“Depending on what it was and who it was for, money or markers,” Abel explained, still watching my face closely. “Xun, Wei, and Chen did their bit, getting a lock on the lay of the land, so by the time I showed, we knew who was who and how they fit. If it was a big player who it would be good they owed markers, that’s what we asked for. If it was somethin’ else or dangerous for a mortal, but it wouldn’t be dangerous for me, we asked for money, and not a small amount of it.”

“Oh,” I mumbled, not knowing what else to say.

“You gotta have it all, bao bei, so I’ll tell you that, outside the information which I couldn’t help but knowing, I didn’t get involved. I didn’t know what I was delivering. I didn’t pay attention to what I was finding. I did the job. I didn’t take sides. We were free agents. We worked for anyone. We kept out of it. And if needed, I made a statement when someone would try to drag us in.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“They needed the hurt put on them to make the point, I did that too.”

“Oh,” I mumbled again, that syllable a lot more tentative.

Using his hand at my neck, Abel gave me a squeeze and a shake.

“It’s the only thing I could do to take care of my family,” he declared fiercely. “We moved around a lot. Jian-Li could cook, as could her mother before her, but it takes time to establish a restaurant. By the time things would be rolling with that, we couldn’t enjoy it long before we had to leave. It’s not easy to set up house and a restaurant every decade or so. And I don’t die. I couldn’t be on the grid in any way. I have no social security number. No birth certificate. I couldn’t go to college, be a doctor, a lawyer. You live out in the open like that, people could cotton on. I could take money under the table. Be a day laborer. But they make shit. We needed more. So I did what I had to do to take care of my family.”

I had no reply mostly because there wasn’t one. I could see this. I could even understand it.

Abel took my non-response the wrong way.

“I knew the information I found and shared. I knew the men who asked me to deliver shit were not good citizens so I could guess what I was delivering wasn’t food for the needy. But I did what I had to do.”

“Became an outlaw,” I said.

“Yeah,” he grunted.