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Dolores crosses her thin arms. “What do
you
want?”
    It is no invitation, but Earl begins to shamble across the tiny distance between the door and the bed anyway.
    â€œThas jus’ what I was gonna ask yo’ friend here,” he drawls, the words soaked in liquor and a sluggish southernness. Earl pokes the cigar at Tristan and then parks it in his mouth while he retrieves a handkerchief from his back pocket and sops the moisture from his brow. “Little late to be collectin’ the rent, ain’t it?”
    Earl is smiling as he says it, so Tristan smiles back. “The rent?”
    â€œThas what you’re here for, ain’t it? A nigger’s money?” He turns to Dolores. “They like to wipe they ass with it. Own every damn building in Harlem and don’t never repair shit. Just come around on payday. Tell her, Hymie.”
    Tristan’s hands clench and flex by his sides. Only the persistence of Earl’s smile keeps them there.
    â€œI think you’ve got the wrong man. My name’s not Hymie, and I don’t own a thing, pal.”
    â€œYeah, sure.” Earl splays a hand over his belly, rubs a small circle. “My mistake. Must be yo’ daddy, owns this place. And I guess Charles fell behind on his payments, so your pa send you over to have a little fun with my niece here.”
    He grabs at her elbow, but Dolores pulls away. “You’re drunk, Earl. And I’m not your niece. Go downstairs. I’ll bring you a coffee.”
    Instead, Earl steps closer: right in front of Tristan, nose-to-nose—a distance that, in the Bronx anyway, in every schoolyard and on every street corner Tristan has ever known, implies the imminent failure of diplomacy. Tristan’s stomach tightens and a lone drop of sweat eases its way down the curve of his armpit. Earl’s face is still plastered with that fool’s grin, but his eyes have changed. Or perhaps Tristan has failed to notice, until now, that there is something sharp and probing underneath the glassiness.
    â€œYou like colored poontang, huh?” He leans forward even farther, halving the space between them. The
p
pops, spraying Tristan with moisture. “You sheenies chase the dark meat every time.” Earl eye-checks Dolores, then rises to his tiptoes and hisses in Tristan’s ear. “Think on what your daddy’d do, he caught me with his daughter. Cuz thas exactly what’s gon’ happen to you.”
    What? Tristan thinks deliriously. My father would shake your hand, then go into his room and slam the door and scream at his wife about
schwartzes
and how she raised the kids wrong, until he keeled over on his face with a heart seizure.
    â€œMy father,” he says in a low voice, filled with pride and shame, “wouldn’t do a thing.”
    Earl throws back his head and cackles. Two flecks of gin spittle jump out of the fat man’s maw and land on Tristan’s lip, and the pride of the Jews thinks, Enough. Taunting he can handle, but to be cat-and-moused, fucked with for sport, is something else again.
    â€œYour father—” Earl starts up, and when his hot breath hits Tristan, Tristan hits back: lifts both palms to Earl’s chest and shoves, hard. The fat man careens backward, unprepared, and stumbles against the vanity tray table, flipping it end over end. Lipsticks and compacts sail through the air.
    â€œMotherfucker!” He throws his saliva-soaked cigar to the ground and charges forward, right hand already cocked by his ear—a ridiculous posture, and a clear indication that Earl has not fought in years. He might as well send over a telegram detailing his plan of attack.
    The fat man’s arm uncoils with surprising speed, obvious power, but getting clear of the blow’s trajectory requires only the simplest of sidesteps, and before Earl can regain his balance, Tristan’s own fist is in motion and then a painful sting is surging through