"Miss." Marie caught the waitress' eye with a fluttering hand. "Miss, what was one sixty-four?"

The girl blinked vacantly. "Hamburger."

"Hamburger's a dollar-fifty." Marie pointed to the cardboard hamburger poster hanging over the coffee machine.

"Tax." The girl fidgeted.

"Then you should have a dollar sixty-four up there. What if I only came in here with a dollar-fifty?"

The girl looked away. "I'm very busy, ma'am, you want to talk to the manager?"

"Forget it." Marie dismissed her, turning to Phyllis. "Snotty bitch, I'm not comin' in here anymore."

"You know, we had sex five times since Wednesday?" Phyllis whispered.

"You braggin' or complainin'?" Marie dug into her purse.

"Something feels really weird about it. After we're finished, he keeps askin' me if I came, if I came, if I came. He's always askin' me if I love him."

Marie looked up but didn't say anything.

24

STONY WAS in a good mood. Wednesday. Two days to go. Monday, back to Cresthaven.

"You know, you got a really good voice." Stony smiled curiously at Malfie, who was busy feeding cable into the mouth of a pipe. Malfie made like he didn't hear Stony and kept singing in a high, yet throaty tremolo.

Stony bent down and continued pulling cable from a similar pipe. Malfie was the best-looking guy Stony had ever seen. He had a tight and smooth profile that seemed almost manicured with high cheekbones, a small, slightly upturned nose, thin, perfectly defined lips and glittering blue eyes. He combed his dirty blond hair high and straight back. When he was finished feeding cable he stood up. Tall and thin. A real killer.

"You ever hear a the Convoys?" he asked Stony. Stony stopped working and turned to Malfie.

"Yeah, they did what...'Rock 'n' Roll Serenade.'"

Malfie nodded slightly. "Yeah, I used to sing with them."

Stony stopped working. "You shittin' me?"

Malfie casually threw out a couple of powerful ooh-wahs that echoed throughout the cavernous level where he, Stony and about ten other electricians were circuiting wire through a field of pipes.

"Goddamn! Whatta you doin' here?"

"I quit two years ago." He moved to another pipe five feet away, knelt down and started shoving the braided multicolored strands down its mouth. "It's comin' out up there." Malfie tilted his head at a short pipe protruding from the poured concrete ceiling. The head of the cable peeked out where Malfie indicated, and he waited for Stony to climb a stepladder and pull out the wires before he continued feeding his end of the pipe.

"Wha'd you quit for?" Stony grunted. The wires were snagged somewhere in the invisible network of conduit. He teased and tugged the cable until it came loose.

"Lucy," Malfie sang something in husky Spanish.

"You know Spanish?"

"Si, por supuesto."

"You're fuckin' amazin'." Stony stopped for a second to adjust his work gloves, flexing his fingers for a tighter fit.

"My father knew seven tongues." Kneeling, Malfie bounced Tightly on the balls of his feet to keep his circulation going. He tied the end of the cable with a few deft movements.