Outside the apartment, Audrey approached Johnny’s door. She could hear electronic dance music seeping out into the hallway. She knocked, but no one answered, probably because they couldn’t hear the pounding on the door over the pounding of the music. Audrey turned the knob and slipped inside the glowing blue light of the apartment.

“Drink this,” Johnny told the skinny young girl.

“What is it?” she asked with a mix of apprehension and curiosity.

Johnny leaned in, placing his hand on her waist. “No hangover.” He slid his hand around to her ass. “And you can fuck for hours.”

The girl met his eyes and lifted the champagne flute to her lips, surrendering to his intentions. The music suddenly stopped.

Confused, Johnny turned to see an unfamiliar face bearing down on him.

“Give me that!” Audrey shouted as she grabbed the champagne flute out of the girl’s hand and tossed it across the room, shattering it on Johnny’s TV and cracking the giant screen.

“Hey! What are you doing!” Johnny shouted at her.

Audrey pulled her badge, conspicuously resting her other hand on the SIG Sauer P250 service pistol holstered on her belt.

“Narcotics Police,” Audrey informed the assembled crowd, who stood in silence. Audrey turned her attention to the girl whose drink she had intercepted, and told her to turn on the lights. As the partygoers shielded their eyes from the glare, Audrey’s gaze fell on a coffee table, which was covered in various drugs and paraphernalia.

“That looks like about five grams of ice,” she informed Johnny casually. “And I’m guessing this is two to three grams of ketamine.”

“Somebody brought that,” Johnny protested, buying time. “It’s not mine.”

Like many drug dealers, Johnny was an amateur legal scholar and knew he was facing hard time if Audrey uncovered the true scope of his business. Johnny cast a furtive glance to one of his friends, then flicked his gaze to an aluminum baseball bat in the corner.

Just at the edge of Audrey’s peripheral vision, the thuggish teen snatched the bat and stepped toward her.

Audrey spun, whipping her SIG P250 up at his nose. The young man could see in her eyes that the detective would not hesitate to drop the hammer and paint the wall with his brains. He released the bat and raised his hands.

“I want to talk to my lawyer,” Johnny demanded.

Audrey cast her gaze around the room, making sure the assembled captives were made aware of their legal liability. “All your friends here are looking at seven years for possession of DD,” Audrey said, using the regionally known initialism for dangerous drugs. “What do you think your lawyer is going to be able to do when your friends decide they would rather drop those seven years in exchange for fingering you?”