Page 42 of Dirty

I shook my head. “You must be high. Crip asks why I don’t give the fellas work, and you come here and try to rob me. That’s why. Ten a square foot is standard. I’ll pay the standard, and not a dime more. Ten or you and your little smoke box can kick rocks.”

He took another hit off the device and then nodded. “I’ll do it for ten.”

Pee Bee laughed. “He’s trying to stick ya, Cholo.”

Smokey exhaled his smoke in my face, enveloping me in a thick cloud of the sweet-smelling vapor.

“God damn it, Smoke. What did I tell you about that shit? That fucker’s gonna kill you. I don’t want it to kill me.”

“Better’n smokin’,” he said.

“According to who?”

“Me.”

“I heard they give you popcorn lung.”

“What the fuck’s popcorn lung?” Pee Bee asked.

“Comes from diacetyl,” Smokey said. “It’s a chemical used in butter flavoring for popcorn. Bunch of fuckers at a popcorn plant years ago got puss pockets in their lungs from ingesting it, and they called it popcorn lung. Haters started saying this will cause it.”

“Fuck, dude,” Pee Bee said. “Why would you smoke it?”

“The juice I smoke doesn’t have diacetyl in it. Chinese shit does, American shit doesn’t.”

Pee Bee stepped toward the door. “How the fuck you know where it comes from?”

“My smoke shop makes it. They’ve got to report to the feds now, they govern the shit. Like everything else.”

“Keep that fucker away from me,” Pee bee warned. “Blow it in my face, I’ll knock your ass out.”

“It’s water vapor.”

“Keep your water vapor to yourself, Smoke.”

“Ditto,” I said.

“Pussies,” Smokey said with a laugh.

“So, you’ll do it for ten?” I asked.

He slipped the smoke box into his pocket. “Yep.”

“Plan on starting next week.”

“Don’t you have to give this guy a price?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Already did.”

“And you’ve already got a contract?”

“Yep.”

“What’d you bid the flooring at?”

I grinned. “Thirteen.”

“What the fuck?”