The time was early afternoon, and the place was nearly deserted. One bartender was on duty, with three customers to keep him company at the bar. The tables were all empty, and no waiter or waitress was in sight.
Yancy said, ‘This way.’ He went first to the bar, saying, ‘Hi, Eddie.’
‘Whadaya say, Yancy?’
‘Bottle in the back, boy?’
‘Sure thing, Yancy.’
‘You’re my pal.’ He turned to Parker and motioned with his head. ‘Come on.’
Yancy was enjoying himself, being the big man on the local scene showing off for the out-of-towner. It didn’t bother Parker. Just so Yancy did what he was supposed to do, he could choose any style he liked.
They walked now down the length of the bar and through a door at the back marked ‘Office’. But the door didn’t lead to an office, it led to a short hall with doors to left and right. The door on the left also said ‘Office’, but it was through the door on the right that Yancy led the way.
They were in a storeroom, piled high with cases of liquor. At a small table in a cleared space near the door sat a short stocky man with snow-white hair and the red-veined nose of an alcoholic. He had been playing solitaire. An ashtray on the table was mounded high with cigarette butts.
Yancy said, ‘Hey, there, Humboldt. How’s it going?’
Humboldt said, ‘You got a cigarette, Yancy? I run out.’ He had a nasal voice, a whiner’s voice, full of grievance and complaint. The voice went with a smaller thinner body than Humboldt’s.
Yancy said, ‘They got a whole machine up front. You run the place yourself, cop a pack.’
‘I didn’t feel like walkin’ all the way out.’
Yancy laughed and shook his head. ‘You smoke too much, Humboldt,’ he said, ‘and you walk too little. You’ll croak after all.’
‘Don’t say things like that. Gimme a cigarette.’
Yancy dropped his pack on the table. ‘This is Parker,’ he said, nodding his head towards Parker. ‘He’s here for some equipment.’
Humboldt said, ‘This the special order they told me about?’ But he was too busy getting at one of Yancy’s cigarettes to show much interest.
‘This is him,’ Yancy said. He turned to Parker. ‘Last year,’ he said, ‘the doctor told Humboldt either he cut out the sauce or he’d be dead in six months. And I mean an important doctor, a doctor that knew his business, got his own column in the newspaper and been on TV and everything.’ He looked to Humboldt. ‘Isn’t that right?’
Humboldt had the cigarette going now. ‘That doctor saved my life,’ he said.
‘Yeah. We’ll see.’ Back to Parker, Yancy said, ‘Humboldt hasn’t had a drink since, not a taste. So he smokes instead, four five packs a day. And he eats, all the time. He put on seventy pounds so far, maybe more. Isn’t that right, Humboldt?’
Humboldt said, ‘I’m alive, ain’t I?’
‘Sure you are.’ Yancy laughed and pulled one of the other chairs out from the car table and sat down. Motioning to Parker to take the third chair, at Humboldt’s left, he said, ‘Humboldt don’t walk any more, he weighs too much. He’s tired all the time, and his mouth burns from all the weeds, and his stomach gives him a lot of trouble, but he’s alive. That’s the word he uses for it, alive. Isn’t that right, Humboldt?’
Humboldt said, ‘I’m stayin’ alive to give you pleasure, Yancy, that’s the only reason.’ The cigarette stuck in the corner of his mouth, he seemed more at ease and with less of a whine in his voice.
The bartender came in then with a bottle and two glasses. Humboldt shouted, ‘Get that garbage out of here!’
The bartender looked flustered. He said, ‘Yancy told me’
‘He wants to drink,’ Humboldt said, ‘he can go to the bar.’
Yancy waved his arm, saying, ‘Humboldt, you’re in a room full of the stuff. What’s with you?’
‘You and your booze get out of here, that’s all.’
Yancy shrugged and turned to Parker. ‘You need me right away?’
‘No.’
‘Come on, Eddie.’
Yancy and the bartender left. Humboldt said to Parker, ‘You want to go with him, come back when you’re full?’
Parker said, ‘I’m here to buy guns.’
In a different tone, Humboldt said, ‘You were with Yancy, I figured you were like him.’
There was nothing to say to that. Parker waited.
Humboldt made a small gesture with his right hand, brushing something away. ‘You want guns,’ he said. ‘No drink, no cigarettes, no conversation, just guns.’
There was still nothing to say.
Humboldt shook his head. ‘You and Yancy,’ he said. ‘Opposite sides of the same coin. What sort of guns you want?’
‘Four handguns, any kind. Two machine guns. Four hand grenades.’
