He stood over Angie until she looked up at him. Her gun was still in her hands, but pointing at the ground.

“Maybe until Mr. Kenzie can afford to take you to dinner again, I can pick up some of his slack. What do you say?”

“I’d say pick up a copy of Penthouse on your way home, Manny, and say hello to your right hand.”

“I’m a lefty.” He smiled.

“I don’t care,” she said and John laughed.

Manny shrugged, and for a moment looked like he was considering a retort, but instead he spun on his heel without another word and walked toward Unity Street. John and the other two men followed. At the entrance, Manny stopped and turned back to us, his massive physique framed by the blue and gray of the idling garbage truck.

“See you around, kids.” He waved.

And we waved back.

And Bubba, Nelson, and the Twoomey brothers came out from behind the garbage truck, each brandishing a weapon.

John started to open his mouth, and Nelson hit him dead in the face with a sawed-off hockey stick. Blood spurted from John’s broken nose, and he pitched forward and Nelson caught him and hoisted him over his shoulder. The Twoomey brothers came through the entrance-way with metal trash cans in their hands. They swung the cans in pinwheels over their shoulders and brought them down on the heads of Manny’s steroid cases, pile-drove the men into the cobblestone. I heard a loud crack as one of them shattered his kneecap on the stone, and then both crumpled and curled into the ground like dogs sleeping in the sun.

Manny had frozen. His arms out by his sides, he watched bewildered as the three men around him were knocked out cold in under four seconds.

Bubba stood behind him, a metal trash can lid raised like a gladiator’s shield. He tapped Manny on the shoulder and Manny got a sick look on his face.

When he turned around, Bubba’s free hand found the back of his head, grabbed it tight, and then the metal lid snapped down four times, each hit sounding like the wet splat of a watermelon dropped from the roof of a row house.

“Manny,” Bubba said as Manny sagged toward the ground. Bubba yanked at his hair and Manny’s body twisted in his grip, loose and elastic. “Manny,” Bubba repeated, “how’s it going, pal?”

They tossed Manny and John in the back of the van, then lifted the other two guys and threw them into the back of the garbage truck with the stewed tomotoes and black bananas and empty frozen-food trays.

For one scary moment, Nelson put his hand on the hydraulic line lever at the back of the truck and said, “Can I, Bubba? Can I?”

“Better not,” Bubba said. “Might make too much noise.”

Nelson nodded, but he looked sad.