“You what?” Billy stared at him.

“Read the end of the letter.”

Billy turned the paper over. His eyes flew down the page to the last paragraph:

… Maybe we could get together some time. I think we’d have fun. If you send me $10, I’ll send you some intimate pictures of me and my sister, along with our address. I sure hope I hear from you soon. I’d love you to come and visit me.

Billy shook his head, looking up from the letter. “What a dick. Can’t you tell it’s just a rip-off to get your money?” He pointed toward the Xeroxed photo. “They probably cut this out of a magazine.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. Besides, look at where that P.O. box is. New York. Even if she does send you her real address, what are you going to do? Go to New York?” He handed Lane the letter. “You didn’t send ten dollars, did you?”

Lane nodded. “Yeah,” he admitted.

“That was dumb.” He looked at his friend curiously. “Where’d you get the money anyway?”

Lane glanced away. “My old man.”

“You stole it?” Billy was shocked.

“What am I gonna do? Tell him I want ten dollars to send to Tama Barnes so I can get her pictures and address?”

“You shouldn’t’ve stole it.”

“Fuck you. My old man has plenty of money. He didn’t even notice it was gone.”

Billy looked down at the open magazine on his lap, saying nothing. He and Lane often fought, often argued, often insulted each other, but there had been something else in his friend’s voice just now, a hardness, a belligerence, a seriousness that said this was not a subject for argument, at least not for their usual temporary playful form of argument.

They were silent for a while, the only sound in The Fort the quiet whisk of turning pages.

“You’re probably right,” Lane said finally. “I probably won’t get anything. I probably won’t even get my pictures. But who can tell?”

“Yeah,” Billy said.

“I bet she has a nice beaver, though.”

Lane’s voice was normal again, but underneath the superficialities something had changed, something that could not change back, and Billy somehow knew that this mundane moment was a turning point in their relationship. He and Lane might never again be as close as they had been, or even as close as they were now. It was a sad realization, a depressing discovery, and though Lane soon tired of looking at the Playboys and wanted to ride down to the dig and see what was happening there, Billy convinced him to stay in The Fort, as if by remaining within its boundaries they could stop the change from occurring and freeze everything exactly as it was now.