Course, enough came to Jack's Pipe Shoppe to just buy butts and papers and stuff that the IRS never paid him too much mind. It was the other customers, the ones who seemed to be trying to look over both shoulders at once when they slipped into the shop off the street real sudden like, like they was playing hide and seek from cops or their bosses or wives, that The Pipe was dead set on doing right by. They was his meal ticket. They was the ones who called him "The Pipe." Most he knew personal, some was one-timers. They brought in regular white envelopes with all the necessary stuff in it--which horse, which team, whatever--and sometimes money if they was owing, slipped it across the counter at him, yakking about the weather, politics, women--but never sports, not even Superbowl or the World Series--got an envelope when they bought their newspaper or whatever, gave him a knowing smile and left. Some looked grim. Others, with fatter envelopes, left whistling.

It was an okay life. Course, the regular payoff to Big Augie was a pain in the butt, cause Augie would tack on what he called "special fees" whenever he knew Jack had had a pretty big day. So Jack never got to sock away much of a nest egg to move to Wyoming like he'd wanted for the past--Geez, ten years now? But Augie and his boys never gave Jack no trouble so long as he paid and the shop got along okay, so it was an okay life. It would do till Jack could go where the picture was taken, the one by his cash register, the one of the Teton Mountains reflected in a lake. Then, life would really be okay.

A couple of kids leafing through his comics looked over at the giant customer and muffled giggles.

"Hey, you kids," Jack yelled. "You bend the merchandise, you buy it, you got me?"