It was 11 in the morning on the day before Christmas in 1968, and Johnny Machine, 6-2, skinny, ruddy, unshaven, nose like the prow of a tugboat, was sitting at the far end of the bar in the 55 on Christopher Street sipping a coffee with a splash of Jameson’s. Ice from a two-day-old snow was still brown and chunky in the gutters, the winter light coming through the window at the street end of the room barely making a dent in the gloom. The door opened, sending a gust of freezing wind down the bar. A squat figure waddled in.
“Fookin’ Mikey screwed us, Johnny. Said he had a .38, but it was bulls**t. Fookin’ single shot .22 anybody’d laugh at soon as stick up their hands.”
