I hadn't paid Bobby my
interest again
this week.
Bobby was a loan shark, down on 32nd and Charleston. He had himself a little bar as a front, but out back was where he really made a killing. . so to speak, of course. Anyways, usually Bobby didn't chase people for his money back. If they couldn't afford to pay him, he was wasting his time trying to get it out of them. On the other hand, I could pay him.. I just hadn't remembered to yet.
"It's really not my fault that I'm terribly absent-minded. I was dropped on my head when I was a baby," I told Bobby.
"I don't wanna hear it, Sam. Boys, get a batch of quik-set ready."
"Oh jesus, Bobby, no, I'll run and get you the money right now!"
"Don't mattah much to me, Sammy boy. My boys will clean your place out later tonight and find your stash. Probably have it under your mattress or someplace painfully typical, if I know you, Sam."
He was right. Exactly right, even. I was painfully typical, too, come to think of it. My wife was sleeping with my bookie and I couldn't do anything about it because the bookie had enough dirt on me to take me to the cleaners. Damnable bitch. "Bobby.." I stammered. Bobby was such a small, harmless name for such a large, harmful man. Shaking in my boots, I stood in the middle of the back room, under the bare, swinging lightbulb.
Bobby looked up from his Cuban cigar and pointed the glowing end at me. "You had yer chance, Sam. You'll pay, alright."
"What are you going to do to me, Bobby?" His men came back in the room and lifted me into a knee-high barrel.
"Stand here," one of them told me, poking his finger into my chest to make his point. I stood there, shaking uncontrollably, while they poured the cold concrete around my ankles.
Bobby smiled and said to me, "I like recycling, Sam, and so I've decided to recycle you. In the harbor. You'll be fish meal."
One of his men took a meaty fist to my skull and I lost consciousness.