"Hey, you know what kinda land taxes this guy must pay?" Chubby said.

"When you got a place like this you don' fucking care about no land taxes."

"Bullshit. These guys are all prob'ly up to their asses in mortgages." Chubby flicked his cigarette out the window.

Tommy started driving again.

"I dunno." Chubby squinted. "I like Co-op City, no hassles, no utilities, you got a Chinese restaurant right there, air conditioning in every room, you can take yogi classes in the community center, no niggers."

"You got plenty a niggers."

"Yeah, but they're the ones that moved outta the old neighborhood because of the niggers movin' in, they're almost like us."

Tommy turned onto the Parkway going to the Bronx. "You know, I bet Stony's gonna have a house like that one back there," he said, flooring the accelerator on the deserted, unlit Parkway. "If he comes in the local in July, you know? He puts in his four years apprenticing he'll be... lessee twenty-two when he turns journeyman, right? Four years from now journeyman's base'll be up to ten an hour I'll figure... so that's like maybe... with time-and-a-half after twenty-five hours... it'll come to... I dunno, fuck, let's say twenty grand a year, O.K.? I give him two years he'll be straw boss 'cause he is one smart bastard that kid. So I figure at twenty-four, he'll, say twenty-five, he'll be makin' twenty-five grand. Another five years he'll be a goddamn foreman pullin' down forty a year like Artie Di Falco. So figure when he's thirty I come an' visit my son in fuckin' Scarsdale, New York."

"I thought he was gonna college?"

"Nah. He got into this dipshit school in Louisiana. Cracker State or somethin'. He'll go into the union. He don't need college. What'll he do? He'll fuck aroun' down there four years, then get a job jerkin' off a pencil for eight grand?" Tommy turned on his brights. "He's too smart to go to college. He knows where the action is."

2

9:30 FRIDAY NIGHT, Stony stood bathed in the soft red light of D'Artagnan's, leaning against the bar. The walls were white stucco with crosshatched beams of dark wood. Over his head was a black-light poster of a voluptuous nude chick with an enormous Afro standing spread-legged in a jungle clearing. Her eyes, nipples, the lush vegetation around her and the legend "Lilith" gave off a sinister phosphorescent gleam.

Stony was waiting. Every once in a while he glanced at the tables to his right. Three guys sat there checking out the scene. One of them, Mott, kept staring at Stony. When Stony looked over that way, he would lock eyes with Mott for a second, then they would both feign disinterest and look away. Stony kept clenching and unclenching his fists. His gut was rippling. He was chain-smoking and chugging seventy-sevens. The slick mixed crowd of whites, blacks and PRs shook the floor to Al Green's "Love and Happiness." Stony heard the music as if it was three rooms down. At the end of the song, Butler staggered off the floor, his silky flowered shirt sopping wet. He stood beside Stony, wiping away a bead of sweat from the tip of his nose. "Mother- fuck!" He gasped and collapsed hunched over the bar. "If that bitch can hump half as good as she can bump..." Stony ignored him, staring grimly at Mott. Butler looked at him. "You hear what I say?"