The Cupid Gang, Part 2.

The crowd of men milling around the warehouse was beginning to grow impatient.

There were 15 of them in all, and before the last meeting, two nights earlier, there had been 22.

The men were nervous, returning to a location that seemed to be

known to crime's most feared enemy, but they represented the shallow end of the underworld's

talent pool, and they were not overwhelmed by other invitations to earn a dishonest living.

When the summons had arrived calling them back to work,

they had each felt a lack of alternatives that trumped their natural cowardice.

Where's Mike?

A tall, wiry man with a beard-ass angrily.

Where's Hank?

Hank ain't coming, a man in a battered slouch hat replied. I saw him two hours ago,

and he didn't know nothing about this meeting. Said we were daffy to come back to a place that the panda knows.

There was a low rumble that seemed to indicate agreement for most of the group.

Same for Mike. Another man said in low, slow tones.

"'I seen him on the way here, and he wasn't coming to any meeting he didn't call.'

"'The wiry man was angry now.

"'Well, if Mike and Hank didn't call this meeting, then who did?

He asked no one, and everyone at once.

I did, a voice said from the old foreman's office high above.

The assembly of would-be toughs crane there next to see as the speaker stepped into the light.

It was Jinks Kenny, better dress than anyone

...