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A * L a r g e by L.J. PavisThe Fulton Mall%u2019s Bark Is Just As Bad As Its BiteBY L.J. DAVISThis month%u2019s coveted Dog-InThe-Manger Award goes, once again, to Mr. A.J. Pegno, the contractor in charge of the construction of that jewel of the borough, the Fulton Ditch. This is the fourth time since January that Mr. Pegno has taken the palm, and unless two-time annual award winner Reverend Herbert Daughtry looks to his paces, it appears that he won%u2019t retire the loving cup this year, after all. This will come as a bitter surprise to Reverend Daughtry%u2019s many admirers, of whom I count myself the greatest. However, 1 would like to take this opportunity to squelch, once and for all, the ugly rumors that Borough President Golden is planning to trade him to Los Angeles in return for a vegetarian, Elliot Gould, and one crackpot to be named later. The Reverend Daughtry will be with us until hell freezes over or he wins me a Pulitzer Prize. ACRES OF MONEYMr. Pegno, the challenger, became the hand%u2019s down victor this month when he closed down his operation after a small boy dropped a gum wrapper into one of his many excavations, and he clinched the prize with his subsequent refusal to go back to work until the city gave him three cubic acres of money and a giant cube to keep it in. He probably overdid it when he subsequently showed up in Cadman Plaza clad in a barrel and rattling a penny in a tin cup, but there%u2019s no accounting for taste.While it may look as though Mr.' Pegno is merely playing the cad and attempting to hold the city to ransom, this column has learned that the contractor is a badlymisunderstood man; he%u2019s merely doing his best to comply with President Nixon%u2019s energy guidelines, something Mr. Nixon himself confirmed by phone from his office in the Real White House. Saying that Mr. Pegno couldn%u2019t possibly be trying to blackmail the city by digging up a big hunk of Fulton Street in the middle of summer and blocking all the sidewalks and putting up a lot of chicken wire and generally strangling the merchants to death, Mr. Nixon clinched his case by pointing out that such a course of action would be wrong. Adding that Mr. Pegno was the finest private servant he had known in his long years as head of the Invisible Empire, the Chief Executive stressed that gum wrappers were very dangerous objects. %u201c Supposing somebody came along and threw a cigarette but on top of it while a nearby worker was washing his shirt in gasoline,%u201d Mr. hljxon said. %u201c Every fire begins with a spark, you know.%u201dYOU NEVER KNOWAsked why Mr. Pegno had then escalated his demands after Ed Koch and Carol Bellamy had offered to stand guard over the construction site with butterfly nets and buckets of sand, Mr. Nixon patiently explained that there were many precedents. %u201c Look what Henry and I did to Cambodia, for instance,%u201d he said.High union officials agree. %u201c You never know where it will end.%u201d said one. %u201c Sure, you start with gum wrappers. Pretty soon kids are throwing kleenex, then pop bottles, and it just escalates until some poor working stiff gets a safe dropped on him. Or a piano. Or a piece of a space satellite. These things getout of hand. I remember once, we had a man down in an escavation sleeping one off, and a bunch of kids got some crowbars and levered a whole department store onto him. It was terrible.%u201dAsked about the seemingly unconnected nature of Pegno%u2019s subsequent refusal to resume work, the union official became angry. %u201c What do you mean, three cubic acres of money?%u201d he demanded. %u201cThree cubic acres of what kind of money? Pennies? Nickles? Dimes? Treasury notes? Okay, what kind of treasury notes? Ones? Twenties? C-notes? Pegno knows better than that. Who do you think he is, Scrooge McDuck?%u201dTHE REAL REASONPressed for the real reason for Mr. Pegno%u2019s work stoppage, the offical replied, %u201c The heat. In case you haven%u2019t noticed, it%u2019s summer. In summer it gets hot. You can%u2019t expect men to work under conditions like that. Their skin turns red and they have to drink large quantities of water. That sort of thing went out with the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. Pegno%u2019s a responsible employer.%u201dThe official added that he had no doubt work would stop again, once it was resumed in the cool weather, if dirt was encountered.I would seem, then, that the popular suspicion is that Mr. Pegno%u2019s behavior amounts to a stickup is baseless and without foundation, but just to be sure, we contacted Ludwig Bavaria, recently the chairman of the Federal Reserve and now a shoeshine boy in downtown Tulsa.THE SECRET%u201c Stickup? Bosh,%u201d said the financial wizard. %u201c Nothing so crude asthat. If Mr. Pegno were out to loot the city treasury, he wouldn%u2019t rely on anything as crude as a gum wrapper. The free enterprise system doesn%u2019t work like that and besides, any idiot could see throughIf Mr. Pegno were out to loot the city treasury, he wouldn%u2019t rely on anything as crude as a gum wrapper.it in a minute. No, if Mr. Pegno were determined to make a buck or two, the secret is cost overruns. Pencils, paper, styrofoam coffee cups, all these things cost money, and they are rarely factored into the original contract. Why, I remember one case where the paperclip bill on a new naval destroyer ran into the billions. Why else do you think the defense establishment is so fabulously expensive when we could hire the Japanese to build us one at a fraction of the cost. That%u2019s theAmerican way. There%u2019s no need for such crude Mafia tactics as you suggest. That would smack of socialism.%u201dSo there you have it, citizens. Although they differ in their interpretations, the word of the experts cannot be doubted: Mr. Pegno%u2019s motives are as pure as the driven snow%u2014a substance which, by all indications, will fall in quantities before he resumes work, if at all. As this space goes to press, we have learned of a fourth possible reason for the present slowdown and, like the others, it absolves the contractor completely.BAD INFORMATIONA source close to Mr. Pegno%u2019s office reveals that when he made his bid on the work, he had never seen Fulton Street. %u201c He worked entirely from photographs,%u201d the source says. %u201c You know how it is in a snapshot. The people are about as big as grains of rice, the cars are the size of ants, and the buildings are a couple of inches high. Pegno got out his kid's plastic ruler and measured everything off and figured he could do the job for about twenty bucks. That way, he would have made a decent profit, say four, five million. How was he to know Fulton Street was bigger than a photograph? Nobody told him. It's the city%u2019s fault, not his. They gave him bad information.%u201dMr. Pegno can pick up his Napoleon hat at my office any time between nine and five. I only regret that I won%u2019t be there to present it to him in person, but I%u2019m going out to the Pacific Northwest and bust up a Libyan spy ring. Compared to finding a way to get into a shoe store on Fulton Street, it ought to be a piece of cake.C o u r t M i n i M a l l154-156 Court St.Brooklyn, N.Y. 11201Tel: 624-9088875-56312 0 S tores in Onej Your Shopping Center for Art and Decor for Your Home%u2022 We carry a complete line of paints, hardware, plumbing andeicctr|caj supplies c%u2022 featuring custom wood carving, leather works, ceramics andIndian art.%u2022 decal center%u2022 perfume & cosm etic bargain center%u2022 jewelry and watch center%u2022 coffee and sandwich shop%u2022 free daily sight screening and high blood pressure testing bythe Cobble Hill Lions Club%u2022 Merchants who have not received keys are asked to contact the office.%u2022 One or two spaces are still available. For information call 624-9088.Grand Opening Saturday, July 28thJuly 26. 1979. 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