AURELIO'S HEATING & COOLING AND EQUIPMENT SUPPLY was sandwiched in between two shitty old buildings on a shitty block in a shitty part of Brooklyn. The one on the left was abandoned, and Hector was pretty sure the other one was a meth lab or something, based on the low-budget vampire movie casting-call rejects that stumbled in and out of there at all hours.

Hector was standing across the street from the place in the wet and cold of this late December day, with his hands stuffed in his pockets and his shoulders hunched up against the sleet that was pissing on him from his left side. He didn't want to go in.

Getting here from Manhattan was like getting to Cuba. It meant walking to the 5 train and riding it down to East Flatbush and then walking some more through grimy neighborhoods and a post-apocalyptic industrial wasteland. (No way was he taking the bus across.)

Usually, though, when he came upon the place, he almost always felt like it was worth it. He worked here, belonged here. He was a part of something that was growing and had a future. But not today. Today he thought all that was just a bunch of bullshit.

He'd been coming here for two years, and he still had no idea who the hell Aurelio was.

Hector finally worked up his courage, and he rolled in past rows of equipment and parts stacked up on old wire shelves. A few customers were milling around. They were contractors mostly or electricians or plumbers. They'd look over the equipment and check their lists in the mornings, sipping their coffee, or stop in late in the day to get what they needed for their jobs the next day. The guys that were here now were probably slow movers or losers who had screwed something up and had to come back, Hector figured.

Hector nodded to a couple of guys he knew behind the counter. "Yo, Spackle."

"'Sup, Spack," they said.

As he made his way through the shop and past the counter, he saw a kid sitting in the little work alcove, hovering over a computer. He was Asian and pudgy, baseball hat on backward, lots of pimples. He was playing a game called Mercenary Front. Not playing, actually. He was selling skins. The kid nodded at Hector as he walked by and said, "Bobby's in his office."

Bobby was Hector's boss.

Bobby Clambs, or Robert W. Calambiatua for anybody who wanted to take on that many syllables. Bobby hired Hector about two years ago and right away took him under his wing.

He explained to Hector that the whole game in their business was diversification and expansion. That's where the real money was.

Bobby's operation started out the same way as most of the other local syndicates around the city, doing little jobs, moving stolen goods around, especially HVAC equipment, and then laundering the money.

And Bobby was good at it. He avoided the drugs and the protection rackets and the loan sharking gigs that paid good money but attracted attention and violence, and he just focused on profit. Sure, they'd bribe people and hurt them and even make them disappear when they had to, but that was life in the big city.

But the company's future was real estate. The opportunities were lucrative and plentiful, and it was a natural outgrowth of where they were in the HVAC business.

Bobby wasn't talking about going straight, you understand. To guys like him, there's no such thing. It's all just business, and Bobby saw real estate as a way to reduce risk and expand profit, that's all.

And he was no slouch. He had gotten the company to a point where serious outside money was interested in doing business with them, and before long their whole operation would be transformed.

Hector found Bobby sitting behind his wide plank desk, way in the back. His reading lamp with the green glass shade was casting a weird glow over Bobby's face in the windowless room. Books and manuals were stacked all over the place. It wasn't messy, exactly, but it was packed tight, as if Bobby couldn't find a way to stuff enough knowledge into the room.

Hector thought Bobby's brain was probably laid out the same way. Hector had never known anybody who could hold onto and process information the way Bobby did. The man never forgot a single detail about anything. And he was always reading, always watching, always listening. He didn't say much, and when he did, he spoke softly in an even tone.

There was the slightest hint of an accent. At first, Hector couldn't place it. It sounded like a combination of French and Spanish and the kind of English he thought rich white people from London might use. Each word was sharp and clear, and you could hear every letter. One time, Hector asked him, "Where you from anyway, Boss-man? You know, like, originally?"

Bobby looked at him with his sunken, tired gray eyes and said, "Africa."

"Huh," Hector said. "No shit. So yeah, like, where in Africa?"

Bobby told him, "Guinea-Bissau. It's on the west side of the continent, along the coast." Hector nodded, as if he had the slightest clue what the hell Bobby was talking about. Hector didn’t know Guinea-Bissau from a fucking guinea pig. He figured it was probably like the East Flatbush of Africa.

Later, as they got to know each other, Bobby told Hector he got out of there when he was a little kid and made it to New York. A family in Brooklyn took him in and raised him, but that's all he'd ever say about it.

Hector pulled out one of the folding metal chairs on his side of Bobby's desk and scraped it into place against the unfinished cement floor. Then he parked himself.

Bobby's head was clean-shaven from top to bottom, and it had kind of a sheen, like it was coated in oil. He dressed in plain pants and solid-color button-down shirts, and Hector would be damned if he ever saw one wrinkle on those clothes or one speck of dirt on the shoes.

Bobby eased back in his leather chair and looked at Hector and said, "Tell me."

Hector had texted Bobby the headline last night, and Bobby was definitely smart enough to piece together the rest of it, Hector thought. Their rule was you only text or call when it's absolutely necessary, and even then you keep it short. Details get discussed in person.

Hector surprised himself by jumping right out of the gate at Bobby like one of those dogs at a betting track.

"You and me, we had an agreement," Hector said. He was talking all fast and jerky, too loud. "It wasn't gonna be none of this heavy shit. You know that. This goes against the terms. It's, like, contrary and shit. I'm deep in it now, you know? I could do real time for this. And I got my kid to think of. There wasn't supposed to be none of this for me and you know that."

Bobby didn't move an inch. He might not have been breathing. Then he opened his hands and closed them again. "Tell me," he said again.

"I texted you. That lady you hired, she dead. Torque did her up right in front a me—BAM! And the dude from the building, your renter, he all fucked up, prolly in the ICU cause Torque, he jes opened the car door and threw him out. I couldn't do nothing, mayne, didn't have time to say boo even, not from the driver's seat."

Bobby nodded real slow and mechanical, like this happened all the time and he knew exactly how to handle it. He exhaled and set his gnarled hands on his desk. He let a few beats go by, and then he looked at Hector with those deep, sad eyes and said, "Why do I pay you?"

Of the whole conversation, that one line stuck out to Hector the most. Why do I pay you? Not so much for the words but for the way Bobby delivered them.