"You tell that greaseball if he don't give you ten tomorrow you'll start goin' to the supermarket instead. He gave you free lunch at least?"

"Yeah, I got a veal Parmigian to go."

"You tell him tomorrow, ten bucks or you go to Daitch."

"You really bringin' in a chaise longue?"

"Look." Tommy sighed and turned to Stony. "Lemme explain somethin' to you. Every one of those guys there are trained, experienced journeyman electricians. Me, Jimmy O'Day and Eddie are master electricians. We're the best there is in this whole goddamn field and Artie and everybody else knows it. O.K., we screw off a little, we screw off a little. We ain't foolin' anybody. You don't think Artie knows we play cards? You know why he don't bitch? You know why his boss don't bitch? 'Cause they know we're the best an' when we work, we work, an' they know they can count on us. We don't make mistakes that's gonna cost them a lotta time an' money. So, if we wanna jerk off an extra hour?" Tommy shrugged. "See, you may think those guys are clowns, and you may think those guys get too much money for what they do, but let me tell you somethin', no matter how those guys come off like gavons at lunchtime, they are professional, skilled electricians." Tommy winked at Stony. "This field's been good to me. There's never been nothin' you, your mother or your brother ever needed or wanted that I couldn't give like that." Tommy snapped his fingers. "You been eatin' meat every night a your life. You went to a private school, you got your own car."

"I paid for the car," Stony interrupted.

"Who pays the insurance? Look, all I'm tryin' to say to you, Stony, is that it's a good field, it's always done all right by me, it keeps me and my own from ever knowin' what hungry means. And it could do the same for you, Stony, it could do the same for you."

22

ON TUESDAY, Tommy got transferred downtown to another site for the day. After work he drove to Banion's.

"I heard the weirdest thing today." Tommy leaned over the bar talking to Banion. "I'm workin' down on Orchard Street today on that new public school, you know. I'm walkin' on Second Avenue goin' over to Katz's Deli for some lunch, an' I see this kid comin' towards me. Couldn't a been more'n seven, a Puerto Rican kid, really little. Anyways, he's walkin' by himself an' he got a slice a pizza in his hands. He comes up to me an' he's frownin, you know. He looks up and he says, 'This pizza taste like puh-sy,' just like that, an' he keeps walkin'."

Banion chuckled and shook his head.

"I swear I almost dropped dead laughin'. Hey, Chubby!"

Chubby sat down next to Tommy, nodding hello to Banion. "Tom, len' me twenny?"

"For what?" Tommy chewed on an ice cube and flicked his mustache with a pinky.