Free Lucky Bastard by S G Browne Page A

cold-calling, ideally you want someone who not only has some financial security but who also looks like they went to college.
    Right now, all I see are renters and bag ladies and a bunch of people who look like they took remedial classes.
    I walk past a rack of newspaper vending machines for USA Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, and SF Weekly and stop when I see a blurb on the front page of the Chronicle about the Giants game last night. That’s when I remember the article I read this morning about James Saltzman.
    I finish off the rest of my apple fritter and mocha, then I take out my smartphone and open my white-pages app and type in the last name Saltzman in San Francisco. The list comes up and I scroll down. There’s a Barry Saltzman who lives on Jersey Street, a Charles Saltzman on Sixteenth, a Gloria Saltzman on Twenty-Second, and a James and Sheila Saltzman at 1331 Greenwich.
    Bingo.
    I touch the screen above his address and Google Maps comes up. A few seconds later I’ve got the location of James Saltzman’s home, located at the corner of Polk and Greenwich, right down the street.
    I love modern technology.
    Ten years ago, I would have had to find a phone book and some store or business that could look up the address for me. Or gone into a Kinko’s and rented one of their computers. But now I have all of the tools a modern luck poacher needs right at my fingertips.
    1331 Greenwich Street is less than eight blocks away, which prevents me from having to grab a cab or jump on the bus, but it gives me enough time to formulate a plan of attack. With my T-shirt and jeans and Chuck Taylors,I don’t exactly have that running-for-political-office look or that dressed-for-success appearance that puts most people at ease. For some reason, your average person tends to respect someone wearing a coat and a tie more than someone who’s dressed like the drummer of a garage band, even if you’re not interviewing for a job. Though in effect, when you’re poaching luck, that’s exactly what you’re doing.
    I could go home to clean up and change into something more respectable, but with the way my day’s been going, I’ll get kidnapped and drugged yet again before I can get there, so I decide to play this one as the friendly neighbor and hope that James Saltzman doesn’t know all of his.
    Except that he caught the final home runs of two of baseball’s most prolific sluggers, I don’t know anything about James Saltzman. His age. His politics. His favorite sports team. If he has kids. What he does for a living. Who his friends are. Where he likes to eat. How often he hits the strip clubs in North Beach.
    I would normally research those details before approaching a mark, especially at home. You never know when some bit of information can make the difference between a successful poaching and an aborted one. But this is kind of an emergency. And in an emergency, I tend to let things flow. Though my father used to tell me I wouldn’t know an emergency from a hangnail.
    When I reach Greenwich, I walk down the street to scope out the address, then I walk back up the otherside before I take several deep breaths to find my center. Poaching luck requires focus and concentration. It’s almost a spiritual process. Minus that I’m stealing from someone.
    I admit I feel bad sometimes about what I’m doing, about the impact I’m having on the lives of the people I poach from, but when you have this kind of power it’s difficult to keep from wielding it. The lifestyle has a way of sucking you in and before you know it, you’re just another societal leech freeloading off the good fortunes of others.
    Which is another reason why poachers end up committing suicide. And why I’ve always tried to avoid too much self-reflection.
    Once I’m settled, I walk up the steps and knock on the front door.
    No one answers, so I ring the doorbell. Still nothing. I knock once more, hoping James Saltzman is home on a Tuesday morning in August and