the clerk and a couple of customers at a corner newsstand. I went into Aleppo and talked to the cashier and two of the waiters. I went back to Ayoub's-- I'd taken to thinking of The Arabian Gourmet by that name, since I kept talking to people who were calling it that.
I went back there, and by this time the woman had been able to come up with the name of the customer who'd been afraid the men in the blue van had robbed the place. I found the man listed in the phone book, but no one answered when I rang the number.
I had dropped the insurance-investigation story when I got to Atlantic Avenue because it didn't seem likely to jibe with what people would have seen. On the other hand, I didn't want to leave the impression that anything on the scale of kidnapping and homicide had taken place, or someone might deem it his civic duty to report the matter to the police. The story I put together, and it tended to vary somewhat depending upon my audience of the moment, went more or less along these lines: My client had a sister who was considering an arranged marriage to an illegal alien who was hoping to stay in the country. The prospective groom had a girlfriend whose family was bitterly opposed to the marriage. Two men, relatives of the girlfriend, had been harassing my client for days in an attempt to enlist her aid to stop the marriage.
She was sympathetic to their position but didn't really want to get involved.
They had been dogging her steps on Thursday, and followed her to Ayoub's. When she left they got her into the back of their truck on a pretext and drove around with her, trying to convince her. By the time they let her out she was slightly hysterical, and in the course of getting away from them she lost not only the groceries (olive oil, tahini, and so on) but also her purse, which at the time contained a rather valuable bracelet. She didn't know the name of these men, or how to get in touch with them, and--
I don't suppose it made much sense, but I wasn't pitching it to the networks for a TV pilot, I was just using it to reassure some reasonably solid citizens that it was both safe and noble to be as helpful as possible.
I got a lot of gratuitous advice-- "Those marriages are a bad thing, she should tell her sister it's not worth it," for instance. But I also got a fair amount of information.
I KNOCKED off a little after four and caught a train to Columbus Circle, beating the rush hour by a few minutes. There was mail for me at the desk, most of it junk. I ordered something from a catalog once and now I get dozens of them every month. I live in one small room and wouldn't have room for the catalogs themselves, let alone the products they want me to buy.
Upstairs, I tossed everything but the phone bill and two message slips, both informing me that "Ken Curry" had called, once at 2:30, and again at 3:45. I didn't call him right away. I was exhausted.
The day had taken it out of me. I hadn't done that much physically, hadn't spent eight hours hefting sacks of cement, but all those conversations with all those people had taken their toll. You have to concentrate hard, and the process is especially demanding when you're running a story of your own. Unless you're a
pathological liar, a fiction is more arduous to utter than the truth; that's the principle on which the lie detector is based, and my own experience tends to bear it out. A full day of lying and role-playing takes it out of you, especially if you're on your feet for most of it.
I took a shower and touched up my shave, then put the TV news on and listened to fifteen minutes of it with my feet up and my eyes closed.
Around five-thirty I called Kenan Khoury and told him I'd made some progress, although I didn't have anything specific to report. He wanted to know if there was anything he could do.
"Not just yet," I said. "I'll be going back to Atlantic Avenue tomorrow to see if the picture fills in a little more. When I'm done there I'll come to your place.
I went back there, and by this time the woman had been able to come up with the name of the customer who'd been afraid the men in the blue van had robbed the place. I found the man listed in the phone book, but no one answered when I rang the number.
I had dropped the insurance-investigation story when I got to Atlantic Avenue because it didn't seem likely to jibe with what people would have seen. On the other hand, I didn't want to leave the impression that anything on the scale of kidnapping and homicide had taken place, or someone might deem it his civic duty to report the matter to the police. The story I put together, and it tended to vary somewhat depending upon my audience of the moment, went more or less along these lines: My client had a sister who was considering an arranged marriage to an illegal alien who was hoping to stay in the country. The prospective groom had a girlfriend whose family was bitterly opposed to the marriage. Two men, relatives of the girlfriend, had been harassing my client for days in an attempt to enlist her aid to stop the marriage.
She was sympathetic to their position but didn't really want to get involved.
They had been dogging her steps on Thursday, and followed her to Ayoub's. When she left they got her into the back of their truck on a pretext and drove around with her, trying to convince her. By the time they let her out she was slightly hysterical, and in the course of getting away from them she lost not only the groceries (olive oil, tahini, and so on) but also her purse, which at the time contained a rather valuable bracelet. She didn't know the name of these men, or how to get in touch with them, and--
I don't suppose it made much sense, but I wasn't pitching it to the networks for a TV pilot, I was just using it to reassure some reasonably solid citizens that it was both safe and noble to be as helpful as possible.
I got a lot of gratuitous advice-- "Those marriages are a bad thing, she should tell her sister it's not worth it," for instance. But I also got a fair amount of information.
I KNOCKED off a little after four and caught a train to Columbus Circle, beating the rush hour by a few minutes. There was mail for me at the desk, most of it junk. I ordered something from a catalog once and now I get dozens of them every month. I live in one small room and wouldn't have room for the catalogs themselves, let alone the products they want me to buy.
Upstairs, I tossed everything but the phone bill and two message slips, both informing me that "Ken Curry" had called, once at 2:30, and again at 3:45. I didn't call him right away. I was exhausted.
The day had taken it out of me. I hadn't done that much physically, hadn't spent eight hours hefting sacks of cement, but all those conversations with all those people had taken their toll. You have to concentrate hard, and the process is especially demanding when you're running a story of your own. Unless you're a
pathological liar, a fiction is more arduous to utter than the truth; that's the principle on which the lie detector is based, and my own experience tends to bear it out. A full day of lying and role-playing takes it out of you, especially if you're on your feet for most of it.
I took a shower and touched up my shave, then put the TV news on and listened to fifteen minutes of it with my feet up and my eyes closed.
Around five-thirty I called Kenan Khoury and told him I'd made some progress, although I didn't have anything specific to report. He wanted to know if there was anything he could do.
"Not just yet," I said. "I'll be going back to Atlantic Avenue tomorrow to see if the picture fills in a little more. When I'm done there I'll come to your place.
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