rick asked.

"Depends how long you look," Wilson said. Parker drove in, and Wilson
jumped from the fourth rung of his ladder. "Break time." They walked
over to Parker's aging blue Mercedes.

"How you doing, Patrick?"

"He's having a little trouble with the pace," Willy said sitting down,
placing his coffee on the grass.

"Up yours," said Patrick.

"But for what you're paying . . . "

"Jesus," Parker said. "What's got into you today?"

Wilson bounced like a monkey, scratching under both armpits. "Or, or.
Grick. Grick."

"This is what happens when he gets to bed early," Parker said to
Patrick. Mrs. Van Slyke returned.

"Parker?" He rose to his feet balancing his coffee, assumed a good
humored expression, and approached Mrs. Van Slyke.

"Her husband's a bad dude," Wilson said. "Nothing you couldn't handle."
His live eye gleamed. "He did a good painting of a boxer, once. They
got married."

"He married the boxer?"

"Smart ass." Wilson shook his head. "Then he slowed down--know what I
mean?" They considered Mrs. Van Slyke who had Parker more or less
pinned against the lilacs. "My woman gets in the way . . . " He
snorted. "I don't even have a studio, paint right in the living room."

"You a painter?"

"All the time, man. What do you do?"

"Read a lot--science. Trying to find out what's true about things."

"I'll tell you one truth," Wilson said. "It don't count until it's on
the wall." He leaped back on his ladder and attacked peeling paint,
banging his scraper on the siding to keep time. Sweat dripped into a
bandanna rolled and tied around his forehead. Patrick got to work.

At four-thirty, Wilson gave him a ride home. Patrick washed and walked
into town where he had a few beers and talked about the war with a guy
named Wendell, a guy named Joe , and Willow, the friend of Amber's. He
left early and slept well.

The week passed quickly. On Friday afternoon he cashed his first check
at the Bank of Orange and Ulster County and walked over to the
Depresso.

"Hey Patrick."

"Sam. Hot one." Sam worked for Parker on another job; he was part of
the morning gathering at the News Shop.

"How you getting along with Willy?"

"Good."

"Crazy bastard," Sam said. "He was in Korea; his father or grandfather
was a general or something."

"My father's in the Army."

"No shit. Yeah, well, Willy--his job was to go out and bring back North
Koreans for the intelligence guys. Told me they went out at night. Said