It was near midnight, and Richard Price was stranded, notebook in hand, in the lobby of a bleak housing project with a surly crowd massing outside. Price had followed a cop who was chasing a drug dealer into the building, only to have them vanish up one of three stairways before he could see where they went. When an elderly woman appeared, Price desperately bluffed being a cop and demanded, "Where'd my partner go?" She could only stammer and stare. Finally the real officer returned, winded and empty-handed, and escorted the shaken writer safely through the crowd.
That was just one...