“He in Paradise, too, you think?”
“Yeah, man,” Esteban said. “He’s there. Maybe got the girl, too. Okay with me you take the girl. But not Crow. I want him for myself.”
Romero smiled.
“You think you can handle him?” Romero said.
“He killed one of us,” Esteban said. “You kill a Horn Street Boy, you got to kill them all.”
Romero shrugged.
“I don’t care who kills him as long as somebody does. Mr. Francisco wants him dead.”
“He pay somebody to do it?” Esteban said.
“You think we’re up here for the hell of it?” Romero said.
“Maybe I get there first, I get the ten thousand.”
“Ten thousand,” Romero said.
“That’s what I got for the old lady,” Esteban said.
Romero nodded.
“That’s what I was going to get for the girl,” Esteban said. “Maybe still will, I get there first.”
“Twenty grand,” Romero said. “Set for life.”
“You gotta problem with that?” Esteban said.
“I got a problem,” Romero said, “you’ll be the first to know.”
“I got a right to that money,” Esteban said.
Romero looked at him for a moment, then he shook his head and turned and went out. The other three men from Miami followed him.
45.
Jesse sat in his living room with Amber and Jenn. Jesse had scotch. Jenn had a glass of wine. Amber was drinking coffee. She was wearing the same clothes she’d come to the jail in, and the same tear-streaked eye makeup.
“I can drink booze,” Amber said.
“Not with me,” Jesse said.
Amber was looking around the condo.
“How long I gotta stay here?” she said.
“You don’t have to stay here at all,” Jesse said. “You can leave right now…but where you gonna go?”
“I could find someone to stay with,” Amber said.
“You have someone to stay with,” Jesse said.
“You?”
“Me.”
