Louie threw his hands up and rubbed them over his face with an angry gesture. “For chrissakes! You out your mind or something? You think you can walk in here and give me a crazy quota just like that and think everybody’s gonna jump? You think you can-”

“You’re damn right I can.”

Louie gave a little gasp, as if he wasn’t sure he had heard right Then he changed his tack. “Does Pendleton know about this?”

“You’re dealing with me, not Pendleton.”

“I’m asking a question,” Louie screeched. “I wanna know if the boss knows about this deal you’re pulling with me!”

Benny’s hand came out fast and hooked into the shirt under Louie’s neck. “Whom are you calling a crook, you bastard?”

Louie’s face was getting mottled. “You crazy runt,” he said.

Benny pulled the man close with a sudden jerk. “Whom are you calling a runt?” he said, and suddenly there was his other hand. It whipped across Louie’s swollen face, the hard knuckles making a sound like stone where they hit Then he let go of the shirt and Louie stumbled to the floor.

Benny paid no attention. He had turned back to the table and was counting the money in the cashbox. Once he nodded to the man on the floor and told him to get up. “The rest of the cash,” he said. “I’m in a hurry.” Then he finished counting.

When he was through he lit another cigarette and watched Louie rummage in the safe. “Count it out on the table,” he said, and he watched how Louie’s hands were shaking. “Add it in the book.” He put the money into the box, signed the receipt book, and handed it to Louie. “See you next week.” Benny left with the box under his arm.

That night he carried a leather satchel through a door marked “Imports, Inc., Alfred B. Kent, Pres.” and threw the case on a desk where a thin guy in a pin-stripe suit was tapping an adding machine. Then he sat down by the water cooler and waited. Twenty minutes later the thin guy looked up and said, “Hey, Benny.”