"Well, read the fuckin' label then."

"Sunkist orange ... drink. So big fuckin' deal. What's the goddamn difference? It taste orange, don't it?"

"Tommy, you know how they make orange drink? They take some boonie after he works all day at Nedick's and they make him take a bath. When he gets out they put the water into them little orange things an' they sell it to assholes like you."

"Hor'shit! It tastes better than that Tropicana garbage."

"Hey!" Vinny raised a finger as case in point. "Now, Tropicana, that's real orange juice. That's the best. If you don't like Tropicana then you don't like real orange juice."

"Bullshit, I don't like real orange juice! Who the fuck are you to tell me I don't like real orange juice!" Tommy turned to Stony sitting cross-legged, quietly eating. "You just gonna sit there an' let this fuckface insult your father?"

Everybody laughed. Stony wondered what the fuck he was doing sitting in the grass in the middle of a highway with a half a dozen grown men in T-shirts, earning a hundred grand a year among them. He shrugged, wiped a dab of egg salad from his mouth. "Hey, Vinny, don't tell my father he don't like real orange juice."

***

"So?" Tommy moved the car out onto the Henry Hudson Parkway.

"So what?" Stony rolled down the window.

"So how'd it go today? Roll up the window." Tommy flipped on the air conditioner. The car filled with a mildly musty smell.

"It was all right."

"You pissed about this morning?"

"Nah." Stony put his foot up against the glove compartment.

"You looked like you were gonna have a heart attack." Tommy laughed, slapping Stony's leg off the dash.

Stony sighed. "I'll tell you, it wasn't as bad as I thought."

"Good!" Tommy said with a slightly mocking tone.

"Hey, you know when they sent me out in the truck for beer? I was about a mile away from the building. I look up, I can see all you guys playin' cards on the deck. What would happen if Artie caught you?"

"Never happen," Tommy shook his head, "never happen."

"Why not?"

"Could you see Artie La Russo climbin' twenny-four flights a stairs? That guy hasn't made it to the deck of a buildin' in ten years."

"You guys, you send me out for breakfast, you wait until I get back, you eat, then you don't work for half an hour after."

"We gotta digest."

"You send me out for lunch, same thing, you send me out for beer, same thing. I can't figure out how anything gets done."

"The work gets done," Tommy answered calmly.

"I saw Jimmy O'Day got a chaise longue up there on the deck." Stony laughed.

"I'm gonna bring me one up there next week too." Tommy turned off the highway onto Mosholu Parkway. "Stony, how much kickback you get from the Greek's today?"

Stony dug into his pocket, took out some bills and change. "Six and a half."