e'd expected to run into one of the roving muggers
who still made the Park a trap for the unwary--he'd almost looked
forward to it, in a way--but nobody appeared. It was unusual, but he
didn't have time to wonder about it.

The headquarters for the National Brotherhood of Truckers was east of
Greenwich Village, on First Avenue, so Malone had plenty of time to
think things out while the cab wended its laborious southeast way.
After a few minutes he realized that he would have even more time to
think than he'd planned on.

"Lots of traffic for this time of night," he volunteered.

The cabbie, a fiftyish man with a bald, wrinkled head and surprisingly
bright blue eyes, nodded without turning his head. "Maybe you think
this is bad," he said. "You would not recognize the place an hour
earlier, friend. During the real rush hour, I mean. Things are what
they call _meshuggah_, friend. It means crazy."

"How come?" Malone said.

"The subway is on strike since last week," the cabbie said. "The buses
are also on strike. This means that everybody is using a car. They
can make it faster if they wish to walk, but they use a car. It does
not help matters, believe me."

"I can see that," Malone murmured.

"And the cops are not doing much good either," the cabbie went on,
"since they went on strike sometime last Tuesday."

Malone nodded, and then did a double-take. "Cops?" he said. "On
strike? But that's illegal. They could be arrested."

"You can be funny," the cabbie said. "I am too sad to be funny."

"But--"

"Unless you are from Rhode Island," the cabbie said, "or even farther
away, you are deaf, dumb and blind. Everybody in New York knows what
is going on by this time. I admit that it is not in the newspapers,
but the newspapers do not tell the truth since, as I remember it, the
City Council election of 1924, and then it is an accident, due to the
major's best friend working in the printing plants."

"But cops can't go on strike," Malone said plaintively.

"This," the cabbie said in a judicious tone, "is true. But they do not
give out any parking tickets any more, or any traffic citations
either. They are working on bigger things, they say, and besides all
this there are not so many cops on the force now. They are spread very
thin."

Malone could see what was coming. "Arrests of policemen," he said,
"and resignations."

"And investigations," the cabbie said. "Mayor Amalfi is a good Joe
and does not want anything