“So I’ve heard the request. What’s the payoff for me? I had something of a debt to Lydia, but I don’t owe the old man shit. What does this win me, I keep him on the dole?”

Amos sighed, and gave his oldest friend a sad smile. “Really?”

“Really.”

“I don’t kill you, kill those two guys outside. I don’t dismantle this organization from the top down and rebuild it with someone who’ll owe me a favor.”

“Ah,” Erich said. “There he is.”

Amos had to admit, Erich had grown some stones. He didn’t even look down at the gun on the desk as he was being threatened. Just gave Amos his own version of the tragic smile.

“There who is?” Amos asked.

“Timmy.”

“Yeah, I guess. It wouldn’t be my first choice, though. So how’s this go?”

“Costs me almost nothing to keep the old man’s house,” Erich said, then shook his head as if disagreeing with himself. “But even if it did, I’d still do it. Just to keep Timmy off my streets.”

“Again, thanks.”

Erich shooed the gratitude away with a wave of his good hand, then stood up and walked to the office’s large screen pretending to be a window. The gun still lay on the desk, ignored now. Amos considered it briefly, then leaned farther back in his chair and put his hands behind his head, elbows spread out wide.

“Funny, right?” Erich said, pointing out the window at something Amos couldn’t see. “All those new faces and old corners. Shit changes and doesn’t. I did, you didn’t.”

“I live on a spaceship and fight alien monsters sometimes,” Amos said with a shrug of his elbows. “So that’s different.”

“Anything out there scarier than a hype with no money when you’re holding his fix? Scarier than a street boss thinks you skimmed?” Erich laughed and turned around, putting his back to the window. “Fuck that. Anything out there scarier than a life on basic?”

“No,” Amos admitted.

“So you got what you wanted,” Erich said, his voice going flat and dead. “Get the fuck out of my city or it’s open season.”

Amos stood. He was closer to the gun than Erich now. Could feel it pull at him like gravity. He could pick it up, kill Erich, kill the two guards waiting outside. By the end of the day he’d own a chunk of Erich’s old territory and have the muscle and credibility to take the rest. In a flash, the whole scenario played out in his mind.

Instead, he hooked his thumbs in his pants pockets and backed toward the door. “Thanks for the drink,” he said. “I forgot how good tequila was.”

“I’ll have Tatu give you a couple bottles on the way out. To take with you,” Erich said.

“Shit, I won’t turn that down.”