“You can’t do that in here!”

“We’ve got the space!”

Then the scene they witnessed became more real. I hurtled out my hand and grabbed the collar of the other man’s coat. Once he was in my grip, I pulled him backward, harshly, toward me. With a grunt, he twirled around and punched me in the shoulder, shocking me with pain and knocking me off-balance. I released my grip and slipped onto a closed seat, which flapped open, but not soon enough to catch me.

“What the hell’s going on?” I heard from the stage, as I hit the floor.

Only taking a second to be stunned, I turned, flung out both hands, and grabbed hold of the escaping man’s ankles. Now it was his turn to be decked, and he fell forward in the space between the rows.

“Knock it off!” one stagehand yelled.

“Call the cops!”

“Free show!”

I tried dragging my target back by his feet. But both of his boots kicked out at me, and only a fast yank sideways saved my face from being smashed. Surprisingly undaunted, I sprang upon his back, as if I were leaping on a surfboard. I pressed him to the dirty floor, as his hands sprang back and clawed at me.

“Please stop,” I said, exhausted.

I heard people start to scramble from the stage, drawn by the sounds of combat behind the seats. Meanwhile, the man beneath me suddenly brought his head up and back. I caught a whiff of linty, unwashed cotton as his masked skull came a half-inch from colliding with my nose.

Leaning back to avoid it, I lost my dominance, and he took full advantage. Flinging out his arms, he shucked me like a bronc shedding its rider. I landed faceup on the floor, and he scrambled to his feet.

The shock of my descent made me immobile. I heard the man peeling from the aisle, making it to the ramp. As he escaped out that side, the stagehands reached me from the other end. I looked up, saw them above me, still burly, upside down.

“You all right?” one asked.

“I don’t know,” I answered, and it was true.

“Who is that guy?”

“He tried to rob me.”

“Should we call the cops?”

I shook my head. “What’s down that ramp?”

“Dressing rooms,” one answered.

—

In another minute, I had hobbled down the ramp myself. My legs ached as if they’d been burned by smokes. My head felt twice its size from smacking the theater floor. And my lower back—I have no words to express the agony.

Slowly easing down yet another staircase, I found myself in a small hall of uninhabited dressing rooms. A cool wind directed my attention to the hall’s end, where an Exit door stood conspicuously open. Then I stopped at and entered a dressing room.

I looked at myself in the mirror, which was ringed by white Broadway bulbs. All told, I looked okay. Most of my wounds were invisible. Still, I thought my hairline might be receding.

When I turned to the left, I saw a rack of costumes, apparently uncollected from an earlier show. There was a feather boa, a man’s Navy dress uniform, and a fake fur coat. There was also, on the floor beneath it, hastily discarded like the disguises they were, a ski mask and a peacoat.

—

Outside the diner, police crime tape now barred the door, a sign on which read CLOSED. No cops, however, were in sight.

I stood at the door, and waved through its glass at the owner. The only one inside, he was an Indian-American guy, sitting at a booth, his head drooped, forlornly. He rose and unlocked the place.

“I’m the guy who chased him,” I said.

“You’re the one,” he sighed. “A waiter told me. I got something for you.”

He let me in. Then he walked to the counter, reached behind, and pulled out an envelope. This he placed in my hands.

“A fat guy left it for you.”

I nodded. Inside, folded neatly, was a check holding a Post-it. Abner had scrawled on it, Your first installment, and he had paid what we agreed. He had, of course, forgotten to sign it, but that wasn’t a surprise.

“Anybody get a look at the other guy’s face?” I asked. “The shooter?”

He shook his head. “He kept the mask on, ordered a coffee, then did his thing.”

There were other, heavier objects at the bottom of the envelope. I shook them out upon the counter.

“That’s what he left,” the owner said. “His tip.”

There were three dimes.

“You didn’t give these to the cops?” I asked.

The owner shrugged. “You cared more.”

I smiled. Carefully, I scooped the coins—worth more at that moment than the check—into my pocket.

Then, from behind the counter, the owner brought me a plate, wrapped in plastic. He uncovered what was left of my bagel.

“Want me to heat it up?”

“No, thanks.”

It tasted great just the way it was.

ANNABELLE THE FARMER LET ME GO WITH A SOFT—AFFECTIONATE, I hoped?—cry of “Traitor!” Then she pressed a Nature’s Meal card in my front shirt pocket and wrapped a plastic bag filled with sour rye around my wrist. Her sturdy, almost painful hold of my neck afterward was arousing, though I would never tell a soul.

I had no time to lose.

If Abner was in such jeopardy that he was nearly killed during brunch, the situation was as serious as he said. Luckily, I had my suspicions about who could help.

The next day, I leafed through an illustrated edition of the entire Seven Ordeals of Quelman, which was too heavy for me to hold. My bruised arms straining beneath its weight, I placed it on a table at Dynomics, the comic book store, which was the first place I’d hit.

The dusty collector’s haven was in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, about half a mile from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway underpass. It used to be on Fourteenth Street between Seventh and Eighth in Manhattan, but that space was now a new and shiny chain pharmacy. Times change.