He and Emily are drifting off into unknown territory. Talking nervously into Steve’s silence.

Steve gets up and goes unsteadily to his window, looking out nervously for a moment. Then suddenly, he violently pulls the shades. In fear. In anger. In frustration.

Sits back on his bed. Curls his knees up. Looks silently up at them again.

You can’t let him win, Zack wants to say. You have to live your life. He’s never going to touch you. But he stays quiet.

And is there something in Joey, crazy Joey, that will want to attend to unfinished business? Prove himself once more to his bosses? Follow some code? When they submerged each other’s cell phones in coffee, Joey tried to accept the deal but apparently he couldn’t. Didn’t have it in him. Couldn’t accept unfinished business.

And now? Zack doesn’t really know, of course. The mind of a career criminal. He is out of his depth here.

And then Steve reaches over to the bedside table, opens the drawer, and takes out his handgun. A big, heavy, ugly thing.

Zack recoils a little. The last one Zack saw looked pretty much like this one, and it was being held against his temple. The memory comes roaring back like a red light flashing, an alarm sounding, somewhere deep in his head.

Steve turns the gun silently in his hands, inspecting it closely like he did his scars just a minute ago.

This gun is not a good idea, Zack knows. This is only trouble.

“I’ve been going to a firing range once a week,” Steve says, looking up at them. “You guys should each get guns too.” Knowing that they won’t. Knowing they don’t approve.

So you’re going to defend yourself from a professional assassin by having a gun? But again, Zack doesn’t say anything.

“I feel better having it,” says Steve.

“We’ll be here,” says Emily, not knowing what else to say. “Whatever you want. Whatever you need.” Zack can tell she’s trying to avoid looking at the gun, act as if she hasn’t seen it, as if none of them have. “We’re here for you.”

“Thanks,” says Steve. Leaving the gun out, right next to him.

30.

30.

To any observer, it’s completely informal-looking, casual-seeming, although Joey’s heart is pounding through his chest.

In greeting him, Karloff gives merely a curt nod.

No handshake. No Mafia don hug. No ceremony. Nothing.

Short, steel-wool white hair exploding out from his head in all directions, Karloff looks exactly as Joey has heard. As Joey imagined. A short, tough dockworker who has built a business, a cult, a world of illegality around him.

They’re in some sort of back office of a factory space, with no factory there anymore. Karloff motions Joey to the chair in front of his. Joey sits facing him. Will backs away silently and leaves them.