"Tommy, maybe we shouldn't do it for a while. Maybe–"

"Shut up!"

"What?"

The soft wet ground around the car was a pool of shadows. The shadows moved. Low throaty sounds, gleaming eyes. A river of dogs, rushing.

Exit

The black Corvette glided into a waiting spot behind the smog-gray windowless building. Gene turned off the ignition. Sat listening to the quiet. He took a rectangular leather case from the compartment behind the seats, climbed out, flicking the door closed behind him. He didn't lock the car.

Gene walked slowly through the rat-maze corridors. The door at the end was unmarked. A heavyset man in an army jacket watched him approach, eyes never leaving Gene's hands.

"I want to see Monroe."

"Sorry, kid. He's backing a game now."

"I'm the one."

The heavyset man's eyes shifted to Gene's face. "He's been waiting over an hour for you."

Gene walked past the guard into a long, narrow room. One green felt pool table under a string of hanging lights. Men on benches lining the walls. He could see the sign on the far wall: the large arrow–EXIT–was just beyond Monroe. They were all there: Irish, nervously stroking balls around the green felt surface, waiting. And Monroe. A grossly corpulent thing, parasite-surrounded. Boneless. Only his eyes betrayed life. They glittered greedily from deep within the fleshy rolls of his face. His eight-hundred-dollar black suit fluttered against his body like it didn't want to touch his flesh. His thin hair was flat-black enameled patent-leather, plastered onto a low forehead with a veneer of sweat. His large head rested on the puddle of his neck. His hands were mounds of doughy pink flesh at the tips of his short arms. His smile was a scar and the fear-aura coming off him was jail-house-sharp.

"You were almost too late, kid."

"I'm here now."

"I'll let it go, Gene. You don't get a cut this time." The watchers grinned, taking their cue. "Three large when you win," Monroe said.

They, advanced to the low, clean table. Gene ran his hand gently over the tightly woven surface, feeling the calm come into him the way it always did. He opened his leather case, assembled his cue.

Irish won the lag. Gene carefully roughened the tip of his cue, applied the blue chalk. Stepped to the table, holding the white cue ball in his left hand, bouncing it softly, waiting.

"Don't even think about losing." Monroe's voice, strangely thin.

Gene broke perfectly, leaving nothing. Irish walked once around the table, seeing what wasn't there. He played safe. The room was still.

"Seven ball in the corner."

Gene broke with that shot and quickly ran off the remaining balls. He watched Monroe's face gleaming wetly in the dimness as the balls were racked. He slammed the break-ball home, shattering the rack. And he sent the rest of the balls into pockets gaping their eagerness to serve him. The brightly colored balls were his: he nursed some along the rail, sliced others laser-thin, finessed combinations. Brought them home.

Irish watched for a while. Then he sat down and looked at the floor. Lit a cigarette.

The room darkened. Gene smiled and missed his next shot. Irish sprang to the table. He worked slowly and too carefully for a long time. When he was finished, he was twelve balls ahead with twenty-five to go. But it was Gene's turn.

And Gene smiled again, deep into Monroe's face. Watched the man neatly place a cigarette into the precise center of his mouth, waving away a weasel-in-attendance who leaped to light it for him. And missed again…by a wider margin.

Irish blasted the balls off the table, waited impatiently for the rack. He smelled the pressure and didn't want to lose the wave. Irish broke correctly, ran the remaining balls and finished the game. EXIT was glowing in the background. As the last ball went down, he turned:

"You owe me money, Monroe."

His voice trembled. One of Monroe's men put money in his hand. The fat man spoke, soft and cold: "Would you like to play again"

"No, I won't play again. I must of been crazy. You would of gone through with it. Yes. You fat, dirty, evil sonofabitch…"

One of the calmly waiting men hit him sharply under the heart. Others stepped forward to drag him from the room.

"Let him keep the money," Monroe told them

Gene turned to gaze silently at the fat man. Almost home…

"You going to kill me, Monroe?"

"No, Gene. I don't want to kill you."

"Then I'm leaving."

A man grabbed Gene from each side and walked him toward the fat man's chair.

"You won't do anything like that. Ever again."

Monroe ground the hungry tip of his bright-red cigarette deep into the boy's face, directly beneath the eye. Just before he lost consciousness, Gene remembered that Monroe didn't smoke.

He awoke in a grassy plain, facedown. He started to rise and the earth stuck to his torn face.

His screams were triumph.

Family Resemblance

It's easy to find a parking place in the Garment District on a Sunday morning. I locked the Hertzmobile sedan, sweeping the street with my eyes. Empty. A cold, hard wind hawked in off the Hudson. I adjusted the black–wool watch cap until it rested against the bridge of my dark glasses, slipped my gloved hands into the side pockets of my gray arctic coat, and started my march.

The back alley was clogged with trash, already picked clean by the army of homeless looking for returnable bottles. A wino was sprawled half out of a packing crate, frozen fluid around his open mouth. Working on being biodegradable.

I found the rust–colored back door. Worked the numbered buttons in the right sequence, checked behind me, and slipped inside. Staircase to my right. One flight down to the basement, four up to the top floor, where they'd be.

My rubber–soled boots were soundless on the metal stairs. I tested each one before I moved up. No hurry.

I heard their voices behind the door. Just murmurs, couldn't make out the words.

I pulled off the watch cap, pocketed the dark glasses, fitted the dark nylon stocking over my face, the big knot at the top making me look taller. Like the lifts in my boots.

I unsnapped the coat. The Franchi LAW–12 semiautomatic shotgun hung against my stomach, suspended from a rawhide loop around my neck. The barrel was sawed off to fourteen inches, the stock chopped down to a pistol grip. Twelve–gauge magnum, double–0 buckshot–four in the clip, one in the chamber. The safety was off. I checked the heavy Velcro brace on my right wrist—the cut—down scattergun kicks hard.

The door wasn't locked. I stepped inside. The voices went silent.

I was in a small room, facing three men, one directly in front of me, one to each side, ledger books open on the small table between them. Their eyes locked on the shotgun like it was the answer to all their questions.

The far tip of the triangle was a fat man with a suety face. White shirt, black suspenders, half–glasses pushed down on his nose. The man on my right was barrel–chested, wearing a red sweatsuit zipped open to show a hairy chest and some gold chains. On my left was a younger guy dressed in one of those slouchy Italian jackets, a pastel T–shirt underneath.

"Put your hands on the table," I told them. The stocking mask pressed against my lips, changing my voice, but they heard me clear enough. Hands went on the table. The guy on my right sported a heavy diamond on his ring finger. The young guy had a wafer–thin watch on his wrist.