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be party to their discussions about his welfare and future.
    Already their talk wasn’t going well, and when a jet screamed overhead and then faded away, the interruption was almost a relief; that Frank Lucas was on that jet, heading to the Far East, was a small irony Richie was not privy to.
    â€œI’m sorry, babe,” he said.
    Laurie gave him a sideways glare that told him he’d long since lost the right to call her that. She was only one of a dozen moms in the park today, but probably the best-looking, with her curly dark hair brushing hershoulders, and a peasant blouse and slacks indicating what was still a nice body.
    â€œYou could have told me sooner,” she said, watching their boy frolic with other kids, their laughter and screams tinged with the happy hysteria of childhood.
    â€œI’m sorry.” He sighed, shrugged. “I know. But it’s the big exam. It’s what all my work’s been leading up to.”
    â€œI don’t know, Richie.”
    â€œCan’t be avoided.” His hands were in his pockets and he was rocking on his heels; his eyes took routine stock of those other moms—one of whom rivaled Laurie at that, a hot young blonde. Got knocked up in high school maybe, and popped one out. “Next weekend I’m open. Be able to take Mike, no problem.”
    When he glanced back at his own wife, ex-wife, she was studying him the way a lab student eyes a slide with some squirmy thing on it, obviously aware he’d been sizing up the blonde competition.
    Maybe that was why something else was in Laurie’s expression, too: not disgust exactly, more . . . weariness.
    Somehow that was worse than disgust to Richie; anger, disgust, were strong responses, emotional responses. Now, after all the loving and hating and cooing and yelling it had come down to this: she was tired of his cheating ass.
    â€œLook . . . Rich.” She shrugged, sent her eyes toward their son. “The thing is, I’m . . . I’m moving.”
    His forehead frowned, his mouth smiled. “What do you mean, moving?”
    Her eyes came back to him, pointedly. “What do you think, moving? Pack your shit and get in the car and go, moving. Christ, Rich.”
    â€œWhere to?”
    She laughed bitterly. “To the St. Regis, maybe. What the hell do you care.”
    â€œI
care
.”
    â€œRight. My sister’s.”
    â€œYour sister’s. Your sister lives in Vegas.”
    Laurie grunted a tiny laugh. “Thanks for paying attention. I didn’t know my family even made it on your radar.”
    He was shaking his head now, grinning, astounded. “Vegas? You want to take our kid to
Vegas
?”
    The crunch and snap of breaking glass interrupted his words and his thoughts. He glanced over and a quartet of white kids were breaking pop bottles, hurling them onto the concrete path.
    Richie picked up the thread, and tried to keep his tone civil. “Come on, Laurie. Be reasonable. You can’t move to Vegas.”
    â€œSure I can.”
    â€œNot with
Michael
, anyway.”
    Her eyebrows arched as she turned to him again. “Oh, there’s another option? What else am I supposed to do with him? Leave him with you? There’s a picture. You could turn the closet into his bedroom, long as you keep your box of weed on the top shelf where he can’t get to it.”
    â€œThat’s not fair. . . .”
    More glass shattering seemed to mirror the state ofhis mind, and he yelled over to the smart asses, “
Hey!
You want to keep it down over there? Find a new hobby!”
    The teenagers looked at him, started laughing and went on smashing the bottles.
    Doing his best to ignore this shit, finding it hard to think much less reason with Laurie over the constant brittle background noise, Richie said evenly, “You know we have joint custody, Laurie. Court won’t allow you to drag him out of state like