Mike watched Belli's back as the man spoke, seeing the stretch of the city outside the window. At night it was spectacular, all glitter and glamour, but in the daylight you could see the battle scars on the buildings, the tired lines at the corner of a showgirl's eyes.
"You got it," Mike said with confidence, because he knew no other way to speak to Sam Belli. Anything less would imply incompetence, that Mikey wasn't someone you could rely on to get the job done. And that certainly wasn't the case.
"Anything… I ought know before I go?" he asked almost hesitantly. He wouldn't leave until Belli dismissed him explicitly, and he shifted his weight a bit, folded his arms over his chest in an unconscious defensive gesture. "Any of them to look out for in particular… anybody's off-limits, maybe?" Belli knew what kind of trouble Mike got into sometimes in his free time, and it wouldn't do to cross a boundary he didn't even know existed.