This wasn't really such a tragedy, Joseph tried to convince himself. After all, she'd had a good life, had lived to be thirteen—old for a dachshund. Still, as he hailed a cab outside Dr. Wincote's office, a sensation of hollowness rose up in his stomach. His breathing got choppy. Safe inside the taxi, he had to loosen his tie. "Central Park West and Sixty-third," he told the driver, who made an efficient U-turn, scissoring his way through the clotted midday traffic. He was an older fellow—that is, older than Joseph—and his name was Manny Litwak. "Pretty rare you get a cabbie these days who speaks English," Joseph said. "Most of the guys out there, they're immigrants," the cabbie answered. "Puerto Ricans, Russians." "Yeah, the other day, I had an Oriental? I said to him, 'I need to go to White Street.' 'What street?' he kept asking me. 'White Street.' 'What street?' I tell you, it was like an Abbott and Costello routine." They turned onto Broadway. "White Street's down in Tribeca," Joseph added.
