You think I'm gonna steal them or something?"

The guy smiled, briefly taking the phone from under his jaw. "They'll go in the new temple."

"Who gives a fuck," Little Dap said, tossing his pillowcase.

Tristan looked out at the rubberneckers on the roped-off sidewalk-sand niggers, flat-face Chinese, blancos, other kids-imagining that they were all there to stare at him, to see what his goatee was hiding, the lightening underneath, knowing it wasn't really true but not liking the idea anyhow, and so he put his eyes to the task he was getting paid for. A big $20.

When he looked up again, the rabbi or whatever was staring at him, a pained smile on his face.

"What?" Tristan flushed, then tracked the guy's eyes down to his own feet, seeing the Bible page he was standing on.

During the late-afternoon lull, Eric wandered behind the bar and made himself a light club soda and Hennessy. He wasn't a daytime drinker as a rule, but he'd been feeling amorphously anxious ever since they booted the Virgin. The boss hadn't even thanked him, not so much as a knowing nod, although it was probably more prudent for Steele to go all Don't Ask, Don't Tell on it if you were in his position.

Having watched the two new bartenders get through the lunch crush, Eric thought they'd both work out. Cleveland, the black one, was no artiste with a cocktail shaker, but was a warm conversationalist, far more important; and Ike, good enough with the drinks, had an easy laugh. Eric imagined that both would build up considerable followings within a month.

He was not amused at the stunt Ike had pulled. Not that he hadn't been thinking of doing the same thing, but the kid didn't even have the patience to look around and size up the pilgrims present to see if they'd wind up with a good ass-kicking before they could make it out the door. Fortunately there was just enough of a time delay before the Virgin evaporated, and they were almost out of earshot before the wailing started.

"Eric." Ike sidled up to him as he was putting back the cognac. "If you want, I'd be happy to make those for you."

"I'm good."

Despite three women coming in off a shopping spree to belly, up to the bar, Ike lingered by Eric's side, anxiously toddling from foot to foot. "Can I tell you something?" His voice dropped. "I'm not superstitious or anything, but that thing I pulled this morning? I have a real bad feeling it's going to come back and bite me in the ass."

Touched by the kid's unprotected candor, Eric was about to say something dry and reassuring, but the nitwit beat him to it, grinning and punching his shoulder: "I'm just fuckin' with you, brother," then going off to serve the ladies.

Tristan took the offered joint and dug his feet into the gravel on the roof of their building in the Lemlichs, the both of them gazing at mile-high One Police Plaza only a few blocks away. Not only was he blowing off curfew tonight, but he never picked up the hamsters from their various schools this afternoon: a first. There'd be hell to pay, but there was always some kind of hell to pay in that house, and he couldn't believe Little Dap was still hanging with him, so fuck it.

"We going to the Heights?" he murmured.

"First things first."

"What."

"What do you mean, what . . ." Little Dap cocking his head. "Gotta get that cheese, podner."

"Oh," Tristan said. "Shit."

In his preoccupation with the big journey to Washington Heights, he had forgotten that part of it.

"What." Little Dap sipped deep. "You never . . ."

"Yeah, no, not like . . ."

Little Dap shrugged. "Ain't nothing to it," passing him the joint.

Tristan in his embarrassment was unable to stop grinning.

"But I can't do it without my dolgier" Little Dap slow-poking him in the chest. 'You know what I'm saying?"

A bloodred moon slipped out from behind 1 PP.

"Why don't you just go to a couple corner boys," Tristan said, coughing out a cloud. "Say you collecting for Big Dap, we run uptown get the shit"-coughing again-"come back down here and turn it into something before he finds out, then just give him his money like normal."

It was the most words he had said all at one time in a year.

"Nah, unh-unh." Little Dap stretched his neck. "I tried that once, ran into some problems? That ain't a good idea. You don't ever get between Dap and his money. I mean, shit, you can send me to jail, I can handle that gladiator-school shit, in fact if truth be known, I could be like one of the instructors, but with Dap, he gets his hands on you when he goes off? Naw, unh-uh.

"And that's like the other, we got to be like deep cover on this, 'cause all them porkies from the Eighth? They always looking for a excuse to beat my brother's ass for that cop got shot, so they collar me, it's like, 'Oh, Little Dap, where's Big Dap?' Like he's my automatic mastermind on a caper, and so now they got another excuse to light him up from here to the river. But whatever they do to him? Comes back on me double."

Tristan dredged up a memory of Big Dap hauling off and slapping Little Dap in front of everybody on the street last year, the sound of it like a gunshot.

Then he thought of his ex-stepfather's eyes, the way they bulged when he was good and liquored, getting ready to knock one out of the park.

Tristan didn't want to go through with this anymore.