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    Jason spots me coming in the front door and he climbs down from a stepladder and hails me.
    “Hey, boss man. You came home, I was worried sick.”
    “Less of the sarcasm, J. And we’re partners now, remember?”
    Jason looks like a linebacker in dungarees and a hard hat, and I know if Zeb was here that he’d ask Jason if he was going to a club with the rest of the Village People and Jason would laugh his ass off. I aspire to that level of nonchalance.
    “Yeah, partners. I do all the work and you grace us with your presence when the day is nearly done.”
    “Sorry, J. Won’t happen again.”
    Jason tugs a Post-it from his helmet where Marco, his boyfriend and our head barman, probably stuck it.
    “Here’s the to-do list for today.”
    I hang my leather coat on the stand. “Gimme the summary, J. I gotta wash and go. Mike trouble.”
    Jason snarls and I can see the diamond twinkling in his incisor and I don’t think there is a soul on this earth would use the term queen to describe him right now.
    “That Mike guy is a thorn in our side, Dan. Come on. We got skills, I think we could call in a few people and take him.”
    Jason knows plenty about accountancy and remodeling spaces, and maybe he can crack heads pretty good, but he doesn’t know shit about going tactical, and I don’t just mean pulling the trigger, I mean living with yourself afterward.
    “No one’s taking anyone, J. I gotta run an errand for Mike. You keep banging away here.”
    Jason pouts, which is new. “It’s a bit more than banging away, Danny. This dump is going to be a palace by the time we’re through. This whole area will be open plan. I swear I could pull down these partitions with my teeth, and the sweet part is we don’t even need a permit because the walls are not even on the original drawings.”
    Being made partner has given Jason a real shot in the arm. He goes at everything with the enthusiasm of a five-year-old wired on Skittles.
    “That’s great. So what have we got on today?”
    It’s crazy; I’m making small talk like it’s an ordinary day when I’ve got two hundred large in prehistoric currency burning a hole in my pocket. It occurs to me that it would not be beyond Mike to send someone after me to steal his own bonds and put me in the frame with Shea. In one move he could extricate himself from this guy’s debt and get someone else to take the risk of sneaking up behind me.
    Jason walks with me like we’re in the halls of power and I try to focus on what he’s saying. “Today, we’re breaking through from the back room to the roulette wheel. Practically doubles our space. I got a few of the boys coming over to help out. Throw on some nice green and yellow paint.” He eyes me pointedly. “You’re good with those colors, right?”
    Shades of emulsion are way down on my list of concerns right now.
    “Sure. Why not? And we’re still gonna be open by Friday?”
    “Not completely finished, but we can open, sure.”
    “Good. You the man.”
    It’s true. Jason is the man. Without him and his goodwill network we couldn’t afford the new coat of paint for this job.
    I am gonna allow myself to think positive for five seconds, so I fake punch and Jason fake blocks. “I got high hopes, J. We could actually make a living. All of us.”
    “Fuck living,” says Jason. “We’re gonna make bank.”
    I wince. It’s an Irish Catholic pre-emptive guilt reaction to any expression of optimism. Pride comes before a fall. The Jewish folks have it too, as Zeb puts it: You get too cocky, you get that cock cut off.
    Like many of Zeb’s sayings it doesn’t bear scrutiny but gets the point across.
    Plus even banks ain’t making bank these days.
    I have a plan of sorts re the Mike/bearer-bonds situation. Nip upstairs to my apartment to clean up and put on my stomping boots. Swing by the bus station, select a gun from my locker stash and take the bus into the city. Maybe I’ll stop off at Spring and pick up a slice