"Assholes. Jesus, I just relived every cigarette I ever smoked," he said, panting.

" Cleveland, why are you taking me here? Do I need to see this?"

"What do you think you're going to see?"

"Sad people."

"Never hurts to see sad people. Anyway, it'll give you something to tell your dad."

"Right." Dad. "Do you know what my dad would say if I told him I made the rounds with one of Lenny Stern's pickup boys? He'd say, 'I want you out of Pittsburgh. You've developed too many unsavory associates.' No, he'd say, 'Are you doing this to punish me, Art?'"

He spun and faced me. "I told you I'm not Lenny Stern's anything."

"Okay, okay."

"And what-is your father ashamed of what he is?"

"I'm ashamed."

"Well, maybe I'll tell him what we've been up to, then. You know I want to meet Joe the Egg."

I must have flinched at this nickname. "So you've said. "

"Sorry," he said, not very apologetically. "Look, here we are."

We reached the first house in a row of houses all built across the tiny stretch of earth that lay between the road and nothing, empty air. The houses were supported at the rear by an intricate and feeble-looking system of peeling gray two-by-fours that worked their capricious way down to concrete anchors set into the hill. The greenish paint was also peeling from the side of the first wooden house, which had one newspapered window cut into it, toward the top. We picked our way to the front door along a cracked walk littered with old toys, an enormous Sony television carton, and a soggy pink sneaker.

"I really would like to talk to your father," he whispered, knocking.

" Cleveland."

He patted me once on the shoulder, and then tapped again on the door, with the same hand.

The woman who answered Cleveland 's three lazy knocks had a nice smile that lasted for the fifth of a second before she realized who was at the door.

"He ain't here," she said, looking back and forth between us several times, not nervously but with annoyance, and as though memorizing our faces.

"Well, I am." There was an instant and very convincing meanness to his voice. "And there is that invisible man who has been so generous to your brother. He's here too. In spirit."

She glanced at me before realizing whom Cleveland meant: probably not Uncle Lenny, or whoever was over him, but one of the Stern soldiers. The woman, or girl- she looked about sixteen-had narrowed the space between the door and the jamb, and drawn her body back into the house, so that now only her face showed.

"Who is it?" a man shouted from somewhere within.

The girl blushed. Cleveland smiled.

"Wait," she said, and shut the door in our faces.

"Come in? No, thank you; I'll just wait right here on the porch." He turned toward me and smiled again, lit a cigarette, and leaned against the crumbling side of the house.

"Get a load of this ménage," he said. "I always come here first; it's my favorite."

"Ha."

"They're your father's kind of people."

"Come on, Cleveland, stop."

This time a tall, unshaven young man in an undershirt, with long black hair like Cleveland 's, opened the door, wide. His smile did not fade as his sister's had, but lingered too long, big and yellow and pitiful.

"Come on in."

We stepped into the house, which was full of odors. There was an immediate tart and sweaty smell of marijuana, and then, beneath or woven into that smell, fainter ones of tomato sauce, sex, and old furniture. The place looked grandmotherly and clean: easy chairs, frilly lamps, a beat-up china closet. The girl, her hair black like her brother's, sat on a sofa beside another young woman, who held a toddler on her lap. The little kid didn't look at us-he played with a toy helicopter. On the television, a game-show audience screamed out counsel.

"Who's this guy?" said the tall man, jerking his head at me.

"My dad," said Cleveland. "He doesn't believe I have a steady job."

We all laughed: we men, that is; the two women glared at Cleveland. Then we listened awhile to the television.

"Well," said Cleveland.

"Just give it to him and get them out of here. " It was the woman with the baby; she spoke into the top of the bald little head.

"Why don't you shut up." He reached into the pocket of his jeans, pulled out a black plastic wallet, which looked new, and took from it two crumpled twenties, which he handed to Cleveland. "Not this week," he said.

"No problem," said Cleveland, producing a small manda envelope from his own pocket and poking the bills into it. "No problem at all."

"They say they're going to be hiring back some guys before September, you know, so, like, well." He smiled that awful smile again.

Now the little boy climbed down from the woman's lap and lurched across the living room, stopping when he reached the three of us. He looked up at me, with a crease in his brow, and uttered a few syllables, very seriously.

"Yes, I know," I said.

After the door had closed behind us and we came down the shattered walk, I asked Cleveland what he found so remarkable about the household.

"They're both his sisters," he said.

There was a short silence while I digested this.

"Whose…?"

"I don't know. Maybe it's not even his. You should see them on a good day, though. Today they were all stoned. On a good day, that place is like a circus."

This made me angry.

" Cleveland. You- This is horrible. You're taking advantage of this unemployed guy, you walk into their house once a week and you ruin their day, I'll bet they have huge nghts after you leave, and you think the whole thing is funny. You get a kick out of it. Those people hate your guts. They hate you. How can you stand to look at that guy's shit-eating grin every week?"

"The world of business is built on shit-eating grins. "

"You can cut the fake cynicism, Cleveland."

"You're the economist. You know what economics is."

"I don't remember."

"You remember. It's the precise measurement of shit eating, it's the science of misery. Look, I have to think it's funny, don't I? Okay."

He stopped. We were halfway along the row of houses, and the sun had just come out, making it hotter than before. He bent down to pull the fabric of his jeans away from the backs of his knees, and I realized how stuck together I felt, too, and bent down alongside him.

"Okay. Look. I brought you along, Bechstein. I've never brought anyone before. No one else except Artie even knows that I do this. Jane doesn't know. And I would never have brought Lecomte. Why? I don't know. I'm not supposed to bring anybody at all. But for some reason I wanted you to see this. You should understand this. Can't you see why I do this?" He was almost shouting, seemingly angrier than I had been a moment before. Drops of sweat had pooled over his eyebrows and poured down the sides of his face. But I didn't believe him. I felt all at once like Arthur with his X-ray heart, and I was sure that Cleveland was misleading me somehow, that he did know why I was standing on that hill with him, soaking wet, ashamed, and in a sudden rage.

"Because it's easy," I shouted. "Because it's easy, and it pays well, and it makes you feel like you're better than the people you exploit."

I thought he was going to punch me. He made fists and kept them, barely, at his sides. Then the anger went out of his shoulders; he unbailed his hands and smiled, faintly.

"Wrong. No. Wrong. I do it because it is fun and fascinating work."

"Ah."

"See, I'm a people person." He gave an airy toss of his great head.

"I see."

"And also-I'm surprised that you haven't guessed this, Bechstein-I do it because-"

"I know," I said. "Because it is Bad."

He grinned and said, "I wear a rattlesnake for a necktie."

I laughed.