Suddenly he stops walking. He joins us on higher ground, checks his watch and smiles.

"Fifteen fifteen on the nose," he says. "The tide is now at its lowest. Now look. Look where I'm pointing."

He points out toward the horizon, maybe twenty yards out. A mysterious, uneven ridge of some kind bulges ever so slightly from the surface of the muck, like a row of rotted molars.

"See it? See the tips of those rocks sticking up? They're only visible at dead low tide, which is what it is now."

He turns to us with a triumphant smile. "Cobblestones," he says. "The foundation of an abandoned pier, or some d.a.m.n thing. Whatever they are, they're mine! All mine!" All mine!"

He starts to laugh insanely, as if we've come upon Captain Kidd's treasure. He even does a little bit of a jiglike dance on the sand. "We load 'em up, we take 'em away. Gonna have me a cobblestone path, that's what I'm gonna have."

"Dad. You can't be serious."

"Why not?"

"This is stealing." stealing."

"It is? Who the h.e.l.l are we stealing from?"

I think it over. "One way or another, I know that this is city property."

He laughs out loud. "City property? You think the city knows there's an old broken-down pier here on Flushing Bay, a pier that's been forgotten for a hundred years?"

"I don't know. Probably not. But I have a feeling that if they did did know, they'd have problems with a guy taking it away one stone at a time." know, they'd have problems with a guy taking it away one stone at a time."

"Well, then, son, do me a favor and don't tell them. These stones have been underwater since before any of us were born. It's time they saw the light of day once again. It's a sin, leavin' them to waste away down here. It's time they were useful useful again." again."

I turn to my son. "I really don't think this is a great idea, Jake. We should go."

Jake's eyes widen in disbelief. "Dad, come on. We have have to do this." to do this."

"Why?"

"Because if we leave, Danny'll try to do it by himself, and it could kill him."

"That's right," my father says. "I'm doing this with or without you. Me, a senior citizen. It's a lot of stones and quite a bit of climbing, and if I drop dead in the process it'll be on your head."

Just what I need-to be responsible for the death of another parent. My father knows he's got me. He grins at me, and tugs on his boots to make sure they're up as high as they can be. "Now I'm going out there and pullin' these things from the muck. You either carry 'em up to my car, or you don't. It's as simple as that."

He squelches his way into the muck, his feet leaving holes that quickly fill with black water. p.i.s.s clams squirt into the air, jarred by his footsteps, and I'm amazed that anything is able to live in this stuff.

My father reaches the ridge, bends over and pulls out a stone, which he carries back to us, cradled against his chest.

It's an ugly thing, ragged with seaweed and coated in muck. When he reaches us my father pulls off the seaweed to reveal it as a rectangular-cut cobblestone, bearded with barnacles.

"Look at that beauty," he says. "Ten, maybe twelve bucks if I was to buy it."

He hands it off to Jake, who takes it in his gloved hands and stares at it in wonder. "Why do you suppose they had a pier out there, Danny?"

My father shrugs. "Who knows? Maybe this was a pretty place back then. Maybe people docked their sailboats here and had lunch in a nice restaurant, before it all turned to s.h.i.t."

"Wow," Jake says. "Imagine!"

"Lay it down in the car the same way you did with the cement," my father tells him. "Don't carry more than one at a time. And watch you don't slip on the hill, Jake."

"Gotcha, Danny."

It's as if they've known each other for years. Jake heads off with the first stolen stone. My father looks at me, wipes a speck of muck off his nose with the back of his glove.

"Your son is in. How about you? You in?"

I tug the gloves on. "I'm in. You knew I was in. You guilted me into it."

"Yeah, I knew that'd work."

He heads back to the long-lost pier, pulls out another stone and carries it back. This one has even more seaweed on it than the first one, plus a cl.u.s.ter of mussels that clings to it like a bunch of grapes. He tosses it on the sand. "Find yourself a piece of driftwood and sc.r.a.pe it as clean as you can. No sense hauling c.r.a.p we don't need to the house, is there?"

Without waiting for an answer he returns to the mother lode, while I look around for a piece of wood to sc.r.a.pe the stones clean.

It quickly becomes an a.s.sembly-line process-my father plodding out to the muck and uprooting the stones, while Jake and I sc.r.a.pe them clean and carry them to the car. This bizarre Sullivan family reunion is in full swing.

I can't resist sticking it to my son. "See the kind of work you wind up doing when you leave school, Jake?"

"Yeah, Dad, I see."

"Imagine doing work like this for the rest of your life."

"Don't have to, Dad. Remember, I have a plan."

"Oh yes, your big plan."

"I never said it was a big big plan. Just a plan." plan. Just a plan."

"You ready to tell me what it is?"

"I only want to explain it once, so I'm waiting until tomorrow, when I can tell you and Mom at the same time."

"Jake. Come on. Tell me."

"Dad. Be patient. I'm a little busy here, helping my grandfather steal a pier." He won't say anything more about it.

Soon we fall into a rhythm, timed so well that each time my father returns with a stone, one of us is there to take it. There is no way to stay clean. The stinking muck is all over our forearms and the bellies of our shirtfronts.

Again, I am struck by what a good worker Jake turns out to be. Soon his speed and enthusiasm upset the rhythm of the process-he gets up and down the weedy hill so fast that he "laps" me, and then the two of us are standing there waiting for my father's deliveries.

"Admit it, Dad," Jake says, "this is kind of fun."

"Oh yeah. What could be more fun than helping your grandfather commit a maritime crime?"

"You worry too much, Dad."

"That's because my father doesn't worry enough."

"You worry enough for all all of us." of us."

By this time we've loaded dozens of ancient cobblestones into the aged station wagon. They're heavier than the cement chunks were, far more dense, and the car sags under their weight.

"Dad," I tell him as he chucks the latest stone on the sand, "we can't take many more. The tires are starting to bulge at the bottom."

He's not even breathing hard. "All right," he says. "Tide's coming in anyway. Another ten minutes and it'll all be underwater. That's the last one for you, Jake. Wait for us up there."

"Okay, Danny." Jake takes the driftwood stick and quickly sc.r.a.pes the stone clean, then hoists it and makes his way toward the hill.

My father watches him go. "That kid of yours is all right, you know."

"I've always thought so."

"He's not afraid of work. People either want to work, or they don't. That's what it's all about, in case I never mentioned it to you."

"I don't think you ever did, but better late than never."

"What the h.e.l.l are you you gonna do about a job?" gonna do about a job?"

"I'll think of something. I'm not afraid of work, either."

My father hesitates. "If you need a few bucks-"

"Dad. That's not why we came out here today."

"I know, but remember I offered."

"You've been reading my stories, huh?"

"What do you mean?"

"You mentioned that you read my article yesterday."

He swallows. "Yeah, I read the Star. Star. Maybe it's not the greatest paper in the world, but you made it better than it would have been." Maybe it's not the greatest paper in the world, but you made it better than it would have been."

I'm shocked by the compliment, or whatever it was he just gave me. It's the first time he's ever said anything about my work.

His face is pink as he turns to go back to the muck. "Two more stones-one for you and one for me, all right?"

"Sure, Dad. No sense going up there empty-handed."

"Yeah, that's right." He stops and turns to me. "You know, maybe some o' me got into you after all."

He lugs two more cobblestones to the beach. We clean them and hoist them, and then together we carry them to the car. He struggles to balance the rock against his belly as he works his way up the hill. "Christ, this isn't easy, is it?"

"No, Dad, it's a b.i.t.c.h. Aren't you glad Jake and I dropped by today?"

"You have no idea."

When we get to the top we see that Jake is leaning against the car, chatting to a big uniformed man in a forest rangertype hat. Everything he's wearing, including the hat, is the same shade of s.h.i.t brown. Jake seems as if he might be concerned, but he doesn't look frightened. In two days he's gone from honor student to dropout to juvenile delinquent. Tomorrow being Sunday, maybe I'll take him to church to rob the poor box.

"Oh, f.u.c.k me upside down," my father startles me by saying, "what in the h.e.l.l have we got here?"

"Calm down, Dad."

"All right. I'm calm. But you listen to me. First thing we do is load these stones into the car. They belong belong to us. This moron doesn't even to us. This moron doesn't even exist exist until all the stones are loaded. until all the stones are loaded. Then Then we'll talk to him." we'll talk to him."

"Dudley Do-Right might not like being ignored."

My father's nostrils widen like those of a balky horse as he exhales with contempt. "I'm not interested in what he likes," he says, squaring his shoulders for the final approach to whatever the h.e.l.l is going to happen next.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

My father sticks to his plan. He breezes right past the man in the hat, pulls the car door open and loads his cobblestone onto the backseat pile. I blindly follow, clacking my cobblestone down next to his. My father turns to the guy as if he's noticing him for the first time.

"Well, good afternoon, there!" he booms. He pulls off his muck-soaked gloves, and for a moment it looks as if he's going to shake hands with the guy. But he doesn't. He tosses his gloves into the car, pushes back his hair, puts his hands on his hips and faces the guy, almost defiantly. "Something we can do for you?"

"Are you the owner of this vehicle?" the guy asks, in the maddeningly calm, almost bored tone of someone who knows he's got the weight of the government behind him. This guy's got a big, pigeon-shaped body, a b.u.t.terfat face, and half-dead eyes. He might be thirty, he could be forty, and if he's got a wife the chances are excellent that she's thinking of somebody else when he's on top of her. Then again, he's probably still living with his parents. If there's a textbook face for the Mama's Boy, I'm looking at it.

His name tag says ORVIETO, and I know right away that we are in a bit of trouble. He's clearly an Italian who didn't have the brains for the police department or the b.a.l.l.s for the Mafia, so he's wound up with this ridiculous Parks Department job. He probably patrols the forgotten Queens coastline day after day in search of some violation, any any violation, and at last his pathetic prayers have been answered. He's finally got himself some action. He's snagged a trio of cobblestone pirates. violation, and at last his pathetic prayers have been answered. He's finally got himself some action. He's snagged a trio of cobblestone pirates.

But he's taking it by the book, a step at a time, beginning with this question about vehicular ownership. My father proudly pats the hood of his station wagon.

"I am indeed the owner," he says. "A hundred and eighty thousand miles of faithful service, she's given me."

"There's no parking allowed here, sir."

"I'm sorry. I was not aware of that."

"The signs are posted all along the road."

"My eyes are not what they used to be."

Orvieto hunches down a little to peer inside the car. The mucky, barnacle-encrusted cobblestones make for a bizarre sight. "What are you transporting inside your car, sir?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"