We was standing in the shadows, smoking, we was waiting, see? And the bat cold as it was in my fist, and the chill seeping through our jackets. Little leather jackets, like Travolta in that movie, that’s what we all was wearing then. And so we was waiting and then we was waiting and then the guy I’m with, he stamps out his cig and says, ‘There’s the bastard, right on time.’ And I look up, and there he is all right.

“Just a shadow. Coming closer. And when he gets close enough, with that crazy moon glowing down on him, we get a pretty good look-see. He’s about our age, tall and lanky, his hair a mop of black that falls over his eyes. He wears jeans and a black turtleneck, he carries the suitcase. It’s a hard shell Samsonite thing like they had back then, and the light of the moon, dying on his dark clothes and hair, catches the shiny surface of the suitcase so that it sort of glows on its own. We can tells that it’s heavy, it pulls down his right shoulder so the whole angle of him is tilted, as he walks toward us.

“And then he senses something wrong. He stops, turns, calls out, something like ‘Johnny’ it was, and he calls it out again, but he gets no answer. When he turns around again we done stepped out of the shadows.

“There’s a moment when he figures out what is happening and then the strangest thing. You’d think he’d run, or come out swinging, or something. I was worried that maybe he’d be carrying and me, all I had was that stupid bat. But there’s this little smile comes on his face and he starts talking to us, you know, being all friendly. ‘How you guys doing? Nice night, isn’t it? Think we can work something out?’ Like he’s charming us, like he’s going to talk us out of it. But he’s not, is he? The other guy, he says to me, ‘Shut ’im up, Cheaps.’

“ ‘Shut ’im up, Cheaps.’ And sos that’s what I tries to do. One-handed is all, I don’t mean to hurt him much, I want to get him in the arm, shake him up.