“Plus the eight hundert dollars I owed him before the fight,” said Billy Constable sadly.

“I forgot about that,” said Jimmy Joel.

“Well, it’s a lot better than owin’ both guys a hundert and ninety thousand dollars, ain’t it?”

“I’m lost,” said Jimmy Joel.

“I owe the bookie a hundert and ninety thousand dollars plus eight hundert dollars now,” explained Billy patiently, “for a total of”—Billy did the addition with his finger on top of the restaurant table—“a hundert an’ ninety thousand eight hundert dollars. If Sanseli finds out about the box of ringside tickets and pins it on me, I’ll owe him a hundert and ninety thousand dollars too. If I add that to what I owe the bookie, I’ll keel over from a heart attack.”

“Me too,” said Jimmy Joel Jenks.

The two boys sat quietly for a minute.

“What if Sonny can’t explain?” asked Jimmy Joel. “Or what if The Chop doesn’t believe—”

“Damn it, JJ, why do ya keep makin’ things worse than they already are? It ain’t my problem if Sonny can’t explain anythin’.”

“You’re right, it ain’t,” said Jimmy Joel Jenks, thinking to himself, thank the good Lord I ain’t in poor Billy’s shoes.

Billy Constable walked back to the office wondering how in the hell he got himself into such a mess. As he approached the entrance to the apartment building, he saw Sonny Lieberman being escorted by two tough-looking guys to a gray van parked around the corner on West Sixty-second Street. One of the tough guys pushed the door open. Billy watched as Sonny was shoved inside, watched him forced into a seat on the left side of the van against the side that didn’t have a door. One of the tough guys sat between Sonny and the door. A driver and another man were sitting up front. Two other men were sitting on the seat behind Sonny Lieberman. Billy recognized one of the men sitting in the back. The one Billy recognized was Giuseppe “The Chop” Sanseli.

The tough guy who had accompanied Sonny to the truck slammed the door shut and smacked the window, signaling to the driver to go. The man on the pavement walked west on Sixty-second Street. He turned right on Broadway and got lost in a crowd of pedestrians.

Billy Constable never saw Sonny Lieberman again.

Nobody ever did.

Before one week was out, Retta Mae Wagons understood that she had made a terrible mistake. Though she never questioned Jamal about anything again, he slapped Retta Mae around “on general principles,” he liked to say. It didn’t make a lot of sense to Retta Mae, but then she wasn’t living with a sensible man. She figured the imam just got his kicks that way. Got his blood going. Got something going, she guessed. The fucker sure wasn’t any Fourth of July in bed.