The heat wave was carrying on, and it didn’t seem to have any intention of letting up. Between it and the scorching metal between my thighs, I couldn’t help but wonder if I truly was in Hell. My eyes took a detour from the road ahead of me to the flame design emblazoned across the gas tank. A sort of ironic dread came across me. It would be like something out of the Bible, a punishment like this, with the all-too-obvious telltale symbol constantly with me like that.

“This isn’t Hell,” I grumbled to nobody in particular as I turned and started down the road towards “MERCURY’S MOTORS & MECHANICS.” “The Devil’s not that wicked.”

I caught a glimpse of something in the distance at the end of the road. It could have been a heat mirage, or it could have been a smiling woman holding a pregnant belly and offering me a wave.

Not now, Anne. Please, I pleaded inwardly, impressed with myself to know not to try saying that aloud.

The fact that I was seeing her at the end of every street in the same way I’d seen her at the end of the street the night she’d been killed was likely proof enough that I was at least a little crazy. The fact that I could “talk” to her in my head rather than out loud like one of those lunatics on the street, however, was a good sign.

At least I hoped it was.

The previous night’s episode with the not-so-bad Amy had, though I had every intention of underselling this fact to Danny, done something for me. It wasn’t the cure-all that Danny had all-but prescribed it as—pussy was nothing to scoff at, but even at its best it wasn’t putting Zoloft out of business—but I couldn’t say that getting laid hadn’t done something to tweak my attitude.

Then again, as Danny might put it, “an oil change won’t mean diddly-cock if what’cha need’s a new engine.”

“He’ll just have to deal with the fact that I got my fluids topped off,” I muttered, and then immediately wondered what it meant that I’d been speaking aloud to nobody but think-pleading to the not-really-a-ghost of my dead wife.

Means you’re batshit crazy, Jace, I thought to myself.

And the questions just kept coming in.

I revved the engine and rocketed around a Taurus, actually getting the chopper up on its back tire in a sloppy wheelie as the acceleration proved too much for the front wheel to handle. The tight-ass in the Taurus shot me a look, and I shot him the bird. He was late to return the gesture, and I started laughing as I swerved to get in front of him. Screeching brakes and a car horn sang behind me and, an instant later, I was swerving in front of oncoming traffic from the other lane to pull into Danny’s shop. I was about to steer the bike around back when I heard a second chorus of angry honking and, turning my head, I saw the Taurus pull into the parking lot—the driver’s face pulled into a look of fury and determination.

“Well this should be good,” I thought.

In front of me, the doors to the shop chimed as a few Crows stepped out. I didn’t need to look to know there was more than one. There were always a few boys stationed at the front of the shop to keep an eye out and to maintain a semblance of the business that the shop presented itself as. Should somebody come in wanting a tune-up or hoping to score a new bike, they wouldn’t be left waiting for service and wondering if all the people they saw coming and going were, perhaps, up to something other than acting as a mechanic and motorcycle shop. It was rare that anybody actually come through there looking to do any sort of legitimate business, but it did happen. Moreover, it helped to have records of employees and jobs to prove that—“No, officer”—so-and-so couldn’t have been doing such-and-such on when-and-when, because they were here doing this-and-that. Then again, what good was paying off the police commissioner if it didn’t give the Crow Gang a bit of breathing room when the law was involved. Especially when, in the long run, the Crows’ activities were, though certainly not wholeheartedly legal and wholesome, certainly geared towards maintaining the city rather than throwing it into a nosedive like the Carrion Crew seemed hellbent on doing.

All the same, “MERCURY’S MOTORS & MECHANICS” had men stationed out front, and the sight of an obviously irate man tailing their leader into the shop’s parking lot was enough to bring them out.

I kept my eyes on the Taurus, craning my neck to do so. The man’s face only shifted marginally at the sight of the others as they stepped out to greet us. I guessed that what he saw was an intrigued audience. He had no reason to suspect that I worked there, even less reason to suspect that I ran the place, and practically no reason to suspect that the men who’d stepped out were, in fact, members of a gang and not just greasy mechanics looking for a parking lot fight to distract them. This was why it came as no surprise to me when his face took on all the properties of “am I sure I want to do this” and not “I’m quite sure I don’t want to do this.” Then, perhaps deciding it might even earn him a bit of street cred to be seen pummeling a douchebag biker on his own turf, he threw his door open and stepped out.

“Can I help you, sir?” I asked, throwing him my “I am the manager”-grin.

“Help you into a hospital gurney, you road hog; you fucking asshole road hog!” he snarled.

My laughter didn’t help matters. “Do people still say ‘road hog?’” I asked, finally glancing back at the other Crows.

My initial guess had been off. There weren’t just two; there were three. They all joined in my laughter. As the backing vocals came to join my own song, the Taurus driver finally paused. I could almost see the moment of realization dawning on him. Though he still had no reason to suspect my role with them or the true nature of our business, the fact that the three were more than just curious onlookers but, in fact, at the very least close buddies of mine represented a sizable deterrent in his decision to move forward with his road rage.

However, let it never be said of the nature of man that he’s willing to admit fault and commit to an unprovoked retreat.

He took another step towards me.

I snapped my fingers, and three similar steps brought the other Crows that much closer to him.

That, it appeared, was provocation enough to at least motivate him to retract his own step.

My men, however, did not mirror his actions this time around.

“What is this?” he demanded, glaring. “Can’t fight your own battles?”

“Oh? Were we fighting?” I asked, playing for innocence.

My men stared back at him, seeming more interested in how he’d answer than I was.

“Well…” he began, his voice breaking and trailing off as he tried to decide how to respond.

“Because, I mean, if we must,” I went on, throwing my leg around and dismounting my chopper. Then, circling the three Crows to plant myself between them and the man, I held out my hands, weighing them on either side, and said, “then I suppose I’m all for it. I just gotta know if your car’s insured or not.”

The man stared at me, confused, then finally glanced back at his Taurus. “What? My car? Why should it matter if my car’s insured or not?”

I shrugged and pointed back with a hitchhiker’s thumb towards the shop. “We’re a mechanic shop,” I explained, making sure he absorbed the full meaning of the “we” as I did. “So, after I break your face through the windshield of your Ford there, we’re probably going to be the ones saddled with the repairs. Now, if this were a hospital, I might have a reason to care about you and whether you, personally, are insured, but this is not a hospital. There’s no instruments of healing here. Only lots and lots of greased, blunt tools and lubed-up motorcycle chains. We’re better equipped to take dents out of things than to rebuild a human skull, I’m afraid.” I gave another shrug, an almost apologetic one, and took a step towards the man. “So,” I said in a chipper, salesman-like tone, “I’ll ask again: is your car insured… or not?”

“You…” the man locked his knees, and I guessed that was his way of making sure they wouldn’t buckle beneath him. “You’re a fucking asshole! That’s what you are!”

“I’ve been called far worse by far better,” I shot back with a smile. “Now get the fuck off my lot.”

“Hear ye’re feeling particularly confrontational today, Chase,” Danny was chiding before I even had one foot all the way through the door to the back.

“Hear you’re feeling particularly gay today, Mercury,” I shot back.

I was expecting a punch to the face for that, but Danny only laughed. “How would that be different than any other day?” he challenged.

“You know,” I said with a groan, pausing to wipe some sweat from my forehead, “some days I just do not get you.”

“And ya should consider it a great favor to always have someone like me to keep ya on yer toes.”

I stared at him.

He stared right back at me. Then, seeming to see something beyond the surface appearance that I supposed I was wearing—that all of us wore, day-by-day, and just prayed others wouldn’t see past—Danny’s lip did a funny curl. It wasn’t quite a smile—not that committed; not yet, anyway—but it was more than a grin; more knowing and way, way more conceited. While most of me was struggling to figure out the “what” and the “why” behind that look, another (smarter) part cringed and wordlessly began wondering if it was possible to mentally will one’s balls to go blue. That thought process, alien and bizarre as it was, got the rest of my brain steering in the direction of what that small part of me already knew:

Danny could see that I’d gotten laid.

Hoping to cut off whatever rant that would likely run parallel to “I told you so,” I said, “I don’t want to hear it, Merc!” and mentally crossed my fingers that he—for the first time in… well, ever—would actually listen.

He didn’t.

“Ya get her name,” he said in a tone that practically dripped with coy venom, “or did ya just pay some hooker to let you call her ‘Anne?’”

I stared at him again, this time strongly calculating the likelihood that I could take a swing at him and NOT wind up in traction as a result. I finally decided that the odds were not in my favor. Almost every scenario I played out in my head ended with him taking the hit as though it were coming from a cushy feathered pillow, grinning some wide, “Now I’m gonna fuck ya up”-grin, and then doing just that.

Finally, sighing in resignation to a fight that never even got to exist, I just said, “I want to hit you so badly for that.”

“Ye’re free to try,” Danny said without a shred of insincerity or condescending irony.

At that moment, I realized that he’d likely let me land a hit and do nothing in retaliation. After a long, awkward, silent moment, I decided that was exponentially worse than any of the other scenarios that ended with me in traction.

If I was taking swings at Danny, I wanted to know that I could expect swings in return. Anything else was just another form of pity, and that was the last thing I wanted. The Taurus driver’s face—eyes bulging in increasing terror and jaw slowly dropping into a lazy, hanging “O” at the realization that, not only did the asshole that cut him off have backup, he didn’t even need it—and it occurred to me that I’d rather be feared by the whole world than pitied by even a single man who, by his own accounts, was a “faggy trailer-park rendition of Shrek.”

No, if I was taking swings at that, I wanted (needed) to have those cement blocks he called fists balled-up and coming down at me while he bellowed “THITH ITH MY THWAMP” in his angriest, most femmy mockery of a gay lisp. It was that queer, lispy voice that Danny employed only moments before somebody was about to be in need of stitches, casts, and a pretty, “faggy” bendy straw to sip their meals from for the next few weeks.

“I’d rather hit myself before I tried on you, actually,” I confessed.

Seeming entertained by this, Danny smirked, chuckled, and nodded—a gesture that more said “good call” than it did “that’s funny, boss”—before his body language shifted entirely. It was a “blink and you missed it”-sort of shift; one moment his entire body was like his grin, big and friendly and confident, and the next it was all sadness and…

Pity.

Fuck! I sighed and shook my head. God damn you, Danny! Can’t you just, for once, not be so… you? I thought. I knew better than to ask it aloud—How in the hell would he even answer a question like that?—and caught myself avoiding eye contact for such a prolonged period of time that it made it even more awkward in its sheer obviousness. So I finally looked up at him.

“Amy,” I said, deciding to just answer his question. “Her name was Amy. She wasn’t a hooker. She farted like a Clydesdale. She was uncomfortably nice to me. I want nothing more to do with her. And I regret it already.”

“Which part do ya regret?” he asked, the “tone” of his body language changing for the better only slightly as he did.

I groaned and shrugged. “I don’t know; all of it, I guess!” I announced louder than I’d meant to. A few Crows in the distance paused in their work to look over in our direction, and I gave them my most authoritative glare. They got back to work. “It was just sex, Merc. Just movement and heavy breathing. I wish it could’ve been more—I wish you could have been right about this much; that I’d feel… I don’t know, not like myself this morning—but I didn’t feel any different for it. I might as well have run up and down the stairs of my building and then jerked off in the bathroom while forcing myself to lock eyes with my reflection in the bathroom. The whole thing felt… forced; graded.”

Danny’s grin made another appearance, but it wasn’t as enthusiastic as before. “So what was yer grade then?” he jabbed.

“Fucking hell, Danny…” I grumbled, palming my face and praying for a sudden Carrion attack on the shop… or the end of the world. Anything to end the moment and the dreadful conversation taking place in it.

“That bad, huh?” he added.

“No complaints from her—none spoken, at least,” I told him, then, shrugging, added, “I almost had to fake it, though. Made me mad that girls can end a fuck by screaming and moaning and—‘Yup! I came! Good job, champ!’—faking it, but us guys gotta have the warm, syrupy evidence to show for it.”

“Makin’ me regret missin’ breakfast, Chase,” Danny said with a laugh.

I rolled my eyes. “You asking me to jizz on your pancakes now, Merc? Something like that would cost you a day’s wages,” I joked.

“Like I’d stoop so low as to take my nourishment from ya,” he joked back. Then, “So ya regret it ‘cause the sex wasn’t great? Thought ya said she was nice, though. Wasn’t that enough to make up fer it?”

“Fuck, man!” I groaned, “Haven’t you been listening? There was nothing wrong with the sex! Not if it was anybody but me having it! Anybody else would’ve thought it was great, fantastic even! The girl was all for it at the bar, and from there all the way to my place it was clear-as-fucking-day for anyone looking that she was all-in. I could’ve asked for anything and you just knew—fucking knew!—that she’d be down for all of it and more! And then she went at it like she was the one being tested; I swear to Christ, Mercury, it was like she was trying out for the goddam Olympics or something. Twisting and bending and throwing herself around like she was expecting a gold medal. You could put a springboard and some parallel bars around the bed and have been certain that judges were sitting in the corner ready to score her performance. Any other guy would’ve busted in seconds under all that attention and effort, but me…” I shrugged and shook my head. “I almost had to fake it just to get it to end.”

“Shit…” Danny said after a long, contemplative moment of silence. “So, if ya don’t mind me askin’, how’d you finally… y’know?”

I wiped my face, not wanting him to see that I was nearly crying by that point. “I started thinking about Anne,” I confessed, shrugging again as though it didn’t mean anything despite it obviously meaning everything. “I started thinking about Anne, and just like that”—I snapped my fingers—“fucking this Amy-chick didn’t seem so graded. I almost forgot that she was…” I stopped to clear my throat and made like I heard something to the left, turning my head that way and squinting for a second so that I could have an excuse to wipe my face as I turned back. Then, feeling I could get through the rest of it, I said, “I almost forgot everything. And I guess I forgot enough to get me over whatever was keeping me from…” I gave another shrug and, mocking his voice, parroted, “y’know.”

The silence that stretched on from that was nearly enough to make me crazy. Visions of me, wrapped up in a “hug yourself”-coat and sporting a pair of crazed eyes that darted about the room to follow the pacings of a pregnant ghost who’d never birth her baby, danced about in my head. A distant-yet-painfully-close chant of “… sends his condolences… sends his condolences… sends his condolences…” chiming off parched lips. By the time I made it back from the thought, I was worried that I might’ve actually begun speaking the words. Danny’s neutral face gave me confidence that I hadn’t.

“Least she was nice,” he finally said.

“You keep coming back to that,” I pointed out.

Danny shrugged. “‘Cause ya said she was nice. Figured it meant something.”

“I also said she farted like a Clydesdale,” I countered, “but that detail hasn’t made any relevant come-backs since I said it.”

Another shrug. “Didn’t think anything of it,” he said. “I fart after sex, too.”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s because you take it up the ass, Mercury.”

“How’m I supposed to know she didn’t take it up the ass?”

“Oh my god, Merc! What the fuck?”

“What?” Danny demanded, perplexed. “Why’s that such an unfair assumption? Suddenly ya got a problem puttin’ it in a girl’s—”

“Stop! Just… just stop!” I demanded. “I didn’t have a problem putting it anywhere. That’s the point, Mercury! Don’t you get that? I was up for all of that—was! But ever since…” I shook my head and groaned. The sound stretched and evolved, becoming an enraged roar that had even more Crows stopping in mid-task to look my way. This time, however, I didn’t have it in me to even acknowledge their gazes. “Fucking shit, Danny! The girl being nice wasn’t a high-point—it wasn’t something that made it better or made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside! Fuck! Can’t you get that through your thick, stupid fucking skull! Maybe wash all the cum and fairytale bullshit out of your brain and… and…” my knees gave out and I started to drop.

Danny caught me before my jellied knees could hit the shop’s concrete floor.

“S-sorry…” I sputtered up at him. “Fuck, Merc, I’m so goddam sorry.”

He only shook his head and hoisted me like I weighed nothing back to my feet. After a moment, waiting to be sure I could hold myself upright, he let me go and dusted me off. “No harm, no foul,” he said in a painfully cheery voice. “I told ya that ya could take a shot at me if it made ya feel better. Just figured ya’d prefer to do it with yer fists.” He stopped and looked me in the face. “Ya feel better?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“Sorry to hear that,” he said with absolute sincerity as he finished dusting me off. “Least ya got to bust that nut.”

“Made me feel like an asshole that I did,” I muttered. “Everything she was doing to impress me, and I had to think about Anne just to give her what she wanted.”

“A gold medal?” Danny joked. His grin faded when I didn’t so much as giggle.

“It felt fake, Merc,” I told him. “If you’re in bed with a person, you should be in bed with that person, you know what I mean? You shouldn’t have to think about somebody else to finish—otherwise what’s the point of taking them into the bedroom in the first place? And that it was Anne that I…” I groaned and wiped my face, “Well, you can only imagine what I was thinking about that!”

Danny nodded.

“So I wanted to hate the Amy-chick for it,” I went on, hating that Danny had me blubbering and talking so much all of a sudden. “The farting after she fell asleep helped that—I just got to sit around and think about how gross she was and how much I regretted taking home this girl who’d just been so super into me and blah blah blah—and I got to run away—literally!—to my living room and just, like, not think about the reality of it. And what’s she go and do?” I threw my hands up in the air, exasperated. “She fucking wakes me up in the middle of a nightmare—the nightmare!—and takes all that away from me! I can’t even hate her for everything last night dredged up without admitting to myself that I’m even more of an asshole for it! I use her for something I don’t even want, finish by thinking of somebody else, spend the rest of the night thinking of her as some grotesque beast, and then wake up to her looking like she might cry over a nightmare that I was having!” I growled and punched a stack of nearby crates. They toppled noisily, their contents clattering within the confines. It didn’t make me feel any better; I just stood there, panting like a dying dog and glaring down at the crates while I imagined the Taurus driver inching away from me. It took me a moment to realize that I was regretting not hitting him when I’d had the chance, and then I realized that it wasn’t really him I wanted to hit. “It wasn’t fair to the girl,” I finally said, still not looking up from the crates. “She didn’t deserve to be used like medicine.” I straightened and looked Danny in the face; the flinch I saw there made me realize how cold my expression must have been. “Especially when there’s no curing what’s wrong with me. So just…” I sighed and shook my head, trying to force a casual edge to my tone, “Just don’t suggest anything like that again, okay? It doesn’t work, and I don’t want to wake up to any more failed experiments looking at me with sad, pitying eyes.”

Danny, speechless from all of that, only nodded.

I nodded back, breathing out the last of my outburst. Finally, seeing a chance to redirect everything and sighing in relief for it, I asked, “Any problems?”

“Ya mean about business or…?” he trailed off, inviting other options.

“Of course I mean with business,” I clarified.

Shrugging a “wasn’t that obvious”-shrug, he said, “Not really, no. Yesterday’s delivery was sorted without any issues; got most of it sent out for distribution early this AM. Customers are quiet, which usually means they’re happy. Even if they’re not, they’re being quiet—means we don’t need to worry ‘bout refunds, bad blood, or anything like that.”

“Means they’re probably considering doing business with the Carrions,” I pointed out.

“Ya seem to think that the Carrions got some kinda golden rep goin’ with folks out there. They don’t!” Danny snapped at me. “Most people are just as scared of ‘em as we are!”

I glared at him. “We are not scared of the Carrion Crew,” I growled indefinitely.

“No, Chase,” Danny countered, “ya think that ye’re not afraid of the Carrion Crew, but the rest of us—”

“No, Merc! Last I checked, I was the leader of the Crow Gang! That makes my word law, right? That’s how my father put it, ain’t it? ‘Leader’s word is law ‘round here,’ right? Well I say I’m not afraid, so that means none of you get to be afraid of them, either! Those motherfuckers’ entire operation relies on us pissing on ourselves just because they exist, and I’m not giving them that satisfaction, least of all…” I almost fell into a coughing fit as my throat tightened around the name.

Danny watched me, his face a mask of either pride or stifled pain. Then he nodded. “Yer old man couldn’t’ve said it better hisself,” he said.

I looked away, partly ashamed at his words and mostly ashamed that I’d been caught in a fearful choke. The prior night’s dream flared up and died just as quickly like a cheap match’s flame.

“T-BUILT SENDS HIS CONDOLENCES, PRESLEY!”

“So…” Danny said, clearing his throat.

I noticed he was still nodding, and I perked at this. “You know something,” I said, thinking the words just as I said them.

“I know a shit-ton, kid,” he said, almost succeeding in sounding offended. “But what I recently found out I’m not so sure I’m eager to share.”

I quirked a brow at him. “And if I order you to tell me?” I challenged.

“Then I’d say ‘fuck ya and yer orders,’ cheese-dick!” he shot back with a laugh. “Watch who ya try draggin’ ‘round with that ‘Leader’ badge of yers. Don’t ferget that, while ya might be captain of this here ship, ye don’t know shit ‘bout steering the ol’ girl and, without my cute ass to do it for ya, yer in the middle of the Shit Ocean with limited fuel and a dwindling crew.”

“Alright,” I withdrew, nodding with respect. “That’s fair. Then what if I politely asked you to overlook your likely valid instincts and tell me anyway? Maybe as a friend?”

He sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck. “Ah fuck!” he groaned, shaking his head. “Then I guess I’d have to tell you that the Carrions got a little get-together going down tomorrow night.”

I considered this, frowning. “A get-together?”

Danny shrugged. “Call it what ya want—a ‘party,’ a ‘meeting,’ a ‘shindig’… whatever! It’s being called all sorts of things on the street dependin’ on who ya ask, but I guess its formal title is a ‘fundraiser,’” he explained.

“‘A fundraiser,’” I parroted with a scoff.

“More like a buy-in for rich people wanting to get in on their operation,” Danny went on. “But there’s more to it. They’re using it as a means of getting everyone tied to their projects together in one place. As ya already know, they prefer to keep all their cogs separate—far apart as possible to keep from possibly implicating one with the other—but the problem with that approach is that eventually the cogs are too far apart to even operate together. So’s they gotta have events like these every now and again to get the machinery moving together once more.”

“All the parts…” I said, realizing where he was going with this.

Danny’s face sank and he nodded again. “Yeah, well, I know ya know what that means.”

“Means that T-Built’s gonna have to be there,” I said through gritted teeth.

Danny watched this, cleared his throat, and then sniffled. “Like I said: sounds like ye’re feeling particularly confrontational.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “When would I not be confrontational if that son of a bitch is the subject?” I asked.

“Fair enough,” Danny dismissed with a shrug. “So I take it there’s nothing I can say to convince ya not to go.”

“Not a goddam thing!” I assured him.

He folded his arms across his chest. “Even though what ye’re likely planning is certain death; basically suicide?”

I didn’t answer.

“Look, Chase, I get that this T-Built fucker is slippery as a twink’s pecker, but ya can’t possibly think it’s a good idea to go waltzing into a Carrion Crew event just to have a shot at him. There’ll be at least a hundred people there who will recognize ya the moment ya step foot inside, an’ they ain’t exactly gonna believe yer there to sign up fer a jacket.” He squared off in front of me, looking desperate. “Ya want me to double down my efforts in finding where T-Built’s hiding himself any other night, I will. Just say the word and I’ll—”

“Have you not been trying then?” I asked, interrupting him.

He frowned at that. “Well, I mean…” he sighed and looked away, “Honestly, I’ve been adding more and more manpower to the search since I first heard about what he did. I’ve got folks ain’t even members of the Crows on the lookout.”

“And still nothing?” I pressed.

“Still nothing,” he admitted.

“I don’t think ‘slippery’ even begins to describe just how elusive he is then,” I said. “And that means that I definitely can’t miss this opportunity.”

“But they’ll kill ya, Chase!” Danny said, nearly choking on the words.

“Then they’ll have to call it a revenge killing, Mercury, ‘cause it’ll be after I’ve killed T-Built!”

“And how’s that gonna work out?” he demanded. “Walk me through the plan, okay? Ya walk into the joint—either ya on yer own or toting a bunch of our just-as-obvious boys with ya—an’ then ya stroll around all not ninja-like, catching the eyes of Carrions who’ve either—one—” he held up his index finger, “personally seen yer face while they was workin’ fer us—two—” a second finger raised, “seen yer mug flashed around in pictures and documents cycled about fer exactly this sort of reason, or—three—” a third finger jumped into the party, “yer punk-ass just reeks enough of Crow-born vengeance that somebody thinks to point ya out to somebody who fuckin’ knows better!” He looked at his hand and its three raised fingers, looking like he wanted to slap me with the back of that hand before finally letting it drop and, instead, shaking his head at me. “Meanwhile, yer dumb ass, with or without backup, has only just begun to wander about the place in search of one slipperier-than-slippery needle in a five-story haystack. The guest list is already in the hundreds, Chase, an’ ya think that—what?—the power of yer anger will be enough to lead ya right to him? Even if—if, if, IF!—ya manage to find the fucker, how ya think yer gonna go ‘bout doin’ a goddam thing about it? Ya gonna pull a piece out in the middle of a scene like that? Hm? Or ya gonna try to sneak ‘im off somewhere private, do it real secret-like? That ain’t happenin’! Or maybe ya think that the guy who’s representin’ the Carrion’s human trafficking and drug income is gonna be waltzin’ ‘round with no security? ‘Cause I got news fer ya, buddy: the Carrion’s might be crazy as primetime Fox programming, but they know better than to put their biggest cash crop in the crosshairs without at least a bunch of high-paid cock-knockers shadowing his butt all night prepared to take a bullet, blade, or bad word aimed in his general direction. So, by all means, Jason,” he was on the cusp of shouting at me now, “tell me how ya plan to get at this guy without getting yerself dead first. ‘Cause from where I’m standing, kiddo, ye’ll be dead ‘fore T-Built even knew ya was there.”

I glared at Danny for a long time after he was done, not bothering to finish. I didn’t have words for him. Not ones that I was prepared to say aloud, and especially not ones that I was prepared to think to myself. He had some good points; truthfully, he had nothing but good points. And I had none. No points, no plans, no hope.

Well, I had one hope—one that he’d clearly articulated, even—but not one that either of us wanted to admit was something I was hoping for.

“Just give me the address,” I finally said. “And know that I’m sure the Crows will be left in good hands if things don’t work out.”