Mrs. Pitt followed his gaze. "That's my son's family, they live in Hawaii."

"Oh yeah?"

"He's a sergeant in the air force at Pearl Harbor."

"Pearl Harbor? Far out," he said, still scratching his jaw.

She picked up the cube and rotated it, revealing a photo of a six-month-old infant wrapped in a blue blanket. "That's the newest addition, Tracey."

"Wild." Stony tried to appear impressed.

"Tell me about your brother." She tossed the cube on her desk.

"Albert?" Stony straightened up in his chair. "He's all right. I mean, there's nothin' wrong with him except that anorexic thing. He's really skinny. He's pretty nervous too. I just sort of look out for him, you know? See, my mother ... she's not exactly what you would call a portrait a mental health. I mean, she yells a lot and I don't know how to put it exactly. It's like there's two kinds of people in the world. Her and the enemy, right? An' she takes it out a lot on Albert. I just try to cover for him from time to time. Hey, look, she's my mother, right? An' I love her as such, you know?" Stony leaned forward, lightly touching his fingertips. "But just between you, me 'n' the apple tree, she's a stone whacko sometimes."

Mrs. Pitt leaned her cheek on her hand, still smiling. "Do you like kids?"

"Hell, yeah!" Stony sat back. "I dig 'em a lot, more'n I dig adults."

Mrs. Pitt laughed briefly.

"I mean, no offense." Stony felt like he had just tripped on his dick. "I dig adults too."

"O.K." She brushed his apology aside, righted the photo cube so that Tracey was visible. "It's twelve now, why don't you take the afternoon off. What's tomorrow, Wednesday? Come in at eight and we'll see what we can do for you."

"Fantastic." Stony stood up. "Lissen, after geriatrics you can throw me in a dress an' call me a candy striper. I'd get into it."

"I don't think we'll have to do that." Her chair, on casters, squealed as she pushed away from her desk.

Stony hesitated at the stairway, debated whether to pop up to six one last time to tell Reynard that he had swung the switch. Fuck him. He was a full-time chump if Stony ever saw one.

14

IN THE DAY ROOM on the children's ward at Cresthaven, early morning sunlight filtered through soiled beige curtains in a crossfire from three huge windows. The white linoleum floor was littered with the remains of Lincoln logs, Tinkertoys, playing cards, assorted multicolored balls, crayons and scraps of brightly colored construction paper. The pale green walls were decorated with drawings of houses, stick people, boats and animals done in crayon on manila paper. Against the only windowless wall forty metal folding chairs leaned against each other like a collapsing chorus line. Four high-wattage unshaded overhead bulbs were always on so that despite the clutter the room had a merciless and barren air.