Snake started to walk out, but Toons moved in front of him.

Snake fought the urge to jerk the gun from his belt.

“I don’t like it when you don’t show me the proper respect,” Toons said.

“Then act like you deserve it.”

“You know what my name means, Snake?”

“Yeah. You’re Looney Tunes, like the cartoon.”

“My last name. Teufel. It means ‘devil.’ You think Lars made me SA because I’m a fucking comedian?”

“I stay out of Lars’s business, Toons.”

“See, that’s where you’re wrong. You’re all up in our business. You’re getting my men killed. And I—don’t—like it.”

“Your men are getting themselves killed. Which don’t inspire confidence.”

Toons went into his pocket and brought out a butterfly knife, which seemed to be the bladed weapon of choice among a lot of the VK.

Snake forced himself to breathe slowly, and he didn’t move one centimeter. He didn’t look at the knife, either. He looked straight into Teufel’s glinting eyes.

“Lars may buy your dime store psycho act,” he said. “But I know the truth. You ain’t no devil. I’ve seen the devil, boy. I’ve shaken his hand and supped with the motherfucker on many a dark night. And I’ll tell you this for free. You and your gorillas here wouldn’t last two days in the Marine Corps. Now, get the fuck out of my way.”

The man tasked with enforcing security for the VK stared into Snake’s eyes for fifteen or twenty seconds. Then he decided to pretend he’d been joking all along.

When Snake walked out of the office with Wilma and Alois on his heels, he looked down at his right hand to be sure he wasn’t shaking.

He wasn’t.

“That’s telling that asshole, Pop,” Alois crowed. “Hey, let’s go over to that barn for a minute. I want to show you something.”

Snake looked back at the office, then over to the old horse barn that now served as a warehouse for the sod farm. “Wilma, you go into the house with Junelle. Act like you’re glad to be here, even if you can’t stand the bitch.”

Wilma spat on the grass. “I want to cunt-punt that cow every time she opens her mouth.”

Snake shook his head. “Get on in there. We’ll see you in a minute.”

Wilma expelled a stream of profanity under her breath, but she went.

Snake led the way out to the horse barn, which no longer smelled like manure and leather but like the toxic ag chemicals Snake had spent his life around.

“That son of a bitch thinks he’s the devil?” Alois said as they passed into the shade under the broad roof. “He’s a fuckin’ joke.”

Snake stopped just inside the barn and turned. “What are we doin’ out here, boy?”