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him."
    "Eighty-sixed Tiny›"
    "No, the other guy. I didn't get the name."
    "Grijk Krugnk."
    His Mom gave him a concerned look. "You coming down with something?"
    "No, that's the guy's name. Grijk Krugnk. I may not be pronouncing it exactly right."
    "Well, you won't get an argument from me," his Mom said. "Anyway, Tiny says, you should meet at his place."
    "Yeah?" Stan finished his pizza and smiled. "Tiny's place. Okay. Be nice to see J. C. Taylor again."
    Taylor looked at herself in the mirror and saw how the frown lines detracted from her hard beauty. Knowing that anger ruined her looks only made her angrier; with her pale skin and heavy brunette hair and hard eyes and now these deep frown lines all over the place, she was beginning to look like the Queen in "Snow White " when she looks into her mirror. However, instead of asking who was the fairest of them all, J.C. glared past her own reflected shoulder at the reflection of Tiny on the other side of the bedroom and said, "A party at midnight. I haven't had so much fun since I was the sweetheart of Iota Kappa Rho."
    "Come on, Josie," Tiny said. He looked right now like a baffled bear, disturbed in his hibernation by a census taker, wanting to answer the questions but having trouble getting the situation into focus. (He was also the only person on earth who called J. C. Taylor Josie.) "It ain't a party," he tried to explain, "it's a meeting. And you don't have to be there, you don't want."
    "Oh, sure," J.C. said. "You're bringing John and Andy and Stan into the house, the whole crowd from the Avalon caper, and when they say, Where's J.C.?' you'll say, 'She didn't want to see you guys, she went to the movies.'"
    "Eighty-sixed Tiny)"
    "No, the other guy. I didn't get the name."
    "Grijk Krugnk."
    His Mom gave him a concerned look. "You coming down with something?"
    "No, that's the guy's name. Grijk Krugnk. I may not be pronouncing it exactly right."
    "Well, you won't get an argument from me," his Mom said. "Anyway, Tiny says, you should meet at his place."
    I C. Taylor looked at herself in the mirror and saw how the frown lines detracted from her hard beauty. Knowing that anger ruined her looks only made her angrier; with her pale skin and heavy brunette hair and hard eyes and now these deep frown lines all over the place, she was beginning to look like the Queen in "Snow White " when she looks into her mirror. However, instead of asking who was the fairest of them all, J.C. glared past her own reflected shoulder at the reflection of Tiny on the other side of the bedroom and said, "A party at midnight. I haven't had so much fun since I was the sweetheart of Iota Kappa Rho."
    "Come on, Josie," Tiny said. He looked right now like a baffled bear, disturbed in his hibernation by a census taker, wanting to answer the questions but having trouble getting the situation into focus. (He was also the only person on earth who called J. C. Taylor Josie.) "It ain't a party," he tried to explain, "it's a meeting. And you don't have to be there, you don't want."
    "Oh, sure," J.C. said. "You're bringing John and Andy and Stan into the house, the whole crowd from the Avalon caper, andTiny shrugged, an impressive movement. "So you come to the meeting."
    "Looking like this?"
    "You look great," Tiny told her, with such sincerity that she had to accept the compliment as real, if ignorant. She knew what she looked like.
    Tiny came around the bed to stand behind her, his head now above hers in the mirror, and grin at her reflection. "You're terrific, Josie," he rumbled, his usual airplane engine of a voice modulating down to a kind of heavy purr, like a well-fed lion. "Any room you walk into," he said,
    "you own it."
    She loved it when he talked like that, but she didn't want entirely to give up her bad mood. "Not dressed like this," she said, and the doorbell sounded at the other end of the apartment. "Go on, Tiny, I've got to change."
    "Okay." He patted her head and her back--she braced herself