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like you're bag ladies or somethin', and look through the cans till you find the right one."
    At that moment, Shack turned back from the wall. In his hands, he held a shopping bag, an old, dirty one with the name of a department store printed on it. Behind him, Joe and Crank could see a large gap in the wall, a space where two cement blocks had been removed. It was too dark in the remote basement corner to see what was hidden in the hole, but Joe and Crank already knew what was there.
    "Is that the stuff, man?" asked Crank casually, pointing at the bag.
    Shack nodded. "Yeah, this is the shit. Here." He handed Crank the bag. "There's three packages in there, okay? You know where to take them, and you know what to do with them. They've all got the same amount of stuff, so it doesn't really matter which one you deliver where, all right?"
    "Yeah," said Joe. "No problem, man."
    "Most of all, watch your damn asses. Be careful when you deliver, don't look suspicious." Shack paused, looking the two guys over for a moment. "Well, try not to look suspicious, anyhow. The last thing we need right now is trouble, you got it? Lotsa' guys're gettin' busted lately, and I don't want that happenin' to us. All I want is to run a nice, square business and make a little money, that's all. You get caught, you've never heard of us, you've never seen us. Understand?"
    Crank nodded. "Yeah, we know. Don't worry."
    "I am worryin', shitface. You guys do the job, you always deliver and everything, but you've never been hauled in. All we need right now is a couple of fuckups narkin' to the cops. Just watch your butts, and maybe we won't never have to worry about it. As for the cash, you take it to the usual place and drop it off around midnight. You get your money on Saturday, as usual. Okay?"
    Joe and Crank both nodded.
    "All right, then. Get the fuck outta' here." Joe and Crank left, yanking the curtain of moldy blankets shut behind them.

    *****

    Chapter Seven

    It took the rest of the day for Joe and Crank to finish delivering for the pushers. The packages for the South Side didn't take long, since their drop-off places were both nearby, but the one for Hoover had to be carried farther away. Hoover was a borough of Brownstown, about five miles from the South Side, and Joe and Crank had to walk the whole way across town to get there.
    As always, the day's work went off without any problems. There was no trouble, no run-ins or close calls with leery cops; the delivery spots were exactly as the pushers had described them, with no changes or surprises. At 120 Maxwell Street, Joe and Crank walked down an alley, knocked on a dirty side door, gave a bundle to a black man named Teddy, and got an envelope back. Beside the gate at Global Steel, they placed a package in a big trash barrel with a runny "X" spray-painted on the side, and left with an envelope they found inside the barrel. In Hoover, they spent some time looking through garbage cans behind the YMCA; when they found the right one, they tossed in their final package, then walked away with yet another cash-crammed envelope. Everything went smoothly, and once again, Joe and Crank earned their forty dollar pay.
    At about nine o'clock, the two finally made their way back downtown, tired from hiking all day and ready for a beer and a smoke. It was dark and chilly by then, and Joe and Crank were both shivering. Neither of them had a jacket on, and neither owned a jacket to begin with; they only wore T-shirts which blocked the popsicle breeze like cheap paper towels.
    "D-damn, it's cold! I'm f-freezin' my balls off!" chattered Joe, rubbing his arms rapidly.
    "Ah, fuck you," said Crank. "This ain't nothin'. You ain't got no balls to freeze anyhow."
    "Fuck yourself, man. You ain't cold 'cause you got all that blubber to hold in the heat. Me, I'm no fuckin' whale, and I'm cold. Let's go somewhere."
    Crank held up the shopping bag full of money. "Like where, bud? We're stuck with this shit till midnight. All we