The place wasn’t exactly a mess. Certainly it had been much worse. A couple of pillows out of place, some dishes on the drain.

On the way to the door she dropped the pizza delivery box into the garbage, then kicked the coffee mug and the box of Ritz and the empty Coke cans under the couch.

“Hey,” Alphonse said, sauntering in past her. “What’s happenin’?” He wore a red tank top under unbuttoned Army fatigues. His face seemed to shine in the room’s light.

“How’d you know where I lived?”

He smiled, looking his real age for a minute. “I looked it up, man.”

He bopped over to the window and looked out. His body became very still, hands at his side. He stared without a word at the Bay and Alcatraz beyond, as though something was on his mind. Well, she could give him time.

She didn’t know him very well yet. This was kind of how he’d been on Friday, though at work he had always seemed more energetic, jumpy almost. Especially that last week when they’d done the toot-then he’d really been fun, laughing and cutting up. He could do Eddie Murphy better than anybody.

He turned around, motioned with his head. “Righteous,” he said, “the view.”

He seemed to notice her for the first time. His eyes rested for a second on her breasts, traveled down her body.

“I’m glad you came by. I wasn’t doing anything.” She made what she thought was a cute shrugging gesture. “You want a beer or something, help yourself in the fridge. I’m not done making up yet.”

She went back into the bathroom, heard the refrigerator door open. A second later he was leaning against the doorway, looking at her in the mirror as she brushed on some powder.

“Hey,”-she made it sound light-“I’ll be out in a minute, okay?”

He just stayed there, sipping at his beer. “Come on, Alphonse, you’re making me nervous.”

He shrugged. “Nothing to be nervous about. It’s just me.” He put the beer down on the back of the toilet, just reaching over casually. She felt his hand on her waist, then move down across her backside. “What are you doing?”

Moving a step sideways, away from his hand, but turning around toward him, giggling. “Come on, give me a minute.”

“I don’t got a minute,” he said. His eyes weren’t laughing. She caught a look at them in the mirror, then turned completely to face him. “What’s the…? Hey,” she said.

“Tha’s right.”

He still wasn’t smiling. His penis was jutting out from the front of his fatigues, his eyes locked onto her face.

“Alphonse.”

He held it in his right hand and pulled her toward him with the other. “You want some of this.”

It wasn’t a question. He took her hand and put it on him.

It was going pretty fast. Now his other hand went behind her neck, and she was kissing him, still gripping him hard as though holding for her life on a thick piece of wood. It felt hard as wood.

She pushed him back. He wasn’t fighting her anymore-they were in it together. She let go of him for a minute and undid her jeans, pulling them half down, getting herself up on the counter-top.

“God, Alphonse.” Throwing her arms around his neck.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah.”

“I got this situation.”

They sat at the glass-topped kitchen table, each drinking some Mickey’s Big Mouth from the six-pack that Alphonse had gone down and bought on the corner about a half hour earlier. He was finally getting around to what he’d come for. Or getting around to something else he’d come for.

They weren’t exactly doing lines as a thing, where they’d just keep going through the day and into the night, but they’d had a few toots from the small pile of blow on the tabletop. Alphonse was wearing his red tank top and his camouflage pants. Linda had some hip-cut bikini briefs that, with the T-shirt hanging a little low, made it look like she was wearing nothing when you looked from the side.

Say what you want about the face, Alphonse thought, the girl has got legs that go all the way up. But that part was over for the time being, and he had some business to conduct.

She looked at him with a cocked head, loose now and feeling pretty good. “Talk to me.”

“It’s like this,” he began, and ran down to her the scam he’d developed on the way over, borrowing heavily from his experiences in the past two weeks. He had this situation-he liked that word, the mysterious authority behind it-where he knew two guys. One of them had formed the impression that he, Alphonse, was a dealer. Another dude he knew was, in fact, a dealer. Anyway, the first guy had a couple of grand to lay out for some good blow, but his source had dried up, where the second guy had a good stash and was always looking for buyers.

“So, I figger, put ’em together and what’s for Alphonse?” He sucked on his index finger and picked up some powder, running it around his gums. Then a little wash with Mickey’s. “Get me?”

Linda nodded solemnly.

“But”-Alphonse smiled a big smile-“I lay my hands on some green, I buy the stash, cut it, sell it, keep a pile for you and me to party a bit, and”-he held up his still-damp index finger- “and have some pocket money left over, maybe do the whole thing again.”

“It’s hard to get money,” Linda said.

“Getting started, that’s always the thing.” He sipped at the beer again, taking his time, then reached a hand across the table and patted her face. “You a bad woman,” he said gently. He ran his finger over the table again, pressing into the pile of coke to get a lot on it, and put it at Linda’s lips. She opened her mouth and he put the finger down under her tongue and left it there a second.

“Umm,” she said.

“Bad.”

She held his hand there, his finger in her mouth, with both of her hands. They stared at each other. When all the cocaine was surely long off the finger, she took it out, and giggled. “Wow,” she said. She looked down at the last of the pile. “Getting low.”

“Thing is,” Alphonse said, “if we could just score a loan.”

“They don’t loan for that.”

“But think. Maybe two hours the whole thing takes. That’s all we need is some bread for two hours.” Alphonse sipped beer again, then brought the bottle down in mid-drink. “Hey!” As though he’d just thought of it. “Your old man.”

Linda shook her head. “He’s not into stuff like that.” With the rush and all, feeling pretty good, it was hard for Alphonse not to laugh. “Maybe he wouldn’t have to know. He could front it and never know it.”

“Like think it was something else?”

“Maybe you ask him for a down on a car, like that?”

“Six months ago, maybe. Not now.”

Alphonse looked down, disappointed. Now play this one cool, man, here is the punch line. “You think he got anything at the office?”

“The office?”

“Yeah, you know, petty cash, like that.” Linda shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. Sometimes, but…”

“Worth lookin’?”

“I don’t know. It’s…”

“Hey, it’s gone two hours, if it’s there. Who’ll know?”

“Like where, though?”

“He got a safe or something, or what?”

“Yeah, sure, in the back behind his desk.”

“We check it out, what do we lose?”

“What if he’s there?”

Alphonse looked at her. “He been there all week?” He reached over and touched her face again, like a reminder. He tapped her cheek. “We look, huh? Nothing there, no big deal.”

“We’d have it back…”

“Hey, like tonight even. He’d never even know.”

Linda, still unsure. “He just wouldn’t have that much in the safe.”

“Hey, but if he does…”

“Why would he, the way the business is going?”

“Shit, girl, I don’t know. Maybe he’s saving to buy his cute piece o’ honey something-don’t want her to find out.”

Linda stopped arguing, looked down at the table, ran her own finger through the last of the pile and rubbed it in against her gums. “You’re right,” she said, her voice suddenly gone husky, “it can’t hurt to check, can it?”