He didn’t need a gun and pulled the pistol only twice: once, he marched a troublemaker off a city bus; once, alone in the subway at three a.m. and confronted by four young men, he took it out and fired a shot into the black of the tunnel. They turned on their heels and ran. Not that they attacked him, but he sensed they were going to, although for all he knew they were a barbershop quartet—in which case he was right in scaring them off.
