"You know, it's funny. I didn't get scared standin' there with that knife, until I saw you was scared. You started unpackin' right away, remember?"

"Do I remember! I didn't leave the fuckin' bedroom for a week, you sick fuck!"

"Pop was a fuckin' bastard with us though. Hey, you remember that whistle a his? Any time I was playin' in the street an' I heard that whistle, my heart would jump into my mouth. No matter what I was doin' I would stop everything and run upstairs, an' half the time he was callin' me to whip my ass for somethin' or other. Din't make no difference cause I knew if he had to whistle again I would just get beat worse. Till the day I die I won't ever forget that whistle." Tommy put his thumb and middle finger on his tongue and let loose with three shrill blasts—the first two short, followed by a long, higher-pitched third.

Chubby winced at the memory. "You know, Tom, about six years ago I heard a guy on a job give Pop's whistle. I almost shit on myself."

"We were like trained dogs. One time I was fingerin' Sally Rudnick in the hallway. Pop whistles, I almost ripped out her box."

"Yeah, but he had his moments though. I mean, he wasn't the greatest, but he did what he had to. We never starved, he always had a roof over our heads an' we always had a little coin in our pockets. He useta say alia time a man's only worth what he got in his wallet. An' he shoulda known too. I remember one year in the thirties he was holdin' down three jobs. He would come home at five from the construction site, eat dinner an' go down to the Times plant on Forty-sixth Street and load papers on the trucks until midnight an' on the weekends he was the bouncer at Gianelli's. You remember Gianelli's?"

"Pop was a bouncer?"

"Yeah. You was really little at that time. He did it for about six months until one Saturday night when he eighty-sixed some punk. The guy came back with some friends after closing an' they bushwhacked him outside the club, broke his fuckin' arm. Old man Gianelli fired him on the spot. What good's a bouncer with a busted arm? An' they din't have compensation in those days either."

"I never knew that."

"It's the truth. An' it took six months for that arm to heal because he wouldn't take time out to rest. He was probably the only guy doin' construction an' loadin' trucks in New York City with his arm in a sling."

"Hard-nose bastard."

"Give 'im his due, Tom."

5

MONDAY MORNING Marie and Phyllis did their weekly shopping together. After unpacking the groceries, Phyllis walked to Marie's to shoot the shit.

Marie foraged in the refrigerator for the Half & Half. "I went to Schindler Friday."

"For Albert?" Phyllis sat at the kitchen table, two cups of steaming black coffee and a box of marble cake in front of her.