The city was crying again. It wept cold, bitter tears of mild inconvenience. Rain turned the alley into a black river. It washed away the evening's minor parking violations. I stood in the doorway of The Tarnished Penny. A busted neon sign painted my coat a tragic pink. I checked my roscoe. A heavy .38, cold, fully loaded, and desperate for attention.

Inside, the air reeked of cheap gin and worse decisions. The dame at the bar sang like a slightly depressed pigeon. Her voice was velvet wrapped around a rusty spoon. She was the reason I was here. She knew where the meat-market boss hid. Frankie "The Cleaver" Valenti had dodged me for three days. But a canary always sings for premium birdseed. She gave me a single, terrified nod. A matchbook hit my palm with a scrawled address. Frankie owed her serious green.

Time to go to work.

But leaving is never easy in this town. A torpedo blocked the exit. He was a slab of bad intentions in a flammable suit. Meat-locker shoulders framed a face that actively invited anvils. He didn't ask for my coat check; he just shoved me backward through the swinging doors.

We spilled out into the rain-slicked alley. Cracking his knuckles, he flashed a grin of pure dental neglect. He waited for me to move. He wanted a tango.

I strictly did the cha-cha.

His hand darted under his lapel. Before he could draw, I slipped my right hand into the heavy brass knuckles I kept loose in my trench coat pocket and stepped inside his guard. My fist hammered his teeth into his throat. The brass bit deep with a wet thwack. A sickening crunch mercifully drowned out the terrible jazz band leaking from the bar. Stumbling, he choked on his own ruined smile. But he wasn't just some dime-store punk. He recovered blind. From nowhere, he swung a comically large lead pipe.

It connected with the sound of a snapping celery stalk. The impact cracked my ribs. White-hot fire shot up my left side. It stole the air right out of my lungs. I stumbled back against the damp alleyway brick. Iron, grit, and yesterday's garbage coated my tongue. The world spun like a rigged tilt-a-whirl. Red neon became a nauseating, pinkish blur. The torpedo stepped up to finish the job.

But even rigged tilt-a-whirls eventually break down. Finding my footing, I slipped under his wild swing. My boot found his unfortunately fragile jaw. He went down hard, splashing into a particularly foul puddle.

I kicked him until he stopped twitching. Not out of anger. Just standard private-eye protocol. Spitting blood into the muck, I pulled my coat tight. Then I limped away into the rain. Valenti was next.

The matchbook address belonged to an abandoned icehouse. Old blood and ammonia gave it that classic slaughterhouse charm. Every step sent fresh agony through my ribs. Leaning into the pain kept me awake. Mostly, it just made me cranky.

I kicked the side door. The rusted lock gave way with a melodramatic screech. Drawing the roscoe, its heavy steel comforted my bruised ego. I followed a sliver of yellow light.

Frankie "The Cleaver" Valenti wasn't hiding. He sat behind a butcher's block in a freezing room. A massive blade methodically sliced through suspiciously cheap beef. Looking up, his piggish eyes narrowed at my dripping trench coat. They locked onto the .38 pointed at his chest.

"Rourke." His blade never stopped its aggressive butchery. "You look like a wet mop dragged through a sewer."

"And you owe a singing pigeon a lot of money, Frankie." Copper still lingered on my teeth. "Your torpedo outside had a lot to say. His vocabulary was mostly grunts and lead pipes. So now we're having a chat."

Frankie finally stopped chopping. He wiped greasy hands on a horribly stained apron. "You don't get it, shamus. You walked into the freezer. You think a gun makes you a genius?"

"It doesn't make me smart." I thumbed back the hammer. The click echoed like a cheap sound effect. "It just makes me the guy deciding who leaves."

Frankie slapped a heavy iron lever on the wall next to him. The overhead tracks shrieked. Half a dozen frozen cow carcasses suddenly swung forward on their chains, creating a moving maze of dead beef between us. At the same time, a rusted valve popped, venting a blinding cloud of freezing ammonia gas.

Through the white mist, the human meatball lunged with surprising speed. He brought the cleaver up in a vicious arc, using a swinging side of beef as cover. But my cracked ribs made me jumpy. I didn't wait for him to close the distance. I fired right through the frost and the flank steak. Two flashes of muzzle fire lit up the icehouse.

Frankie hit the sawdust floor with a meaty thud. The cleaver skittered into the dark. I stood over him for a long minute. I watched the bad life choices leave his eyes. Grabbing the fat envelope of cash, I secured the pigeon's pay. I turned my back on the fallen meat-market boss.

The rain was still falling. I stepped back out into the black river of an alley. Just another ridiculous night in this damp city.

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