“I live within my paycheck,” he said. “I want to get up every day and get in the car and go to work and be a respected member of my community. And I am respected. I know I am. I’m not looking in the rear view mirror to see if anyone is tailing me anymore. I don’t turn on the blender when I’m at home so I can talk. That is not a part of my life. Sure, I’d love to have more money, but I am not willing to do anything but go to my job to get it.”

Except sell some of the secrets of his old life.

He agreed to be interviewed, but not photographed, by The New York Times, as he was for its earlier magazine cover, somewhere in middle America. He would not divulge much about his new identity.

His mission, he insisted, was not some late-life effort to stroke his ego, seek vindication or arrange redemption. He just wants to make a buck off his autobiography.

“Ego? That’s not what I need, not with gas at $3,” he said. “I need bank, and this is my only way to get it.”

The millions he made and squandered, he said, are gone.

“I miss it,” he said. “There was glamour, money, influence, attractive women. I didn’t have any financial concerns, and I do have them now. I’m concerned about being able to retire at some point comfortably. That’s my principal concern.”

He said he received no subsidy from the government for his cooperation. (His profits from the book might yet be diverted to his victims under the Son of Sam law in New York.)

Mr. Barnes is still on probation, which means he has to submit to a monthly urine test for drugs. He must regularly show his pay stubs to federal marshals and account for any expense over $500.