I pick up a necklace, beads of pastel candies strung on a choker of elastic.

– You got over it.

He takes the candy wand out of his mouth.

– Hey, get hard up enough, who isn’t gonna come see the Candy Man? Telling me you never darkened his doorway?

I drop the necklace in the side pocket of my leather coat.

– I was a Rogue. I didn’t have a Clan or a gang backing me up if I went off my home turf. Coming down here before I hooked back up with Terry, that wasn’t an option.

He waves the wand.

– Shit, Joe, we would have had your back.

I go behind the counter and poke around in the drawers and the register.

– Yeah, and that would have cost me something.

He dips up more of the purple powder.

– Never said nothing in life wasn’t free.

I find the hogleg back of the counter and put it next to the register.

– Never said you did.

He points at the sawed-off double barrel.

– Loaded?

I pick up the gun and crack the breech and show him the two 12-gauge shells inside.

He shakes his head.

– Imagine keeping something like that around in a shop fulla kids.

I snap it closed and tuck it into my belt at the small of my back, letting the coat fall over it.

He takes a look.

– Pretty good conceal. Long as you don’t start doing jumping jacks it won’t show too bad.

I find a half-full box of shells and put it in the pocket with the necklace.

Christian drops the remains of the Fun Dip in a wastebasket and wipes the back of his hand over his purple-stained lips.

– Makes you wonder, though.

– Huh?

– Why he kept the gauge up here with the kiddies instead of downstairs where the real dangerous types were coming in.