Just then Chip came in-didn’t say anything right away-came over and took the remote from Louis and punched the patio back onto the screen big.

“You see him threaten me?”

Not sounding scared especially; keyed-up some.

Louis held up the cut-down shotgun in one hand, said, “Look here, I was ready to back you up. I know the man, Bobby Deo? I know if you try to trip on him, mess with his head, you best shoot the motherfucker, put him down quick. But then I see you working it out between you, talking like everything’s cool.”

“You know him,” Chip said. “Does that mean personally, or you’ve heard things about him?”

“I didn’t say I know of him,” Louis said, not caring for Chip’s attitude at the moment, “I said I know him. That means what it says.”

Chip was all into himself, not catching Louis’s tone. He said, “You see what he did? Grabbed me by the hair?”

“Took out his pruners, yeah?”

“Threatened to cut my ears off…”

“Must be you owe somebody money, huh?”

“Harry Arno, sixteen five. Only this guy wants eighteen with expenses. He calls me Cheep.”

The man sounding just a speck shaky now. Usually he could put on being superior even with nothing to back it.

“Give you a couple days to pay, huh, or he start to snip. Bobby Deo was a bounty hunter. Now he does collection work when there’s enough in it for him. What else you want to know? Being light-skin Puerto Rican he thinks all the ladies are crazy about him. What the man is basically, he’s an enforcer. You understand? You want somebody taken out and you can pay high dollar, he’ll do it for you.”

Chip said, “Is that right?” raising his eyebrows. Interested but not, in Louis’s judgment, wanting to show it.