Like what you need done around here-is so overgrown.” Bobby reached behind him, beneath his shirt hanging loose, and brought out a pair of pruners from a leather sheath on his hip, held the curved cutting blades in Chip’s face and squeezed closed the red handles that fit his grip and felt good in his hand. “So I use this for pruning. You don’t pay me the day after tomorrow I prune something from you. Like what do you think, this part of your ear? You don’t need it-you don’t wear no earring, do you? Okay, you still don’t pay in two more days, I prune the other ear. You don’t look so good then. Okay, you still don’t pay then I have to prune something else like, let me see, what’s a part of you you never want me to prune? What could that be?”

Chip surprised him saying, “I get the idea.” Pretty calm about it.

Maybe it was the weed let him talk like that. Bobby said, “It’s not just an idea, man, it’s a promise, every time you don’t pay.”

“That’s what I mean, Bobby, I believe you.”

Using his name now, like they knew each other.

Bobby let go of his hair and Chip sank back down to rest on his arms. He moved his head in a circle, like he was working a stiffness from his neck before he looked up again. This time he said, “You stand to make three large, right? Fifteen hundred representing Harry’s vig and another fifteen you added on yourself, that Harry doesn’t know about. For coming up here, you said. What’s it take you, an hour and a half?”

Bobby waited, not saying anything, because the guy had it right about what he was making.

“Let me ask you something,” Chip said. “When you’re not doing Harry Arno a favor, what do you do, strictly collection work?”

“What do you want to know for?”

“I’m wondering if I might be able to use you.”

The guy kept surprising him, sounding now like he was in charge. Bobby said, “Yeah, how do you pay? Sell some more furniture?”

“Indulge me, okay? I’d like to know how you make your living, how you deal with people. I’ve got something going that might interest you.”