“Wait! Are any of them from the east coast? Or does he, like...drink coffee syrup?”

The woman’s hand froze on the door handle. Rainy thought she looked a little nervous when her head swiveled around to look at her. “Yeah,” she said quickly. “And he’s a mean man.”

She was about to lose the woman, and she still had items on her fucked-up shopping list.

“Hey, do you think you could get something from Barry for me?”

She whipped around pretty fast, arms crossed over her chest. Rainy hadn’t expected that. Suddenly, her new friend looked hostile.

“Are you fucking with me? Are you?”

“Nope.” Money was the universal soother. Rainy pulled two hundred dollars out of her pocket and held it up for her to see. “This is for you. All you have to do is get something for me from Barry. When you bring it to me, I’ll give you two hundred more, plus the cost of the product.”

“How do I know you’re not a cop?”

“How do I know you’re not a cop?” Rainy shrugged. “I’d be a real cunt to do that to a woman who was just trying to make a living, right? What does a cop gain from a middleman like you? All I want is what’s on this list—just take a look.” She extended her receipt from the Quick Mart on which she’d scribbled three words.

“It’s a four-hundred-dollar gamble,” Rainy said. “This is Vegas.”

The woman took the list and the money and disappeared inside wordlessly. She won’t come back, Rainy thought. She’s going to take the two hundred and split. The door opened when two male housekeepers stepped out to smoke...or sample Barry’s wares. They took one look at her, sitting against the wall, swore profusely and went back inside. Thirty minutes later, when Rainy was convinced she’d been ghosted, the door opened again. Rainy stood up, smiling. The woman wordlessly handed her a tiny envelope.

“You’re a lifesaver,” Rainy said, handing her the rest of the bills.

The woman nodded curtly and disappeared through the door again.

“You’re definitely a New Englander, Paulie.” She typed a few notes into her phone and sent a text before making her way back to the front of the Bellum. Ditching her phone in the trash can out front like he’d told her to do, she stood in eyesight of the lobby and waited, counting to two hundred. He’d wanted to see her do it, then he wanted to have time to get away. She searched their faces: the comers and goers, the staff—there were too many bodies, too many options.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, said her heart.

She walked in.