"Whatta you wanna do tonight?" Butler asked.

"I'm up for anything."

"Oh, hey listen, I got a job."

"What?"

"I'm gonna work in my uncle's hosiery store."

"What's he payin'?"

"A yard a week. How much you gettin'?"

"One forty less taxes. Where's his store at?"

"Up on two seventeenth. White Plains Road."

"That's schvug country, ain't it?"

"Half schvug, half guinea."

"When you start?"

"Tomorrow. I'm workin' behind the counter. I sell panties, bras and stockings. How much you wanna bet I get laid before August in there?"

"Who you gonna bang, some sixty-year-old black lady comin' in for corrective underwear?"

"No, man, they got some nice chicks around there. I went to junior high in that neighborhood."

"You think your uncle gets any?"

"Nah, see, it's a funny thing up there. Everybody's in a very heavy neighborhood head, what goes around comes around, you know what I mean? But I'll bet he gets a lotta offers."

"Ooh! Bite my Supp-hose!"

"Listen, another thing, my Uncle Frank's like sixty-two an' he wants to sell in a few years. If I dig it, an' I stick with it, I might be into buyin' the place, you know? I got ideas how to do a really nice number in there. Get in some better stock, expand and shit. 'Cause he don't know nothin', he's old, been there thirty years. I can really do it up nice."

"Yeah, except by the time you take over, that neighborhood'll be black as a coal miner's asshole at midnight."

"That's cool, listen, I'll throw in a line a wigs, hire some foxy soul sisters to run the place and get a heavy-duty alarm system. I'll just come by on Fridays to pick up the cash. Maybe I'll even hire a security guard. Shit, anybody even thinks a jumpin' bad he'll get eighty-sixed so fast he ain't gonna even know about it until it's in the papers."

Stony heard the apartment door open. "Listen, I gotta go."

"Shit, man, I'll show those cats what bad-ass means, fuck with the bull an' you get the horns!"

"Butler, call me later."

"Hello!" Tommy wandered through the house.

"Yo!" Stony shouted back. Tommy came into the bedroom.

"This lady gets raped so she calls the cops. The cops round up suspects and get 'em into a line-up, right? The lady's in the front row. As soon as they throw on the spotlights this big Polish guy in the middle of the line-up jumps out and points at her. 'There she is!"'

Stony thought about it for a second, then laughed.

"Hey, an' you hear about this college down south finally gave an athletic scholarship to a nigger? He's a javelin catcher."

"That's old." Stony smirked.

"Ain't as old as those people you workin' with."

"I got switched today ... I'm workin' with kids now."

"Whatta they doin', playin' musical chairs witcher time card?" Tommy picked at his mustache.

"No, man, that's what I wanted to do all along."

"So how's it goin'?"