In this chapter, we learn that the narrator is a reporter for a newspaper in New York City. He's been writing about corruption in the city, and he's not happy about it. He doesn't want to be a part of the story, he tells us, because he'd rather be a writer than a journalist. The narrator tells us that the newspaper is an alternative to the New York Times, and that it's full of "puzzle pieces with straws" . He tells us to be careful, though, because this is not a good neighborhood after dark, and the narrator knows he'll have to leave soon. He also tells us about a guy named Estacado, who was once a member of New York's Gambino crime family, but who went on to become one of the city's most powerful men. This guy's a little different from the guy we've been reading about, the narrator says: he was an assassin for the mob, but he was also a powerful man in his own right. This is the kind of guy you want to hang out with when you're in the middle of the night, he says, because it'll give you a sense of what's going on in the dark. He adds that he likes to write stories like this because they're so interesting. He asks if he can follow him around, and she says she'd like to do so, too. She also tells him that she's happy to have him on her side, because she'll never be able to leave New York