FORESHADOWING

He sensed battle brewing.

"Not so fast, dude," Jocko said in a hiss that stretched over the heads of the drunkards, the homeless, the singers, the stoned.

Knife would have liked to pretend he hadn't heard it but the words fingered the back of his neck, clutched and hung on. He turned and waited.

Jocko strode through the colors and scents of the crowd, parting it like the Red Sea before Moses.

"Where's my money, dude?" he asked.

Knife tried to stifle the threatened trembling of his limbs.