– Son of a bitch!

Gabe pushed a water glass my way.

– Sorry about that. Didnt know if you liked them with or without.

I filled my mouth with cold water and swished it around, and that hurt, too.

– Crap.

I looked at Po Sin as he mopped his first plate with a tortilla.

– So look, man, I dont want to be ungrateful for the dinner I cant eat or anything, but are we at the part where I get to know what the fuck, or what?

He scooped guacamole onto a chip.

– Yeah, were there. Were there.

He ate the chip. And then a couple more. Gabe sat behind his sunglasses.

I slapped the table.

– So what the fuck then? Whats the deal? What the hell is the guild? Whatwhatwhat?

Po Sin wiped his lips with a red napkin.

– Aftershock.

– Huh?

– Aftershock is the name of another trauma cleaner. They have a lot of contracts, mostly on the west side. Hotels, office buildings, property management. And they get most of the law enforcement referrals over there. Cops, sheriffs deputies, theyre at the scene of a violent crime, someone asks them, How do I clean this up? My baby Huey my little boy was shot here, how do I clean it up? Baby Huey, mind you, is six and a half feet and over three hundred pounds and hes bled all over the house after getting shot on the porch by the guy who used to be his best friend before one of them fucked the other ones baby mama or some such crap. So the law officer suggests a reliable trauma cleaner who will come in and take care of the situation.

I found a paper-wrapped straw on the table and unpeeled it.

– And he gets a bribe for doing it.

Po Sin waved a finger in the air.

– Its not a bribe. Its a referral fee.

– Its illegal as hell.

– It is that, but it is not a bribe.

I dipped the straw in my margarita and took a sip.

– And the guild?

He lined up the second plate of chili relleno.

– The guild is a racket. Guy who owns Aftershock, Morton, is trying to get all the cleaners to join a guild. Guild will distribute jobs and contracts. Set prices. Broker health coverage, that kind of shit. The more cleaners he can get to sign on, the more pressure he can put on the remaining independents. They dont join, theyre gonna have to find a way to live off the scraps of jobs that dont go through the guild.

– And you dont want to join an organization that will help to set the market in your favor and allow you to pool resources because?

He licked his fork clean and set it in the middle of his equally clean plate.

– Because its a scam, Web. Because the work wont be distributed throughout the guild equally. Because its set up so that Morton is the president and administrator of the guild, which, seeing as he owns Aftershock, is a rather large conflict of interest. Because the jobs come in and he assigns two out of every three to his own fucking company. So, what, I join and give the guild access to my contracts and contacts, my 7-Eleven gig, my Hyatt contract, my Amtrak deal, all my public housing call-lists, I hand that all to the guild and then what? Fucking Morton takes the sweetest plums for himself and I have to wait and get some shit call to clean up in front of a gas station where a dog got hit by some old lady who couldnt see over the steering wheel.

He propped an elbow on the table and jabbed a finger at me.

– Clean Team is my business. I created it. I built it. I made the contacts and sweated the contracts. Someone calls me, they know what theyre getting. Twenty-four hours a day that goddamn phone is on. Someone calls, they have trouble, theyre in pain, someone they love has died messy and they are traumatized, I pick up that phone any hour of the day or night. I talk to them civil and gentle. I come as soon as I can. I tell them straight what is involved and what it will cost. The job is harder, takes longer than I thought, costs me more than I estimated, thats my problem, I eat the loss. Thats my reputation. Doing the job the way it should be done, thats all I do. And that is worth something.

He leaned in, the tabletop tilting slightly under his weight. I remained very still, having, not for the first time, a sudden awareness of his crushing bulk.

– And I dont give that to anyone. What is in my house is mine. Who is in my house I take care of. My name, my reputation, those are in my house, those are for the well-being of my family. And I will not have my house fucked with.

He inhaled through his nose, a long wheeze, and leaned back into the depths of the booth.

– Especially not by an asshole like Morton.

I poked my straw into the melting ice at the bottom of my margarita glass.

– OK, then can you advise me as to how you will be making allowances to ensure I wont be getting beaten again? Because a police complaint is sounding like a pretty good strategy to me.

Po Sin looked at Gabe. Gabe looked at something, but I dont know what, all I could see was darkness and tiny red flames reflected in his glasses.

Po Sin picked up his margarita and drained half of it.

– The thing you have to remember here, Web, this isnt what youd call a heavily regulated industry. They set the bar pretty low. Two hundred bucks, proof of a fixed address, and a contract with a licensed hazardous waste disposal company is all you need to be a certified trauma cleaner.

My eyebrows went up.

– Bullshit.

– No bullshit at all. You got employees, you have to pass an OSHA class, but thats it. So, see, you get a mixed bag of types drawn to the trade. At worst, mostly, you get people who are just fucking incompetent and lazy. They give the trade a bad name, but they also go out of business pretty fast. But there is a higher class of worst-case scenario, because some folks are just plain crooked as hell. Whether that means overbilling or maybe cutting corners on a job, whatever. Kind of stuff that Deputy Mercer was talking about with Aftershock. Worser case, you get some straight-up thieves. Go into a house, take advantage of being there while the family is staying in a motel because they dont want to look at the bloodstain that used to be daddy, and they clean it out. Family says, Wheres the TV, wheres the stereo, wheres my stamp collection? These guys say, Oh, that stuff, it was all contaminated, had to be disposed. Contaminated? Shit was on the second floor at the back of a house where daddy did himself in the downstairs bathroom. Or maybe your aunt dies, chokes on her chocolate-covered cherries, lays there for a week with her Pekinese so hungry it takes a few nibbles. These guys come in, they do a great job with the cleaning, youre happy as hell with the deal. Two months later, new charges start showing up on aunties credit cards. Stuff like that, wed like it to stop. But wed also like it not to have too bright a light shined upon it. Those kind of stories get too much coverage, thats bad for everyones business.

I scooped some ice from my glass and put it in the middle of one of the red napkins and folded the material around it and pressed it to the knot on my forehead.

– Yeah, OK, no cops. So Im still waiting for the part where you guys stop trading paint bombs and I dont have to be freaked about this shit happening to me again.

Gabes phone beeped once. He took it from the clip on his belt, looked at the face, put it back on his belt and nodded at Po Sin.

Po Sin rubbed his nose.

– OK, youve got a handle on that first part. And yeah, theres also been some intimidation happening. Vandalization. Like the paint on the van. Also, job calls come in, you show up at the address and what do you find? Find a vacant lot, find a Chinese caterer where theres supposed to be a private residence. Dont have to think hard to figure who made the call, whos wasting your time and effort. Shit goes back and forth for a few months now. Some tit for tat. The guild trying to show us whos boss. Us showing them we dont work for no one. But you getting beat on, that was new. That was an escalation.