Jimmy McQuade looked for the builder. He found him guzzling coffee, yelling at a crane operator.

"I can't see the fuckin' roof. How the hell am I going to set it right?" yelled the operator.

"We'll get a flood up there. We'll get a flood," the builder yelled back. He turned to Jimmy McQuade.

"Yeah. What do you want?"

"We're the phone installers. It looks like we're four months early."

"No. You're late."

"Where do you want the interoffice lines, in the cement?"

"Well, do what you can now. You have the plans. You could be stringing outside wire."

"Most of my men are inside."

"So work 'em outside. What's the big deal?"

"You don't know too much about phones, do you?"

"I know they're going to be working by April 17, is what I know."

That was the first complaint. The president of the local said it wasn't up to him. Call the vice-president. The vice-president told Jimmy McQuade he didn't receive the money because it was an easy job.

Two weeks later, one of the inside men threatened to quit. More money came for Jimmy McQuade from Washington. When the other installers found out about this episode, they all threatened to quit. They all got more money.

Then one of the men did quit. Jimmy McQuade ran after him down Nuihc Street, now paved to a three-lane-wide thoroughfare. The man wouldn't listen. Jimmy McQuade phoned the vice-president of the union and asked if he could recruit another man to fill the crew.

"What was his name?" asked the vice-president.

"Johnny Delano," said Jimmy McQuade. But he did not get another man. Nor did the quitter return.

And when the lineman committed the mistake of a rookie and the installer passed out, Jimmy McQuade had had it. Enough.

The kid slept over his tool box, and all the others filed into the new elevators, which they hoped would work this time. Jimmy McQuade went with his men.