These days, he's got reason enough to be flighty, distracted, on account of owing Beans a boatload of cash for tabs. He can't move them fast enough to cover the vig, which is enormous and only getting bigger every hour, so he knows it's just a matter of time before he's pinched or worse, snatched up and brought to the big, red brick building south of the city, the House of Pain. The little shit looks like he hasn't slept in over a week. If he wasn't a complete cunt, and if I wasn't sent to punch his ticket, I might feel bad for him. Lucky for me it's a Tuesday, which means I'm solvent from Monday's earnings, shakedowns and collections from fights and loans, which means I'm a right far off from anything resembling a conscience. I'm only truly capable of normal human feelings when I'm cash poor and needy. Something about the hunger, the struggle, brings out the philosopher in me. Mean streets breed needs but Rabbit's not from here. He's got as much business here as a bitch in a boxing match. He's about to get a free lesson in the exacting science of consequences; cause meets effect meets the business end of my bad side.

Rabbit's all balls with shit for brains. He's wired on pure instinct, but instinct can only save your hide so many times. He'd run them in the clubs if he could, but too many cops listen to techno these days. They'd lurk in the spots and roll him up after the sale or worse, jack him for product, extort him, beat him down, and dump him in the wrong hood. The streets are just as bad. Between the Latin Kings, 2-6 Nation, Latin Saints, the Maniac Latin Satan's Disciples, the Milwaukee Kings, Latin Counts, Bishops, Gangsta Disciple Nation, and fuck knows who else, this city is pretty sewn up. Too bad he picked March to make his big move, dead smack at the start of King's week.

Everyone is pretty much trying to move their own product, protect their turf, or keep the shit out of their neighborhood. It takes a slippery fucker like rabbit with big brass balls to even think of setting up shop here as a foreigner, a bucktoothed Brit with flaming red hair shaved around the sides. It takes someone completely naïve to partner up with cheap muscle, a dumb prick at that with a big mouth, and try something this stupid. He's promised this cat half of his non-existent earnings in exchange for protection. No matter which way he runs, he's dead fucked.

He spots me but tries to act casual, as if he doesn't see the car I'm sitting in, despite jerking his head around like it's on a fucking swivel. Right about now I'm guessing Rabbit's thinking about the rules again, something he ought to have done before he got himself this deep in Bean's pocket.

Rule #1: Don't buy more on credit than you can move in a week or less.

Rule #2: Don't let anyone know where you're keeping your stash, not even your bitch.

Rule #3: Don't buy more than you can reasonably afford to flip or flush.

Rule #4: Don't carry more on your person than you could easily dispose of in the event of a squeeze.

Rule #5: Always have an escape route.

Rule #6: Nothing on credit, ever.

Rule #7: Keep heat close by, but not on you. The bushes work nicely, and if that's not an option, then try hustling next to a garbage can you can set it in. That way when one time gives you static, you can smile and say you're waiting on a ride.

Rule #8: Vary your routine.

Rule #9: No fraternizing with the customers. Nothing will get you flipped and fucked faster than having a client or a bitch put you on a first name basis. Even the raver kids from suburbia will run up in you if they get a chance. They're just sneakier in how they're gonna go about it.

Rule #10: Always pay your supplier on time, else wise a scary fucker like me is likely to beat you with a tire iron, duct tape you, toss you into a truck, and drag you to the House of Pain. From there a variety of sundry and unpleasant experiences await you, most often culminating in me pulling out your teeth with a wrench and your being turned into fertilizer for the planting along some lone stretch of road at 2 am.

Working the hacksaw through bone wears me out, much less digging several different holes in the freezing cold of night to deposit the parts in, so it's entirely understandable why people like Rabbit test my patience when they don't make good on their end of the bargain. You'll find that tends to make me irritable. I'm not normally sadistic, even if I do take pride in my work, but a real fine twat like Rabbit always brings me to boil.

And as far as the rules go, I don't give a rat's puckered asshole in hell what the fuck Biggie Smalls said about it. You can put them, and a million other of their unwritten counterparts, in any order you like, but for the sake of today's argument, these are the ones that count. Rabbit has broken every single one of these rules, and now the clock is against him, and he knows it, which means a chase, the only other thing that works my nerves to the raw.

He stretches real animated like; his junky-thin, white, spaghetti arms raised over his head, hands clasped together like a diver, and then, just as I expect him to, he bolts as fast as his skinny legs can carry him down the opposite end of the street from me and into a narrow alley. Undoubtedly he's wondering where his muscle for hire went to, dialing him on a cell phone. He was supposed to keep people like me off of him. I took care of him first, shiving him up good whilst he was still on the shitter at the local BK. I don't envy the sorry fuckers that will have to clean up that mess. No amount of money is worth that, much less minimum wage.

I start the car and pull into the alley. I'm in no great hurry. It's best to let these things settle themselves, to keep a level head, plus I happen to know that the alley has one dumpster in it and a twelve foot fence in the middle topped with double razor wire. Rabbit's got himself stuck in the briar's patch by the time I block the only real way in or out.

My phone rings and I answer it. It's Beans.

"No worries boss man," I say, shutting off the engine and stepping out of the car. I light up a smoke. "I'll have him to you as soon as I cut him down." I hear a grunt on the other end of the line and nothing else, so I hang up. I sit on the hood of my car and finish my cigarette while Rabbit spews off a list of reasons I should let him go, give him another chance. He's pleading and begging and whining and talking up a shit storm of unholy nonsense, like I haven't heard it all before.

"Come on Grinder? What do you say?" His eyes are all pinkish and watery and his face is turning colors from being hung upside down on that fence. The razor wire is dug pretty good into his right calf by now and it's starting to bloody up his jeans. I drop the smoke and mash it out without looking, then yank him off the fence while he screams like a girl.

It's going to be a long fucking night, that much I can tell you.

Devan Sagliani holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from the University of California at Los Angeles. His fiction has appeared in Word Riot, Impetus, Thieves Jargon, Outsider Ink, Thirst For Fire, Hobart, & AntiMuse. Last year he was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Recently his fiction was listed under the Million Writers Award Notable Stories of 2005.

At present he resides in Los Muertos where he is plotting a great and terrible revenge upon the world in literary form.