Dead Harvest

  I looked at him and set the gun down on the counter. He was a wiry guy of maybe forty, with beady close-set eyes and nervous hands, which at the moment were tapping out a jaunty number on the countertop. He wore a pair of baggy wool trousers, held up by a set of suspenders over a greasestained T-shirt. Except for me and him, the hock shop was empty. I looked him up and down, and wondered was he always this nervous, or was it my sparkling personality that had him on edge. Then again, I guess it coulda been the gun.

  "You always keep 'em loaded?" I asked.

  "No, not always. But guys like you, they come in wantin' a piece, I've found it ain't wise to keep 'em waiting."

  "What do you mean, guys like me?"

  "You know," he said, looking suddenly uncomfortable, "guys like you. Made guys."

  So that's what I'd become? A made guy? My friend here said it with such reverence it made me want to puke.

  "So how much?"

  "For you? Twenty-five bucks."

  "That seems a little steep."

  The drumming on the counter sped up a bit. The guy looked a little green. "Hey, that thing's got no serial, no history. That's a good deal I'm giving you – Scout's honor."

  I looked him up and down. "You were a Boy Scout?"

  "Hey, we've all been something we ain't anymore, you know what I mean?"

  Yeah, I knew what he meant. I tossed some bills down on the counter and stuffed the gun into my pants pocket.

  "There's thirty here," he said.

  "Keep it," I replied. I left him grinning like an idiot behind the counter as I left the shop and stepped out into the cool September night.

  On the street, I hailed a cab, and told the cabbie the corner of Whitehall and Bridge. I was headed to the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, where I was to exchange the envelope in my pocket for another that I'd deliver to Dumas later tonight. The envelope in my pocket was full of cash. God knows what was in the other one. Documents, I'd guess – the kind of documents that could slap a veneer of legitimacy on whatever illegitimate shit Dumas was bringing in through the harbor. Or maybe they were raffle tickets. Truth be told, I didn't care.

  This wasn't the first time I'd made the customs run for Dumas, or even the fifth, and every time it was the same. This time of night, the building was pretty quiet. My contact would meet me at the service entrance around back. We'd make the exchange and go our separate ways – no fuss, no mess, no complications.