– Oh, lucky fucking me, breaking new ground.

He raised his hand and a waiter materialized from the gloom and placed a check on the table.

– Im guessing that was my prick nephew at work.

I took the ice from my forehead.

– Youre guessing? Man, I already told you it was him.

He placed some money on the check.

– Im saying that was probably his own thing. Like he was pissed about being fired, went running to Aftershock. I know Morton, he was more than happy to hire the punk. See what kind of dirt he can dig up on how we go about our business. Maybe find out we cut some corner he can go to the Better Business Bureau about. Fortunately, the kid knows fuckall. But he probably took it personal you were working his old job. Probably decided hed show his value to his new employer by going the extra yard.

He took his glasses off and rubbed his face up and down.

– So now we have to sort it out, make sure things dont get out of hand.

– Yes, yes, do that, sort it out before it gets out of hand, before, I dont know, before someone gets beaten up or something.

He put his glasses back on.

– You know, Web, you dont want to be involved in any of this, you dont have to be. Its as easy as saying youre done with the job.

I took a chip from the basket and broke it in half.

– I know.

He took one of his empty plates by the rim and rotated it a few degrees, back and forth.

– So are you? Done with it?

I thought about that; not liking it much when someone pounds on me, I thought about it pretty hard. I thought about chilling out, like I had been for a year. I thought about hanging at the apartment. Sleeping. A lot. I thought about the slender thread dangling my friendship with Chev. And what would happen when it broke. And how much strain Id already put on it.

I thought about the things Id thought about most that last year, and how little Id thought about them the last couple days when Id actually had something to do.

I crushed the chip and watched the crumbs fall into the basket.

– No, Im not done with it.

He pushed the table away, making room to rise.

– So lets go then.

I got up and trailed them to the door.

– Where are we going?

Gabe opened the door on the relative brightness of Ventura Boulevard at night. Po Sin went out and passed his parking ticket to the valet.

– Were going to a sit-down with Morton and his Aftershock captains. Make sure we all understand theres limits here. Things we cant be doing without causing trouble for everyone.

I waved my hand.

– I dont want to meet those assholes. I sure as shit dont want to see Dingbang.

The valet drove up in the van and Po Sin slipped him a couple bucks.

– Not to worry, youre not invited.

– OK, so whos taking me home?

He stood aside from the van and gestured at the open door.

– Youre not going home, youre going to my shop.

– What? I thought you said I could clean it tomorrow.

– I did. You can. Or you can start tonight. I just need you there.

The valet parked Gabes Cruiser behind the van and Gabe got behind the wheel.

Po Sin held up a finger to him and looked at me.

– Dingbang has keys to the shop.

– So let him clean it tonight.

– Web, Dingbang has keys to the shop and I havent had the locks changed yet.

It took a second. I like to think Im smart, but still it took a second. Then I got it.

– Fuck that!

He ran a knuckle over his moustache.

– Listen. Listen up here. Were gonna go talk to these guys. Have a couple beers at a place not far from here. Its nothing. Its exactly what they say it is. A negotiation to make sure no one gets carried away. But Gabe, hes a little more cautious than I am, a little less trusting, and he thinks they could use this as a way to be sure the shop is empty. Go in there and mess shit up.

– I know, I get it. Thats why I said fuck that.

– Its not gonna happen. OK? All you do is go in, turn on all the lights and hang out. Clean if you want, or watch the TV in the office. Dick around on the computer. Nothing is going to happen.

– Then I dont have to be there.

He looked over at Gabe, back at me.

– I know, youre right, but it will give Gabe a little peace of mind. And one of the things I pay him for is so he has peace of mind. Because when he has peace of mind, I know everything is cool with everything. Make sense?

I shrugged.

– Sure, makes sense. Im still not gonna sit there and wait for Dingbang to show and kick my ass again.

– Dingbang will be at the sit-down. To be disciplined. That was part of the deal. And even if someone comes by, the second they see the lights on, see someone in there, theyll take off. No one is looking to hurt anyone.

What happened to you was the exception.

– Maaaaan. Crap.

He took me by the elbow.

– Web, this isnt a regular job. This is not nine to five. We clean blood and brains. We scrub shit. We vacuum maggot shells. We inhale gas from rotting corpses. This is not a regular job. And you will rarely be asked to do regular shit if you hang around. Sitting watch on the shop for the night, thats about as normal as it gets. Make sense?

I looked at Gabe, waiting to roll. I looked at the valet, waiting for us to get the fuck out of the way so he could bring the next car around. I looked at Po Sin, waiting for me to do or be something I didnt quite get.

I nodded.

– Makes sense.

He let go of my elbow.

– Then get in the van and get over there.

I got in the van.

– Web!

I looked out the window, he stood in the open passenger door of the Cruiser. -Anything does happen, call nine one one.

I shook my head.

– Yeah, that I can manage.

He waved and got in the car. Gabe nodded at me through the windshield, and tossed me a slight salute.

The man paid to have peace of mind.

Where do I get that fucking job?

North of Ventura Boulevard, on a street off Burbank Boulevard near the 170 on the edge of North Hollywood, theres a strip of light industrial zoning. Cinder-block buildings that work sheet metal, rent construction equipment, rebuild tractor motors, salvage copper wiring from scavenged conduit, or simply seem to provide nothing but a center point around which to wrap chain link and concertina wire for large barking dogs to patrol without cease. Beat-to-hell late-model pickups, the same ones seen circling West Hollywood loaded with leaf blowers and weed whackers on weekday mornings, line the curbs. Telephone poles drop power lines to the corrugated roofs of the buildings.

In the middle of this glory I perched on a workbench and stared at a row of three coffin freezers stuffed full of rags, bits of bedding, carpet, sofa cushions, paper towels, and all the other debris soaked in every effluvium of the human body that gets removed from trauma scenes. Biohazardous material awaiting transfer to Saniwaste, then to be trucked to Utah, where such things are burned en masse.

Or so I read in the Saniwaste brochure Id found on a rack in the office. It was that or the back issues of Entertainment Weekly in the John. Is it a shock the brochures won out?

I slid off the edge of the bench and walked around. I poked at a machine that, according to another brochure, recycled formalin. I wondered what they did with the specimens they removed from the formalin before they processed it. The eyeballs, biopsy tissues, amputations, perforated intestine and whatever that had been preserved in jars of the stuff, the material the brochure referred to as -pathology. I wandered to the window and looked across the street at one of the large dogs patrolling its patch of asphalt. Well, that would be one way of getting rid of the stuff. But they probably ship it to Utah with the rest of the waste.