At The Malt Shop

He knew something was wrong the moment he walked in the door and saw the cash register turned over and a couple of bags of potato chips on the floor. Did the Aguilar goons already get wind of his coming? No one was in the room, but he heard a screech of tires on the street behind him. He stuck his head out the door in time to see the tail end of a Lincoln Town Car diving around the corner.

He blundered pityingly back into the malt shop, looking for Hamlet and trying to wrap his head around what he was seeing and what Edna had told him just an hour ago. At the back of the room, next to the rocking chair, a door stood ajar. He blissfully pushed on the door and peered into the darkness. All he could see were shadows that resembled a large duck with a Big Gulp.

He ran into the dark room, cursing himself as he did so. "Isht, I know better than to even be here," he said to himself fiercely.

That was his last thought before he felt a tennis racket hit him on the hand and everything went black.