* * * *
In the following weeks, Pretty Boy would still stop me on the stairs, ostensibly to chat, but mostly to remind me of the offer, his lips curled in a sultry smile. Sweetcheeks would remind me also on the rare occasions I ran into him, but somehow from him it was strictly about maintaining good business relations.
It was a year or so later when things changed. My only partner, f*****g i***t that he was, got himself killed down in South America. I’d taken care of the bastards who’d gutted him and strangled him with his own intestines—Jesus, was everyone watching bad action movies? I gave them a taste of their own medicine and then brought my partner’s body home, reporting to the WBIS afterward. That was the only time I’d ever lost it at headquarters. One of the senior directors star
