I would like to thank Mrs. Kathleen Roche of the Hagstrom Map Company, Inc., for supplying me with a vintage N.Y.C. 5-Boro Atlas. The Hagstrom 5-Boro has been the cab driver’s bible for as long as anyone can remember. I also have to thank my researcher, Judy Appello. Someday, back issues of publications like the Daily News, Billboard, Variety, and Vogue will be nicely stored in computers attached to laser printers. But, for now, access means hours of peering at microfilm that looks like it was printed in the nineteenth century and lost rolls of dimes poured into copiers that don’t (or won’t) work.

This is a work of fiction. Despite the well-documented (by the Knapp Commission) existence of the pad. Example: The pad was almost exclusively controlled by the patrol division of the NYPD. When it came to corruption, detectives, like Sal Patero, were strictly on their own. A word to the wiseguy.