The threat of violence hung heavy in the air. Everyone in the room eyed each other. Someone was going to have to make the first move. It sure as hell wasn’t going to be me. That was a fast track to a cold slab. I was just here to make sure that if a deal happened, it went the way it was supposed to which was both improbable and unlikely now.

Somebody had fucked up big time.

Seven men in a room waited for package. When the time came that they decided what I already knew, it was going to be a bloodbath. Men like these didn’t waste time and they hated waiting.

One of the little guys spoke up. He had the bearing of a shooter. “Anybody care if I smoke?”

No one else spoke up and I shook my head.

He pulled a cigarette out from behind his ear with one hand while the other snapped open a shiny steel lighter he’d pulled from the pocket of his two hundred dollar pants. Smooth as silk and probably as dangerous as a rattlesnake.

Tiny grey streams drifting from the cigarette gave the only sign of the march of time.