See, then she could say to Woody on the phone, "When you hear the lion roar you'll know we mean business."

Robin didn't comment on his idea. She was edging over with cars whizzing by to get into the inside lane.

"What're you looking for?"

"A drugstore," Robin said.

"Did you forget?"

Skip said, "Would you believe I've never purchased any of those things in my life?"

Once they found a drugstore open and Robin was angle-parked in front, he asked her what he was supposed to do for money. Robin gave him a ten and he went inside.

Skip was wearing his black satiny athletic jacket that had Speedball written across the back in red. He unzipped it and put his hands in his pockets as he looked at displays along the cigar counter. When he didn't see what he wanted he moved toward the back of the store, taking time to look at the shelves, more things to beautify you than make you feel better. There were two people at the counter in the pharmacy area: a woman in a peach-colored smock who looked like she sold cosmetics and had most of them on her, and a young skinny guy with a store name tag that said Kenny and a half-dozen pens in his shirt pocket. The young clerk asked Skip if he could help him. Skip said yeah, like he was trying to think of what it was he'd come in for, glanced at the cosmetics lady and told the young clerk he wanted a pack of rubbers.

The young clerk said, "What is it you want?"

"I want some rubbers," Skip said.

The young clerk said, "Oh, condoms." The cosmetics lady, about ten feet away writing in a notebook, didn't look up.

"They're right here," the young clerk said, raising his hand to a display on the wall behind him.

"What kind you want?"

"I don't care, any kind."

"You like the regular or the ribbed?"

Skip hesitated.

"The regular."

"Natural hush or lubricated?"

"Just plain'll be fine."

"Any particular color?"

Skip was about to ask the guy if he was putting him on, but the cosmetics lady was coming over saying, "The new golden shade is very popular. Kenny, why don't you show him those?"

The young clerk turned from the display holding a box that had a picture on it of a guy and a girl walking along a beach at sunset, holding hands. Skip wondered if you were supposed to think the guy had a rubber in his wallet and they were looking for a place to do it on the beach.

They were crazy if they did. Even a car was better than the beach.

Anybody's car that was open.

Skip said, "That's fine," getting the ten-dollar bill out of his jacket.

"How much is it?"

"This one's the economy pack," the young clerk said, looking at the price tag.

"Three dozen for sixteen ninety five Skip had the ten-dollar bill in his hand. He put it back in his pocket, took off his black satiny athletic jacket and said to the young clerk, "I'll tell you what," as he laid the jacket open on the counter.

"Gimme about a dozen of those economy packs. Put 'em right here."

The young clerk and the cosmetics lady seemed to be trying to smile.

Was he being funny or what?

No, he wasn't being funny. Skip reached behind him for the.38 stuck in his belt to show them he wasn't. He said to the cosmetics lady,

"While he's doing that, you empty the cash drawer. Then you both lay down on the floor." He said to the young clerk, "Hey, Kenny? But none of those ribbed ones. Gimme all regular."

Kobin pushed in the cigarette lighter, looked up and saw Skip coming out of the drugstore. He had his jacket off, bunched under his arm like he was carrying something in it. As soon as he was in the car he said, "Let's go." Robin held her hand on the lighter, waiting for it to pop.

"How many did you get?"

"Four hundred and something."

Robin said, "Well, we can always get more." She lit her cigarette.

"You must've used a credit card."

"Let's go, okay?"

"My, but we're anxious."

"I can hardly wait," Skip said. lay in Chris's dad's king-size bed wondering, If somebody handed you twenty-five thousand dollars in cash, what would it be in? Would it be in like a briefcase all lined up in neat rows? Would you have to take the money out and put it in something and give them back the briefcase?

Probably. She turned her head to look at the digital clock on the bedside table, green figures in the morning gloom: 7:49. She looked back at the ceiling and thought, Wait a minute. If ten one-hundred-dollar bills made a thousand, it wouldn't be much of a pile. Especially new ones.

She held her thumb and one finger about an inch apart, closed one eye as she looked up and narrowed the space between them. Ten one-hundred-dollar bills wouldn't be any more than an eighth of an inch. Times twenty-five . the whole amount'd be only three or four inches high.

You wouldn't need a briefcase for that, you could stick it in an envelope. Twenty-five thousand didn't seem so much looking at it that way. She had to buy a car…

She had to get up and brush her teeth and take a couple of Extra-Strength Excedrin. She'd had four drinks last night at Brownie's. Bourbon over crushed ice with a touch of sugar sprinkled on top. Chris had never had one.

She told him it was her dad's Sunday afternoon drink he called a God's Own-in the summertime with fresh mint her mom grew in the backyard. Two at the bar shaped like a boat, Chris smacking his lips with that first one, two more at the table, the God's Owns going down easy, and then a bottle of wine with the pickerel. Starting out quietly to discuss a serious matter and before she knew it they were having fun.

It was the way Chris told it, calling the guy Mr. Woody, describing this weird scene, Mr. Woody naked on a rubber raft, a mound of lard floating in the pool. Mr. Woody's colored chauffeur doing everything but kiss the man's hind end while he thought up ways to hustle him, hoping to skim twenty grand off the top of Mr. Woody's offer and give Ginger five. Chris calling her Ginger at first because they did.

She told him it was "Gingah" if he was going to say it, the way she heard it all her life from her family, and not "Gingurr" with his Detroit accent. Her dad gave her the name when she was little. Her sister Camille they called Lily, but they called her brother, Robert Taylor, always Robert Taylor. That was strange, wasn't it? Then she became Ginger Jones when she married Gary. She told Chris she'd planned to stay Greta Wyatt, but her mother had said, "You're not going to take your husband's name?" Like it was unheard of. (She didn't tell Chris Gary said it "Gin gurr" too and after a while it grated on her nerves-along with everything else about Gary, who had a wonderful singing voice but would never leave Dearborn, Michigan, because he was a mama's boy and she kept a tight hold on him. Mothers could mess up lives without even trying.) So to please her mother she became Greta Jones till the divorce and she had it changed back. Except she got more audition calls as Ginger Jones, so she was stuck with it professionally. What she should have done before marrying Gary was made up a stage name that ended with a smile when you say it, like Sweeney. Say it, Sweeney. Your mouth forms a smile. And Chris said,

"So does Mankowski. Say it:

Ginger Mankowski." She did, exaggerating the smile for him, but it didn't sound right. Ginger Mankowski. (Without telling him, she tried Greta Mankowski in her mind, heard the sound of it and saw herself fifty pounds heavier, a night cleaning woman at Ford World Headquarters.) Chris said to her, "If you're good, it doesn't matter what name you go by. Are you any good?"

She felt herself sag a little.

"I'm good. But do you know how many Ginger Joneses there are just in Detroit? Before you even begin to count New York or Los Angeles?"

He said to her, "There's only one Greta Wyatt that I know of."