And then a big gun, a .38 or .45, boomed twice, so loud it deafened him.

Half blinded by blood and grit, Mohr looked up as Borghino fell away from the car. His mouth full of dirt, his ears ringing, he was about to scramble up and confront the suit. That guy had to be the shooter. But a white-hot bomb went off inside his head, and he tumbled down into darkness.

Restricted to camp after the riot, Slim Jim Davidson was anxious to hear from Big Itchy. The confinement was driving him nuts. He feared the dumb gangster would be so preoccupied by the destruction of his clubs on Hotel Street that he wouldn’t have followed through on the plan to clean out the stateside bookies. Slim Jim was stretched out in his rack, cursing his luck and the suck-ass pattern of his so-called life, when the cry of “Mail call” went up.

Moose Molloy Jr., who was resting on his cot, leapt to his feet.

“C’mon, Slim Jim. Mail’s here,” he enthused.

“Big fucking deal,” said Slim Jim flatly.

“Oh don’t be like that. We’ll be out of here soon. I even heard they’re gonna kick the niggers—sorry, the African Americans—off those ships and let us crew ’em. Wouldn’t that be great, Slim Jim? Can you imagine fighting the Japs in one of them babies? They’d never lay a glove on you.”

“Yeah?” said Davidson. “They gonna leave the pussy in place? Did you happen to hear that?”

Moose didn’t pick up on the sarcasm.

“No,” he answered ingenuously, “I didn’t hear nothing about the lady sailors. I don’t reckon they’d let us keep them, though. There’d be another riot if everyone thought we was getting girlfriends and a new ship.”

“Oh, God,” groaned Davidson as he pulled a threadbare pillow out from under his head and attempted to smother himself with it.

Moose waited patiently for another minute before asking whether Slim Jim was planning on getting up. They could already hear the mail being handed out in the distance.

“C’mon, Slim Jim, maybe some Girl Guide sent you some cookies.”

“Unless she sent me a picture of her fanny I couldn’t care less,” he moped.

“Slim Jim!”

Moose seemed genuinely offended that anyone could sully the image of the Girl Guides of America. As far as he was concerned, protecting them from the ravages of the Japs was one of the main reasons they were here, camping out in this godforsaken burned-out cane field.

“I’ll tell you what, Moose,” Davidson said finally, “if I get any Girl Guide cookies, you bring ’em back for me, and we’ll share them.”

“Is that a promise?”

“You can bank on it. Just let me get some rest.”