"Same again?"  The bartender's been staring at me for a while now through smoky goggles, wondering if I've got the cash to cover the tab I'm running up.  I'm not even sure I do.  I slide the glass across the bar and he fills it anyway.  Maybe he figures a dead man deserves one last drink on the house.  "You're missing the show."

I look.  The catcalls and whistles die down quickly as she works her magic, leaving them to stare hypnotized at more beauty than one woman should be allowed to have.  Pauline's really got 'em hooked tonight, and she hasn't even warmed up.  I can barely see her through the haze of the stage lights and cigarette smoke, surrounded by a bar full of sad fucks and lost causes.  They know they can never have a woman like Pauline; they're just happy to be close to one for just a few minutes.  Happy to get that smile, that wink, even if they know it's all a lie.  Sometimes we need that lie.  Sometimes it's all we can get.  Christ.  How long have I been talking like I'm one of them? How long has it been since I lost her to this life?

"I seen it," I tell him.  I kick back the second shot.  The whiskey hits the cracked molar in the back of my mouth and nearly makes me vomit, it hurts so bad.

He frowns, his eyes drawn to the door momentarily.  He turns his cloud around and heads off to tend to other customers.  Making tracks, more like.  "Take it easy, Toad.  You're a good kid."

A hand clamps down on my shoulder, fingers sunk in between my muscles to grip the nerve.  I lunge down onto the bar, blind and crippled from the pain.

"My nigga."  A turtle faced goon built like a nuclear shelter sits on the stool next to me while his brother keeps me glued to the splintered mahogany.  He tilts his head down parallel to mine, mock sympathy oozing from every pore.  It's the Hammer Brothers: low-rent kneebreakers for D.K. with the combined I.Q. of a sack of drywall screws.  But they're good at what they do.  Got just the right tools for it.  "You don't look so good, dog." 

"Yeah," says the one behind me.  "We was gonna take you out back and tool you up some widda sledge.  Looks like yo boss beat us to it."

I whimper.  It's about all I can do.  I've got a face like a rotten apple: pushed-in nose, pair of black eyes.  Pretty sure my jaw is cracked from the way I can still taste copper every time I swallow.  But right now all I can think about is the two hundred pound son of a bitch leaning on my fractured collarbone.

The whole stinking story is probably written all over my face.  "Yeaaaah," says the one in front of me-- I think his name is Tack, but they both look alike to me.  Apparently Tack is the ugly one.  "He catch you givin' it to his girl?  Catch you sniffin' her peach?  Fuck is wrong with you, man?"

"Muhfucka fucks wi' my bitches, that nigga dead," says Claw.  "Knowumsayin'?"

"You a smart muhfucka, Toad," Tack says with pained disappointment.  "Don't know what the fuck is up widdat turban you got on, but you smart.  Why you always getting mixed up with bitches don't belong to you?"

"You got balls walkin' into dis joint after what you done to Pauline, dog."

"Gotta be balls," Tack agrees, "Gotta be big hairy balls.  I'm talkin' straight up gangsta to march in here, because either you one hardcore ballsy muhfucka, or you just fuckin' stupid.  And I know you ain't stupid."

"I wanna talk to--" I manage to gurgle out into the bar before Claw shuts me up with another squeeze to my deltoid that almost makes me piss myself in agony.

"Maybe he's here to pay off the Diddy."

"Oh, that it?"  Tack brightens up.  He takes a hooked hammer from his belt and tosses it in the air one-handed, juggling the eight-pound sledge absent-mindedly, as if he's already forgotten what he was doing with it.  "You gonna pay the hundred you owe the Diddy?"

"A hundred?!  The fuck you talking about?  I could start a whole new life with that kind of dough."

"You two months late, nigga, and you know the Diddy keeps the vig rolling.  Don't matter if you been off crawlin' warp zones and goin' military on Bowser's crew.  It's a hundred, with a real nice thank-you with fuckin' cherries on top that the Diddy ain't told Big Daddy K about this.  Because you know what Big Daddy K would do if he knew you was disrespectin' him."

I do know.  The response tumbles out of me like a ball clacking into the zero-slot of a roulette wheel.  Nobody wins.  "The barrel."

This is it.  I know what I've got to do.  My whole life I haven't had a single lucky turn, and now I have to push all my chips into the middle of the table one last time, hoping this is the time it turns for the better.  If it doesn't, I'm not walking out of here, and not just because these two animals will break my knees.  It's the barrel for anyone who runs out on a debt, and the most the bulls will ever find is splinters and a turban floating in the river, stuffed full of bananas.  The cops won't fuck with the Kong.  Hell, he owns most of 'em.  He's the king of everything from the south side all the way to Old Town.

But Peach is gone.  Dead.   And suddenly everything I knew has gone gray.  All this time I've been a sap.  I've been a patsy.  I don't know who the good guys are anymore.  I thought I was a good guy, but I wasn't good enough to save my princess.  I wasn't good enough to save Pauline.  I forgot about saving myself long ago.  All I can do now is try to break even before the odds catch up to me, and I know just where to start: with Peach.

I'm sorry, kid.  I wasn't there when you needed me.  I was never able to protect you, but I thought you'd be safe with him.  With Mario.  I thought wrong.  It's a mistake I'll always regret, but you know what?  It's a mistake he's gonna regret, too.  For the rest of his life.  And when it's over, when his eyes go dead, the hell I send him to is gonna seem like a bonus stage after what I've done to him.  I promise, baby.  My last promise, if it's still worth a damn.

"Tell the Diddy I can get his money.  Tonight.  But I'm gonna need some heat."