[2827] Badmen

After ripping off the wrong dealer, a stickup crew has been tasked with stealing a priceless collection of baseball cards from a cartel-affiliated comic book shop. But things go sideways when the wrong guy takes a bullet and they find nothing but an empty vault. Now they must nurse a rival back to health and work together to find the cards before the cartel decides to clean house.

This is the first few passages of a ~14,700 word short story/novella heavily inspired by the works of Elmore Leonard and the TV show Justified.

I'm curious for opinions about how this section sets up the five major characters who comprise the stickup crew (Sal, George, Stewie, Joe, and Mikey). I tried to spread out the proper introductions for each character to keep it palpable, but I could use an extra set of eyes to let me know if it's too much to absorb all at once.

Content warning for depictions of drug and alcohol abuse.

I know this is a bit on the long side, so if mods want to remove this then no worries!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M-wAxS2-dYEfW1vQVLfwkHIfh5EvlkKwDC_FokLVBDQ/edit?usp=sharing

Prior contributions:

https://old.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/18rc21x/2862_the_cat_in_3b_part_14/khb4l9a/ https://old.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/18zd1fb/1160_mrs_shithappens_google_doc_access/khbe0n3/ https://old.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/192mztg/1000_murder_has_homework/khbhn1j/ https://old.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/192mztg/1000_murder_has_homework/khbhn1j/ https://old.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/18znige/570_a_lost_game_later/khaqop1/