottled with crystals of snow, but his eyes opened.
"Oh, hello, Harry," he said.
"Livingston," said Harry. "Get up. I've got us a cab."
"A cab?"
"Yes, see? There's the driver."
Harry gestured with his thumb at the driver who stood behind him.
"Splendid," said Livingston.
"But you have to get up," said Harry.
"I'm actually very comfortable here," said Livingston. "It's so soft, and I love the snowflakes falling down into my face and my eyes. I feel as if I could lie here forever, one with God and all the universe. I feel as if I have achieved what the orientals call satori."
"This guy is nuts," said the driver.
"You take the cab, Harry, my friend," said Livingston. "I shall just lie here, and let myself be covered up and be subsumed by the falling snowflakes. I have no regrets. No, none worth speaking of."
"Look," said Harry, "let's get you on your feet."
"Really, old man, no need," said Livingston. "You take the cab. Take it straight up Bleecker to the San Remo Café. An establishment in which I have passed untold happy hours. Go inside and stride manfully up to the bar, and, yes, order not one bock but two. One for you, and one for me. And drink both of them. In my memory."
Livingston half-closed his eyes against the falling snow, a slight smile on his face, and Harry turned to look up at the cabby.
"Look, sir, you get one arm, and I'll get the other, and we'll pull him up."
"I'm quite happy here," said Livingston.
"He says he's happy here," said the driver.
"Yes, but we can't leave him here," said Harry. "He'll freeze to death."
"Sounds to me like he don't mind freezing to death."
"Look," said Harry, "if we leave him here to freeze you won't get your ten dollars."
"You got a point," said the driver, and he plodded through the drift to the other side of Livingston. "Okay, here's what we do, I take one arm, and you take t'other, and we pull him up."
"Yes, good idea," said Harry, but his sarcasm apparently was lost on the man.
Not more than five minutes later, they managed to get Livingston into the back of the cab, where he immediately slumped over on his side and fell asleep.
The driver went around the cab, opened the door and got in behind the wheel. He turned around, taking his cigar out of his mouth, and slid open the wired-glass divider window.
"Ten bucks," he said.
"Oh, yes, sorry," said Harry.
Livingston was out cold, so there was nothing for Harry to do but to go through his friend's pockets until he found his wallet, and when he found it – a handsome brown leather wallet embossed with the cursive initials LPL – it was filled with cash,
well over two hundred dollars in twenties, tens, fives, and singles. In fact it was more money than Harry had ever seen at one time in his life. He extricated a ten, and, although he was tempted, that was all he took.
"Here you are, sir," he said, handing the bill through the opening in the glass.
"Remember," said the driver, "he throws up, that's another ten."
"Yes, sir," said Harry, "I remember."
The driver closed the partition window, and Harry took one last look at the contents of the wallet, then replaced it into Livingston's back pocket.
The cab moaned heavily and then jolted as the driver pulled the gear shift, and off they went, the taxi's motor grumbling and the chains on its tires crunching slowly through the snow, the wipers on the windshield moving grudgingly up and down, smearing the glass with the snowflakes that dropped heavily out of the black sky above, and all that Harry could see through the thick smoke of the driver's cigar and beyond the headlights of the cab were the vague dark shapes of buildings and the pale glowing blotches of windows, behind which, presumably, human beings lived in warmth and safety.
Where the hell was he going, and what was he doing? Why had he not remained in the warm smoky confines of Bob's Bowery Bar?
He turned and looked at Livingston, slumped in the shadows against the door and sleeping, snoring gently, like a large fat baby, oblivious, and perhaps even happy.
