City of Night

bottle of anisette.
    None of the poker players seemed to have the slightest interest in Carson and Michael. Neither the woman nor the transvestite winked at him.
    In the middle of the table were stacks of poker chips. If the greens were fifties and the blacks were hundreds, there was perhaps eighty thousand dollars riding on this hand.
    Another shaved gorilla stood by a window. He carried his piece in a paddle holster at his hip, and he kept his hand on it as Carson and Michael passed through his duty station.
    A third door led to a shabby conference room that smelled like lung cancer. Twelve chairs stood around a scarred table on which were fourteen ashtrays.
    At the head of the table sat a man with a merry face, lively blue eyes, and a mustache. His Justin Wilson hat rested on the tops of his jug-handle ears.
    He rose as they approached, revealing that he wore his pants above his waistline, between his navel and his breasts.
    Their mama duck said, “Mr. Godot, though they smells like da worst kind of righteous, these here be da ones what were vouched by Aubrey, so don’t bust my stones if’n you got to gaff ‘em like catfish ‘fore dis be finished.”
    To the right of the man with jug ears and slightly behind him stood Big Foot in a seersucker suit. He made the previous gorillas look like mere chimps.
    Big Foot looked as if he would not only kill them but eat them at the smallest provocation.
    Godot, on the other hand, was hospitable. He held out his right hand and said, “Any friend to Aubrey, he a friend to me, ‘specially when he come with cash money.”
    Shaking the offered hand, Michael said, “I expected we’d have to wait for you, Mr. Godot, not the other way around. I hope we’re not late.”
    “Right on da minute,” Godot assured him. “And who might be dis charmin’ eyeful?”
    “This charmin’ eyeful,” Carson said, “is the one with the cash money.”
    “You done just got even prettier,” Godot told her.
    As Carson withdrew two fat rolls of hundred-dollar bills from her jacket pockets, Godot picked up one of two suitcases from the floor beside his chair and put it on the table.
    Big Foot kept both hands free.
    Godot opened the case, revealing two Urban Sniper shotguns with sidesaddle shell carriers and three-way slings. The barrels had been cut down to fourteen inches. With the guns were four boxes of shells, slugs not buckshot, which was the only thing the Sniper fired.
    Carson said, “You are a formidable resource, Mr. Godot.”
    “Mama so wanted a preacher son, and Daddy, rest his soul, he set on me bein’ a welder like hisself, but I most truly rebelled against bein’ a poor Cajun, so I done found my bliss, and here I is.”
    The second suitcase was smaller than the first. It contained two Desert Eagles in .50 Magnum with titanium gold finish. Packed beside the guns were the boxes of ammunition as requested and two spare magazines for each weapon.
    “You for sure ready for what recoil dat monster pays you back?” Godot asked.
    Wary of the big pistols, Michael said, “No, sir, I pretty much expect it to knock me on my ass.”
    Amused, Godot said, “My concern be dis lady here, son, not your strappin’ self.”
    “The Eagle has a smooth action,” Carson said, “less kick than you’d think. It slams back hard, sure, but so do I. From thirty feet, I could put all nine rounds in the magazine between your groin and your throat, not one higher, not one wide.”
    This statement brought Big Foot forward, glowering.
    “Rest yourself,” Godot told his bodyguard. “She done made no threat. Dat just braggin’.”
    Closing the suitcase that contained the pistols, Carson said, “Are you going to count your money?”
    “You da most tough I seen in a while, but you also gots some saint in you. I’d be so bad surprised did it turn out you thieved me even some littlest bit.”
    Carson couldn’t suppress a smile. “Every dollar’s there.”
    “Mr. Godot,” Michael said, “it’s been comfortable doing business with you, knowing we’re dealing with real human beings.”
    “Dat’s most cordial of you to say,” Godot replied, “most cordial, and it sounds true from da heart.”
    “It is,” Michael said. “It really is.”
     
     
     

Chapter 25
     
    Randal Six stands in the furnace closet on the ground floor, listening to Billy Joel singing in an upper room.
    The closet measures approximately six by seven feet. Even the dim blue glow of the gas pilot flame and the