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by increasing their prices. But Kelsey said to me that one reason why he believed that he was not the subject of shakedowns -- not that he ever would have paid -- was that I used to eat there regularly, and the cops were not going to fool around with a place where Ed Koch, district leader, a guy who has a reputation of being incorruptible, if I can say that immodestly, eats regularly. They were just going to stay away from that joint. At least that was Kelsey's feeling. Ultimately he sold the place, and he now lives out in Suffolk County in Sagaponik. But that's all I can tell you about corruption.

Oh, let me tell you this little story. Place called the Ninth Circle. Ninth Circle is run by a guy who was a very close friend of my former law partner, Allen Schwartz, and this guy who runs the Ninth Circle had a partner who owned Max's Kansas City. They had split off, and one of them owned Max's Kansas City: the other owned the Ninth Circle. I used to eat in the Ninth Circle years ago, too, because there again they had a very modest but very good steak dinner. They were losing money on their food to encourage their bar trade. Ultimately this guy who owns the Ninth Circle -- he's a big gambler and he spent thousands of dollars; with him gambling on the rare tracks is apparently a sickness -- his place started to go downhill, and I'm told he converted it to a gay bar, a gay joint. What he wanted to do was I think to build a dance