He nodded his agreement.

“Get in the back and let’s talk.”

Opening the door to the backseat, Flynn wondered how they were supposed to talk over the racket the sound system was making. To his surprise, the driver, a thin black man even younger than the one who had first addressed him, turned the music off without being asked even before they pulled away from the curb.

“Hear tell you’re lookin’ to put the hurt on someone,” the passenger-side rider said.

“There’s someone I want made an example of,” Flynn said, carefully. “Hospitalized or dead. Doesn’t make any difference to me. If things are the same here as other places in the country, hospitalized costs more.”

That was standard for rough-off work. Just hospitalizing someone meant the musclemen had to know what they were doing. It also left the victim alive to identify them and possibly press charges. In short, it usually cost more to have someone’s arm broken than it did to have them killed.

“Either way, it’ll cost,” said the passenger.

“Cash,” added the driver.

“I know,” Flynn said. “I’ve got the money with me.”

There was a moment’s silence.

“ ’Course, we could just stick a gun in your face and take the money,” the passenger said, casually. “Save ourselves a bit of work.”

Flynn heaved a mental sigh and let his glamour flow out.

“Just to keep things simple, let’s pretend we’ve all done things like this before,” he said with a smile. “Now I do a lot of work away from my home base. Over the years, I’ve developed a method for finding . . . shall we say, special help when I’m in a strange town. Back home, part of what I do is to provide certain of my clients with various types of illegal substances. If I need help, what I do is call home to my regular supplier. He in turn contacts one of the handlers in the area I’m in and arranges a meet, which is why we’re talking now.”