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Robin tell him how Mark and his mom didn’t get along, Mark being a little smartypants. How Woody was her favorite, her little prince, nursed him till he was about sixteen and they started drinking together. Skip grinned at that. Heard how the dad was gone by then, divorced, kicked out without a dime, the money being on Mom’s side of the family. Her old man had invented hubcaps or some goddamn thing for the car business and made a fortune. Then when Mom finally drank herself under and they had the reading of the will, guess what?
    Skip opened his eyes. “Mom’s favorite made out.”
    “Woody scored something like fifty million,” Robin said, “plus the house.”
    “And Mark got cut out for acting smart,” Skip said, “picking on his brother.”
    “Well, not entirely. Mark got two million and blew it trying to put on outdoor rock concerts in Pontiac. Usually in the rain. He bought a theater and now he does plays and musicals. I think with Woody backing him,” Robin said. “It’s a second-rate operation, but it’s show biz. You know what I mean? Mark’s a celebrity. People magazine did a feature on him. ‘Yippie turns Yuppie. Sixties radical cleans up his act and goes legit in regional theater.’ I couldn’t believe it. They mention Eldridge Cleaver, what he’s doing now, Jerry Rubin, Rennie Davis, like Mark was in the same league with those guys.”
    “You’re pissed off,” Skip said, “ ’cause you never got your picture in the paper. Or in the post office.”
    Wrong thing to say. Her eyes flashed at him.
    “Sixties radical my ass. Mark was nothing but a media freak. He played to the TV cameras.”
    Skip said, being gentle with her now, “Sweetheart, that whole show back then was a put-on. You gonna tell me we were trying to change the world? We were kicking ass and having fun. All that screaming about Vietnam and burning draft cards? That was a little bitty part of it. Getting stoned and laid was the trip. Where’s everybody now? We’ve come clear around to the other side, joined the establishment.”
    “Some have,” Robin said.
    Look at her telling him that with a straight face. Skip stared at the red names shimmering there on the wall, flashing at him.
MARK

WOODY
    “Mellow me down with the acid,” Skip said, “paint the names on big so they’ll burn into my brain. You been taking me back to those days of rage and revolution, huh? I’m into a goof, but I can hear and think. What I don’t see are Mark and Woody snitching on us. They weren’t into anything heavier than a peace march. What’d they know about our business? Nothing.”
    Robin said, “They knew I was meeting you in L.A. Mark did. I saw him just before I left.”
    “Well, that doesn’t mean he told where to find us.”
    “Skip, I have a feeling, okay? I know he did.”
    Man, she did not like to be argued with. Never did. It tightened up her face, put a killer look in her eyes.
    “Okay, they informed on us and now they’re sitting on fifty million bucks. You look around this dump you’re living in and you feel they owe you something. Am I telling it right?”
    “ We feel they owe us something,” Robin said.
    “Fine. How much?”
    “Pick a number,” Robin said. “How about seven hundred thousand? Ten grand for every month we spent locked up. Three fifty apiece.”
    “I was in longer than you.”
    “A few months. I’m trying to keep it simple.”
    “Okay, how do we go about getting it?”
    “I ask for it as a loan.”
    “Seven hundred big ones. I can imagine what they’ll tell you.”
    “Maybe the first time I call.”
    “Then what?”
    “Then late one night their theater blows up.”
    Skip said, “Hey, shit,” grinning at her. “The subtle approach, blow up their fucking theater. I love it.”
    “The smoke clears, I try again.”
    “Pay up or else.”
    “ No . This isn’t extortion, I’m asking for a loan.”
    “That what you’re gonna tell the cops?”
    “I haven’t threatened