“You sounded bothered, brother,” he said, standing from the little crate they used as a card table. “Thought I’d drop by and make sure you were okay.”

Mouse and I hadn’t seen much of each other over the past few months. I was busy working and my partners didn’t like having him around. We hadn’t been together much but our kind of friendship was a life sentence. Only one thing could sever that.

“Come on up,” I said. “I need to get a little sleep before we talk business.”

Mouse nodded.

“Thanks, Aggie,” he said to the Longo brother. “Next time we can play chess.”

Both men shook hands and for some reason I felt pride in them.

Raymond wore dark clothes and had a canvas sack slung across his left shoulder. He lit a cigarette as the funicular rose over LA. Under a dawn mist the city lights glittered like some phosphorescent tides I’d seen.

“You got more luck than any man I ever known, Easy.”

“I wouldn’t call my life a lucky one, Ray.”

“I’idn’t say lucky. I said luck. Good or bad it clutters around you like chickens squabblin’ over a busted sack’a grain. You got this house on top of a mountain and chirren been hurt by life so bad that it would have killed a grown man. It’s somethin’ else . . . your kinda luck.”

“What you got in the bag?” I asked.

“Maybe everything,” he said.

We had a guest room on the second floor of Roundhouse. I put Ray in there and then went to undress for bed. I managed to get my shoes off but then I lay back. I do believe that I was asleep before head hit mattress.

It wasn’t what you’d call good rest. I was in a small room filled with people who were hogging up the air. They had faces but for some reason I couldn’t make them out. They were talking but the words didn’t make any sense. On top of that I didn’t know why I was there. I looked around for a door but couldn’t find one.

“Easy,” somebody said. The other inmates of the dream were busy hiding their faces and mumbling. It was hot in there and the air was thin. I was looking around for an exit again when I felt a sharp, sharp pain in my chest.

I looked down and saw that there was a dagger buried up to the hilt in my heart. Blood was leaking out, slowly. In an instant I understood that the knife was blocking the flow of blood and, if it was pulled out, I’d bleed to death in a room full of strangers.