Eddie knew it would really fuck the kid up.

From experience he knew it.

One of the good guys, Henry had said, but the guy who showed up had been a sallow-skinned thing with a British accent, a hairline moustache that looked like something out of a 1940’s film noire, and yellow teeth that all leaned inward, like the teeth of a very old animal trap.

“You have the key, Senor?” he asked, except in that British public school accent it came out sounding like what you called your last year of high school.

“The key’s safe,” Eddie said, “if that’s what you mean.”

“Then give it to me.”

“That’s not the way it goes. You’re supposed to have something to take me through the weekend. Sunday night you’re supposed to bring me something. I give you the key. Monday you go into town and use it to get something else. I don’t know what, ’cause that’s not my business.”

Suddenly there was a small flat blue automatic in the sallow-skinned thing’s hand. “Why don’t you just give it to me, Senor? I will save time and effort; you will save your life.”

There was deep steel in Eddie Dean, junkie or no junkie. Henry knew it; more important, Balazar knew it. That was why he had been sent. Most of them thought he had gone because he was hooked through the bag and back again. He knew it, Henry knew it, Balazar, too. But only he and Henry knew he would have gone even if he was as straight as a stake. For Henry. Balazar hadn’t got quite that far in his figuring, but fuck Balazar.

“Why don’t you just put that thing away, you little scuzz?” Eddie asked. “Or do you maybe want Balazar to send someone down here and cut your eyes out of your head with a rusty knife?”

The sallow thing smiled. The gun was gone like magic; in its place was a small envelope. He handed it to Eddie. “Just a little joke, you know.”

“If you say so.”

“I see you Sunday night.”

He turned toward the door.

“I think you better wait.”

The sallow thing turned back, eyebrows raised. “You think I won’t go if I want to go?”

“I think if you go and this is bad shit, I’ll be gone tomorrow. Then you’ll be in deep shit.”

The sallow thing turned sulky. It sat in the room’s single easy chair while Eddie opened the envelope and spilled out a small quantity of brown stuff. It looked evil. He looked at the sallow thing.

“I know how it looks, it looks like shit, but that’s just the cut,” the sallow thing said. “It’s fine.”

Eddie tore a sheet of paper from the notepad on the desk and separated a small amount of the brown powder from the pile. He fingered it and then rubbed it on the roof of his mouth. A second later he spat into the wastebasket.

“You want to die? Is that it? You got a death-wish?”