“Oh, come on, Prek,” Genti said, “what are the odds of that? There’s two hundred fifty thousand Albanians in the area, and this is one girl. I’ve never seen anyone that good-looking related to any of us. She sure doesn’t look like your sister.”

Genti and Neri laughed. Prek didn’t. He had a premonition there was going to be trouble after everything had been going so smoothly.

Neri and Genti were sitting on separate couches. Neri looked like a dog in heat, practically panting while adjusting himself. He was looking alternately at the supine Pia and at Genti, who he believed was in his corner as far as having sex with the woman was concerned. Genti Hajdini had come up through the crew’s ranks at the same time as Prek, but Buda entrusted Prek with more responsibility and bigger jobs. As a consequence, Prek made more money than Genti, and when Buda wasn’t around, Prek called the shots. He knew this was something Genti resented, but it rarely was an open problem between them. Prek knew that Genti was still miffed about not being allowed to have his way with Pia the previous night.

“The boy did good tonight,” Genti said, pointing at Neri and making a shooting sound. Genti and Neri laughed again, then stopped and Genti looked at Prek. “Maybe we should reward him. Maybe we should reward all of us.” There was a heavy silence in the air.

“Who made you the boss, anyway?” Neri said quietly.

Prek looked from Neri to Genti and back again. Neri was still wearing the black jacket he’d had on when he shot the boy in the street and Prek assumed he still had the gun in an inside pocket. Genti might be armed too, for all he knew. His own gun was in the glove compartment of the van. Did he really think Neri and Genti would gang up on him and take him out? In this crew, as Prek and Genti both knew very well, stranger things had happened. Turning his attention back to Neri, Prek held his frankly impertinent gaze.

“Buda said I’m the boss when he’s not around.”

Pia let out a groan.

“Listen, you assholes! Buda told me we wait until he’s sure there is no family connected with this woman. You go and mess with this woman and Buda finds out she’s someone’s daughter or niece and you two haven’t been able to keep it in your pants? The uncle or father, whoever he is, is not going to be happy. He’s going to be unhappy with Buda and that means Buda is going to be very unhappy with you.”

“She’s unconscious,” Neri said. “Out of it. She won’t even know, at least not for sure. It’s such a waste. Like it’s a crime.”

“She’ll know, you asshole.”

“You not interested in girls anymore, Prek?”