A thin man in a red Ban-lon sweater, sitting at the center table, took his White Owl from his mouth and put it in the ashtray. He put his cards down, very carefully, face down. He said: “Oh oh.”

Frankie shook his head.

The bathroom door opened and Mark Trattman emerged, combing his long gray hair. His head was tilted to the right and he was looking at the aquamarine carpet as he combed. He said: “Okay, you—”

Russell stuck the barrel of the thirty-eight in his face. Trattman looked up, slowly. The muscles in his face relaxed. He looked beyond Russell and the thirty-eight, into the room. He saw Frankie. “Uh huh,” Trattman said, “well, I hope you guys know what you’re doing. I’ll get it.”

Russell looked at Frankie. Frankie nodded. Russell lowered the thirty-eight. Trattman walked past Russell to the closet and opened the louvered doors. He took two Samsonite attaché cases from the floor of the closet. He backed out of the closet into the room. He turned and walked toward the bed nearest the washstand. He put the cases on the bed. Russell trained the thirty-eight on him as he moved.

“Can I sit down now?” Trattman said. He looked at Russell. Russell looked at Frankie. Frankie nodded. Russell looked back at Trattman. Russell nodded. Trattman sat down on the second bed. He clasped his hands between his legs.

Russell went to the bed. He shifted the thirty-eight to his left hand. He opened each of the cases with his right hand. Each case was full of currency. Russell closed one case. He left the other case open. He straightened up. He stepped back. He nodded to Frankie.

Frankie stepped forward to the table nearest the door. He stopped at the first man. The man wore a light blue turtleneck. He had gray, close-cropped hair. Frankie held the shotgun close to his face; the re-crimped fronts of the shells were next to his eyes. The man said: “No.”

Trattman said: “You guys, don’t do that. You guys’ve got all the money.”

Frankie said: “What you got in your pockets. Put it onna table.”

Trattman said: “Leave the poor bastard alone.”

Russell moved forward quickly. Frankie stepped back, away from the man in the turtleneck.

“They’ll get you for this,” Trattman said.

Russell came up close to Trattman. He touched Trattman on the point of the chin with the thirty-eight. The other men watched. Frankie watched the other men. Russell forced Trattman’s head back, by applying pressure with the thirty-eight. Trattman’s torso bent in a backward arch as his head went back. He steadied himself by placing his hands flat on the bed. His eyes bulged. He did not speak. When he was rising off the bed, Russell took the thirty-eight back suddenly. Trattman relaxed forward. He said: “I don’t care, they’ll—” Russell hit Trattman with the barrel of the thirty-eight, using a chopping motion that caught Trattman at the base of his neck, at the collar. Trattman groaned but succeeded in keeping himself upright on the bed.

Frankie stepped forward. He held the shotgun close to the face of the man in the blue turtleneck. The man leaned forward in the chair. He took out his wallet. He removed currency and put it on the table.

While the man in the blue turtleneck worked, Frankie swung the shotgun to point at the next man. He wore a pale green polo shirt. The man reached for his wallet.

“Now there’s two ways of doing this,” Frankie said. “There’s the easy way and there’s the hard way. The easy way’s for all you guys to just go ahead and start doing what these guys’re doing. The hard way’s to make us come around and all, which’s gonna make me nervous. And, see him?” Frankie gestured toward Russell with the shotgun. “Me, feeling good, that’s a lot like him, nervous. When I get nervous, well, you oughta see him, is what I think, but I wouldn’t want to. Not if he had the gun. Which he does. Now what we want, we want what you got in your wallets and your shoes and your coats and like that. And them neat little belts that got the zippers on the inside, them, too, what’s in them. You can either start putting it out now, or you can sit there and act like you haven’t got it in your sock or something. Then after everybody’s all through putting out what they wanna put out, me and my nervous friend’re gonna go around and make sure. And the guys, the guys that didn’t remember everything, we’re at least gonna knock their teeth out. How’s that, huh?”

None of the men said anything.

“Good,” Frankie said. “That’s the way I feel, too. The less guys that get hurt, the better. So, don’t fuck around. Just give it all up and keep quiet and nobody gets hurt. It’s only money.”

The rest of the men got out their wallets and put money on the tables. Two men removed loafers, with brass hardware on the insteps, and took money out and put it on the tables. One man, in a blue plaid shirt, removed his belt, opened a zipper compartment on the inside and took out four fifty-dollar bills, folded once in half lengthwise. He put them on the table in front of him.

Frankie returned to the door. Russell moved from table to table, collecting the money. He put the money in the open attaché case. He shut the case. Russell put the thirty-eight in his belt. He picked up one case in each hand. Frankie stepped forward two paces. Russell passed behind him and stood near the door.

“I changed my mind,” Frankie said. “He’s too nervous. He wants to leave. I never fuck with this guy. We’re not gonna go over you after all. You been very smart. Stay smart. Nobody’s dead. Don’t try to follow us.

Russell opened the door and went out. He walked quickly on the deck to the stairs. He set down the bag in his right hand and used the hand to remove the ski mask. He put the mask in his pocket. He picked up the bag. He went down the stairs quietly, with the two cases.

Frankie moved the shotgun back and forth slowly, covering the room. He waited forty seconds or so. None of the men moved. Frankie stood near the door.

Frankie opened the door quickly, backed through it, shut it and dragged one of the chairs in front of it. He waited.

Frankie stepped back from the door. He put the shotgun under his coat. He moved quickly down the deck. He removed his mask as he went. He went down the stairs quickly and across the parking lot. Russell was in the car. Frankie got in on the driver’s side and started the engine. The Chrysler, without lights, traveled quickly and quietly down the drive, under the oaks, into the dark.

AT FIVE MINUTES PAST TWO in the afternoon the silver Toronado, black vinyl roof, Rhode Island registration 651 RJ, came up Boylston Street and eased into the curb lane in front of a flocked emerald-green-and-white Fleetwood illegally parked in front of the 1776 Pub. The Toronado stopped in front of Brigham’s, a car length from the Tremont Street intersection.

Jackie Cogan, in a pilled suede coat, dropped his Salem on the sidewalk, stepped on it, and got into the Toronado. He shut the door. Without looking at the driver he said: “Hang a right and go a couple blocks.”

The driver wore a light gray, glen plaid suit. He had very long white hair. He put the Hydramatic in gear. “This isn’t near the courthouse, I assume,” he said.

“Nah,” Cogan said. “Just a big hole. All the construction jocks, that’s all there is. There’s always three or four of them, sitting in their cars, trying to get warm. Forget it.”

The driver turned the Toronado right on Tremont Street. “He was very concerned,” he said. “When I told him I called and Dillon said to see you, he was very concerned. How is the fellow?”

“He’s not good,” Cogan said. “He came in Monday, he was out about three weeks and he came in Monday and he hadda have a guy come in and take over for him. I don’t think he was in at all, Tuesday and Wednesday, and then yesterday he called me, the guy he had those days was tied up and could I get somebody. So I did. He’s not in today, either. They told, the doctor said if he took things easy, he was inna hospital over two and a half weeks, and then if he took it easy, he oughta be all right this week. So, he’s around but he looks shitty, and I saw him, I saw him yesterday. He’s still getting it in the arm and he says it makes him nervous, still, not smoking, he’d probably be better off if he was. Says it feels like somebody stuck a knife in his chest.”