Everything but the Squeal by Timothy Hallinan

many?”
    “You don't want to mess with that one,” Muhammad said without moving his mouth as he wiped the counter. “He's a knifer.”
    “I'm not messing with anybody. I asked you a question.”
    “You're messing with me,” he said.
    “You don't count.”
    He looked out the window at the freak parade, a uniquely Hollywood mixture of earnest tourists looking for glamour and sidewalk carnivores looking for tourists. An overweight man in greasy jeans, a white T-shirt, and a motorcycle jacket came in and grunted at Muhammad. There was enough oil in his hair to keep his bike running for weeks.
    “Him, for instance?” I said, stirring my coffee. The fat man headed for a table at the back.
    “You got a death wish, you know that?” Muhammad said, giving the fat man a terrified grin. “Anybody who can get them. Everybody wants the little ones now. Big business.”
    “Hey, fuckface,” the fat man said behind me. “Coffee.”
    “Coming up,” Muhammad said. He started to turn away, and I put my hand on his arm. He twitched galvanically but stopped.
    “Him too?” I said.
    “Sure. Sure, him too. Like I told you, anybody who can get them. Listen, is it legal to serve coffee?”
    I lifted my hand, and he bustled around doing his job. When he put the cup on the saucer it jittered. He carried it to the fat man and put it on the table, and the fat man asked him a question, his eyes on me. Muhammad shook his head hurriedly and came back to the counter.
    “Get out of here,” he said quietly, pouring more coffee into my cup. “Don't come back unless you've got a platoon with you.”
    All the black, bitter bile I'd been holding back since the moment Yoshino had pulled down that white sheet rose into the back of my throat. I could hear my heart in my ears. “The hell with it,” I said to Muhammad. “Nobody lives forever.”
    The stool squealed as I swiveled around so that my back was to the counter. The fat man looked directly at me and blew onto the surface of his coffee. His lips were thick, loose, and rubbery, and his sideburns ended in knife-sharp points that angled downward toward his fatty pudding of a mouth. His T-shirt said, You can die looking . The icecream pimp and his girl were in conversation, but the hardcase with the Japanese or Korean girl narrowed his eyes at me and turned the chain saw up to the setting marked Amputate. The girl, slower than her protector, gave me a tiny, stoned smile. Then she looked at him and stopped smiling.
    I put my elbows up on the counter and stared back. “Oh, Jesus,” Muhammad said behind me.
    “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” I said to the room as a whole.
    The ice-cream pimp stopped talking and turned to face me. His girl looked at her feet.
    “I hate to interrupt your sugar rush,” I said pleasantly, “but I've got a problem. You see, I'm looking for somebody.”
    “Golly,” the fat man said after a long moment. “Who would of thought it?” He looked beyond me at Muhammad, who produced the first audible cringe I'd ever heard.
    “What's your name?” I said to the Japanese or Korean girl.
    “Junko,” she said. Japanese, then.
    “Jennie,” her protector corrected, taking her left hand and squeezing it until the knuckles turned white. “And Jennie doesn't know anybody.”
    Junko/Jennie sucked her breath in sharply. I heard her knuckles crack. “No,” she said to him, and he sat upright in a jerky fashion, looking genuinely astonished, and bent her hand back sharply. “No,” she said in a much higher voice, readdressing herself to me. “I don't know anybody.”
    “She doesn't,” Muhammad said behind me. “She doesn't know anybody in the whole world.” Junko emitted a thin squeal. The hardcase kept his eyes on me.
    “Let go of her hand,” I said to the hardcase. “Let go of her hand or I'll cut out your fucking tongue and feed it to the pigeons.”
    He dropped Junko's hand and lifted his own and displayed it, palm open and empty. “Hey,” he