"French, Italian, Spanish, German, Dutch, Portuguese and English. He met my mother in Cuba."

"Your mother Spanish?" The wire pulled taut on Stony's end and Malfie tied it off for him.

"From Havana, we lived there until Castro came in." For the first time Stony noticed a slight staccato clip in Malfie's speech. "Had maids an' everything. My father was head croupier in one a the biggest casinos down there. El Gato Negro." Malfie finished tying the wires, stepped back and extracted a pack of unfiltered Kools.from the chest pocket of his beige workshirt. Stony declined the offered pack, taking out one of his own Marlboros. Malfie held out a red see-through butane lighter under Stony's cigarette. None of the brickwork had yet been started on the exterior walls, even though the small octagonal concrete foundations for the terraces jutted out over the edge of the building. They stood twenty stories high between two layers of concrete overlooking the Hudson. The vast floor was a maze of chalk lines and markings noting the outlines of walls and apartment partitions yet to be installed. Every thirty feet or so sat a bathtub and a toilet bowl—which wouldn't fit through the narrow doorways once the walls were built. It was a gray day and the somber light lent the place the mood of a deserted underground garage. Augie ambled over to one of the protruding borderless terraces, stood spread-legged, whipped out his dick and pissed into the Hudson.

Malfie sneered. "Animal."

Stony looked over the field of toilets and shrugged.

"My father knew Batista." Malfie spat neatly. "We had everything, man. I even had my own fuckin' horse, until that scumbag with the beard came in." He picked his front teeth.

Stony leaned against the ladder enjoying his smoke.

"You know, my father was French." Malfie delicately scratched a raised eyebrow. "So I got French blood. That's why I'm light and that's why I'm tall." Then he added almost as an afterthought, "It's good to be tall, because in a fight you can't get to my face. Look, I don't give a flying fuck what a guy does or says to me but nobody touches my face. He makes one move to hit my face, I'll kill him. The only time I hit Lucy was once she went to slap me. I don't take that from nobody, even her. The only person I let hit me like that was my mother, and she only did it once." Malfie spoke calmly and earnestly. Stony made a mental note never to bash in Malfie's face.

"I hit your face and take the back a your head off." Augie walked over to the ladder, rested a boot on the second rung, his elbow on his knee. He looked like Fred Flintstone—big, lumpy and hairy.

"Then I come after you with a gun." Malfie didn't blink. Augie laughed, winking at Stony. "I ain't kiddin'. I'll blow you apart." Malfie's voice kept rising. He took a step toward Augie.