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we get coffee maybe?

I begin to answer, saying I’ll google around for a Starbucks or something, but another ping comes.

or something stronger

Oh, I think. Duh.

I press and hold a to her second message.

got just the place, I type back. Let me send the address.

CHAPTER 8

PAN

“I can’t just give you money for nothing, mik.” Krye smiles. Or scowls. Hard to tell, with him.

Not least because he’s face down on a massage table with nothing on but a white towel that barely covers his ass.

I stuff my hands in my pockets. “Aw, c’mon, Krye⁠—”

“I can’t!” he cries. “If there’s no work, there’s no—agh, kujdes, gomar!”

The masseuse, a guy with arms the size of pythons and some truly heinous frosted tips, jumps back like he’s been electrocuted. “Sorry, I⁠—”

Krye, still face down, waves him off. “No, no. Is good, is good.” He pushes himself up, his face flushed and the hair on his chest and gut as slick and shiny as the gold chain around his neck. “Gjergj will pay you.” He directs the masseuse to the heavy who’s lurking in the corner, the same rectangular wall of a guy in all black who let me in. I did tell good ol’ Gjergj I could wait, seeing as I did just sort of show up unannounced, but I guess Krye couldn’t. Hence me crashing his…bodywork session, or whatever, right in the middle of his office.

It’s a classy office, for what it’s worth. And it’s probably worth a lot. Persian rug, big-ass windows with thick-ass drapes, a bunch of those modern paintings where you can see the little paint ridges sticking out from the canvas. And the A/C set to freaking subarctic, which makes me wish I’d worn something more than yesterday’s T-shirt under my jacket.

Then again, I needed to get out of that place. Clear my head. The faster the better.

And the temp seems just perfect for Krye, who’s sweaty even in nothing but a towel as he chugs some water from a carafe on his bar cart. Or maybe it’s vodka, who knows. He tucks the towel in a little tighter before wandering over to his desk and popping open his humidor. “Cigar?”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” I murmur. “Sure. Thanks. I’ll, uh, get next round.”

“Sure, sure.” He pulls out two, chops them off in the little guillotine, and hands one over to me as he flicks on his little crack-pipe torch-lighter thing. I oblige, leaning in and letting it catch. Shit smells like burning tires, if I’m honest, but when in Rome, I guess. Or Albania.

Krye lights his own and takes his sweet time sucking in some smoke before he talks again.

“Only thing I might have,” he says, thoughtful, “is some, ah, merchandise of a certain lethality, but I know you do not like⁠—”

“Yeah. No.” I cut him off there.

I don’t do guns. I know Krye does, but not me. Never have, never will.

He nods and changes the subject. “So. Why the sudden urgency? You get a girl pregnant or something?”

“Christ, no. Nothing like that.” I cough out my own cloud of smoke.

“Thank God.” He draws a cross over his chest. “Last thing we need in world. You—how they say?” He gestures to the heavy in the corner for help.

“Wrap your shit,” he offers.

“Yes. Wrap your shit,” Krye agrees.

“Yeah, yeah.” I get it, I get it, it’s take potshots at the kid day. Whatever. I swipe the air and drop my ass on the couch. If I had to come all the way out here, might as well take a load off. Enjoy my goddamn Cuban. Which doesn’t taste much better the second time. But at least my eyes water less. “Relax, dad.”

Krye chuckles. “Okay, so no babies.” He spreads his hands in the air in surrender. “Then what’s problem?”