“Everything is complicated. Most things bigger than you can know. And you so dumb and also young. So. I always do the right thing.” And lifted then a hand from the cashbox and took a banknote out and passed it flat onto the table before Jamie. It was less then he’d been paid for the first single day. He looked at it a moment and then took it up and said, “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Well shit. I guess there ain’t no room to discuss it.”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“Don’t be coming round here again.”

“You know what, Victor? I don’t guess I would want to.”

And turned as if leaving. Took one step forward and leaned down even as he pivoted back around, swiping up from the caked floor the wooden mallet used for driving bungs and came around with it not only already up in the air but descending hard into the forehead of the scornful-faced man with the busy fingers who was rising up from his chair, his eyes flared with swift surprise, rising as if to help Jamie meet his forehead with the down-swinging mallet. The noise identical to the crack of bat against ball the day before in the park. The man sat back down and took the chair over sideways with him. Victor still had one hand flat on the table where he’d laid the banknote but his right hand had come off the cashbox and snaked toward his vest. Jamie dropped the mallet the moment the first man went down and now had the stiletto free of his pocket and drove it down through the hand that still lay on the table and this stopped the right hand, which paused midair, wobbling, then moved toward the left pinned to the rough boards. And Jamie reached slowly and took that right hand gently and held it in both of his and said, “Don’t touch anything Victor. Just set still.” His own hands trembling slightly. Victor leaned his head back to rest it against the wall behind him. His eyes rolled up and back again into his sockets and then up white again. The whites shot with blood as if he’d been cut there.

“Easy now. Pay attention here, Victor.” Still holding the limp free hand, Jamie opened the cashbox and counted out notes until he had what was owed him. “Pay attention, Victor.” He reached and struck the stiletto with the flat of his hand, driving it a little deeper, moving it a little side to side. “All I’m taking here is what I’m owed. Not even a bonus for having to collect it like this, see.” He fanned the notes and then added one more five. “Now this here, this is to pay for the knife. That’s what it cost me. I don’t see a choice but to leave it with you.”