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wild-ass idea—two guys who don’t know shit going into the armed-robbery business. But you never know, do you?” He watched Frank go into the bathroom again and raised his voice. “I’m thinking maybe it’s the way to make a stake. Be able to put a down payment on something that’ll carry you. Instead of working all your life. That’s what I been doing, working. What have I got? Eight bucks in my pants, nothing, not a cent in the bank.”
    â€œWorking is for workingmen,” Frank said, coming out with two cans of Busch. He walked over to Stick and handed him one, raising his own. “To our new business, uh? What do you say?”
    â€œTo the new business.” Stick raised his beer and took a sip. “I’ll tell you a secret, buddy, put your mind at rest.”
    Frank seemed interested. “What’s that?”
    â€œLast night, you didn’t take a leak in the middle of Woodward Avenue.”
    â€œI didn’t?”
    â€œUh-unh. I did.”
    First they had to find Frank’s car, which wasn’t actually his, it was a demo.
    Frank called a friend of his at Red Bowers Chevrolet, a salesman, and got him to drive them downtown to look for it. On the freeway the friend kept asking, “But how can you lose a car? Not have it stolen, lose it. A car.” Frank told him it could happen to anybody. Get turned around, forget exactly where you parked it. “See, this guy here had the ticket, with the address on it and everything, and he lost it.” Stick didn’t say anything. They found the car, paid six and a half to get it out, and Frank bought them a couple of drinks at the Greek place.
    After the friend left, Frank said, while they were downtown, they might as well look up Sportree and see about the guns. Right?
    Stick hesitated. This was the part he wasn’t sure of.
    â€œLook,” Frank said, “you got to have a gun or it isn’t armed robbery, is it? You don’t have a gun, the guy says go fuck yourself and you’re standing there, your hand in your pocket, pointing your finger at him.”
    â€œI’m not talking about the guns,” Stick said. “I’m talking about the source.” He’d been thinking about it and his idea was maybe they ought to run down to South Carolina or someplace.
    â€œBuy them?” Frank said. “Fill out the papers? Registered in whose name, yours or mine?” No, Frank said, the only way to do it was to talk to Sportree, his old B and E associate.
    Stick said how did they know they could trust this guy Sportree? Where was he getting the guns? Were they used before? Get caught with the goddamn piece and they check it and find it killed some colored guy the week before. “I never dealt with a colored guy,” Stick said, “on anything important, and I don’t know if I want to.”
    Frank told him to quit thinking about it. Sportree wasn’t going to sell them the guns. All he’d do was set it up so they could put their hands on a couple of clean pieces. Once they found him.
    Frank hadn’t seen Sportree in a few years. When he tried to call, he got an operator who told him the number was no longer in service. Stick said why didn’t he look in the phone book. Frank said, Jesus, that’d be like looking up Gracie’s Whorehouse. Stick said why didn’t he try it anyway.
    That was how they found the listing for Sportree’s Royal Lounge on West Eight Mile.
    In the late afternoon and early evening Sportree’s offered semidarkness and a sophisticated cocktail piano and was a spot for Southfield secretaries who worked in the new modern glass office buildings for companies that had moved out of downtown Detroit. They’d stop in after five and let guys buy them drinks. Or a secretary might come in with her boss, or with a salesman who called on her boss. A good-looking black girl with red hair and horn-rimmed glasses played