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the moment, blacks were sitting-in at the project where Floyd was supposed to be working, wanting some damn thing, so Floyd was at home again, on full pay, and he’d drifted over to Frank’s house for today’s opening.
    Frank was counting the day’s cash and Floyd was separating the “pay to bearer” stocks and bonds from those with names on them, when the kitchen door opened and Jerry came in, wearing his on-duty white coveralls and blue base-ball cap and looking annoyed.
    Something had to be wrong. Jerry was always at work this time of day, and he never wore his coveralls away from the job. Floyd said, “Hey, Jerry,” and Frank said, “What’s up?”
    â€œWe got a problem,” Jerry said. “With that goddam box.”
    â€œWhat’s wrong?”
    â€œI went to get the right box this morning,” Jerry said, “and it was already delivered. Gone from the airport.”
    Floyd said, “Then that’s that.”
    â€œNo, it isn’t.” Jerry took off his cap, wiped his forehead with it and put it back on. “I called that number,” he said. “The one the contact gave me last night. The answer was, they still want the box.”
    â€œThat’s tough,” Frank said. “Once it’s out of the airport, it’s their problem.”
    â€œThe way they talked,” Jerry said, “I think maybe it’s our problem.”
    â€œBut that isn’t right Jerry.”
    Slowly, thoughtfully, Jerry said, “I don’t think right and wrong is the question here, Frank.”
    â€œOh,” said Frank.
    â€œThe kind of people we deal with,” Jerry said, “I don’t think we want any unsatisfied customers.”
    Frank said, “So what do we do?”
    â€œI’ll have to take this other box to the city, to—what is it?” Picking up the box containing the four statues, Jerry read the stenciled address aloud: “Bud Beemiss Enterprises, 29 West 45th Street.”
    â€œSure,” said Frank. “You’ll make a switch.”
    Jerry held the box in both arms. “Kicks the hell out of the day,” he said.
    â€œDon’t worry about it.” Floyd told him. “We did terrific yesterday.”
    â€œOh, yeah? What was in that dental supply package?”
    â€œTeeth.”
    â€œOh. Well, you win a few, you lose a few. Hold the door for me, will you, Teresa?”
    BUT …
    The Goddess of Heaven Chinese restaurant, on Broadway near 97th Street, serves Cantonese and Szechuan dishes, and has a menu so large and so long and so intricate in its minute shadings of detail that one time when a Korean philosophy student taking his advanced degree at Columbia stopped by for lunch there, he fell into a cataleptic ecstasy among the varieties of spicy pork and had to be taken away to Bellevue. Coming to his senses in the waiting room of Emergency was such a seminal experience—particularly after the Goddess of Heaven menu—that he at once gave up philosophy and is today a brakeman on a San Francisco cable car.
    In addition to normal facilities for lunch and dinner, and in further addition to its elaborate take-out service, the Goddess of Heaven also provides private rooms for groups from twelve to two hundred. Your wedding reception, office shower, bar mitzvah, or revolutionary call to arms will be given the world-famous Goddess of Heaven treatment of courtesy, graciousness, and fine food: “Your Choice from Our Most Extensive Menu.”
    Today at twelve-thirty a group of sixteen had taken advantage of this opportunity and was in possession of the Mandarin Room, up a flight of coral-colored stairs from the regular dining rooms. The Mandarin Room, with one green wall, one orange wall, one purple wall, and one glass wall overlooking the traffic down on Broadway, was set up today with connected tables forming a U. The sixteen table settings—heavy plates richly decorated in