"It'll go off. Stop that, Simon. There shouldn't be instruments of murder in the house."

"I've got it out," Cardozo said. "A detached barrel can't possibly fire. You're living in unreasonable fear. Like with the lamp the other day. I had pulled the cord out of the wall and you wouldn't let me fix it."

"Because there might still have been electricity in that lamp."

"Oh, Mother."

"And who lives under stress here?" Mrs. Cardozo said. "Do you ever hear me complain? Would you ever hear me complain if you stopped complaining yourself for a minute? Your whining wears me down. Chuck your job if you don't like it. You can help your Uncle Ezra in the market, he earns more in a day than you do in a month. Uncle Ezra has no kids, you can take over his stall when he retires to Mallorca. He wants you to have his business, you only have to learn for a year. Ezra said that to me the other day. 'Manya,' he said, 'your Simon isn't serious yet. He can pick up some seriousness from me, why don't you tell that to your Simon?'"

"Oh, Mother."

"And then maybe you can learn how to dress," Mrs. Cardozo said. "And have a haircut for a change. Do you have to show yourself as a ragamuffin?"

Cardozo reassembled his pistol and slipped it into its holster. He buttoned up his rumpled jacket. "Mother, I fight evil. I don't like the way Uncle Ezra evades taxes."

"Your Uncle Ezra is a serious man."

"He's a silly man," Cardozo said. "He refuses to develop. He's a capitalist during the day and a hedonist in his free time. Greed and luxury will get him nowhere."

"Oh, Simon."

"Egocentric," Cardozo said. "/ work for others. So that others may have a chance to develop and grow too. It isn't easy and I may occasionally be heard to complain. That's a weak trait in my character, and I'm sorry."