She's like, well, you want me to leave him, right?

Yes.

Well, then what if he accidentally dies?

And that's when I realized that everything we were talking about was real.

He came off as somehow, well, pure when I met him.

Strange given the story he was about to tell.

He was, or seemed to be just a kid, though by then he was 23 years old, with more hard

life under his belt than most men will ever know.

His name was Jaime, Jaime Ramos.

Smallish, soft spoken, very much a beta-not-elpha, with an open baby face and a cascade of curly

black hair.

This book, slowly, precisely, is of every syllable matter, as if he was a penitent, spilling

out his story through a confessional screen, a story of lust, obsession, and murder.

They kind of plot you'd see in some old Hollywood noir, like, say, double indemnity.

How much a guy falls for a dame who needs a special kind of favor.

If only he was man enough.

Man enough to do what she wanted done.

I felt that it was necessary in order to make her happy.

If it makes her happy, then that's what I'll do.

Yes, yes he would.

He always would, no matter what.

And I'm on the ground and I'm crying, patty, patty.

...