I cruise the streets, smelling cheap tacos and junkie vomit, searching the faces of whores. Searching. I drink rusty water at the Darkside; some of the old guys remember me from the neighborhood, but no one gets my name right. I slip down Twentieth and pay a visit to Mama Lamia the Palm Reader in her curio shop, stalking the shadows among shrunken heads, ritual daggers, voodoo dolls. No shit, Jakey, you ain’t a little boy no more…. She has to be fifty years old, but she never stops coming on to us young bucks. No one’s ever been sure if she’s Cuban or Haitian or Puerto Rican or what. You’re nice and big, Jake…where you been? “Listen, Mama Lamia, I need a little heat, could you help me out?” Sounds like you got enough heat of your own, pretty boy…was it hard time? I smile. “Hard as it gets, Mama. You know what I mean. Some hardware.” Foreign or domestic? “Either one.” Preferred caliber? “Thirty-eight’ll do, short barrel if you got it, nothing too heavy.” How about .38 special? Detective Special? “Better still, I always wanted to be a detective.”

Mama L. takes me into the back room, hands me the piece. It’s a simple weapon, black as death, nothing pretty, but it’ll do the job if it comes down to it and the job needs doing. Mama L. lets me check it out, roll the cylinders, check the action. The grip and trigger are wrapped with that porous tape that won’t take prints. Nice touch. Mama L. carries only the best. “How much?” I could set you up for a dollar, with one of those shoulder holsters like in the pictures and a nice box of shells. “A dollar? Damn, Mama, where’d you get this piece?” Took it off my thirty-sixth husband when I took a cleaver to his head last night, okay, Jake? I should know better than to ask Mama Lamia dumb-ass questions. I give her two fifties, strap on the holster, slip the gun into it. I put my old jacket on over the rig.

She pushes me up against the back counter, her hand groping my crotch. She kisses me hard, and I let her tongue sink into my mouth. It feels good after these years, and she knows it; she feels me getting hard. She puts her hand down my pants and feels my cock, stiff.