Martin watches her not deny it, although Padgett is just thinking that she hasn’t said anything. It’s unsettling how he looks at her, unsettling to both of them. “No one understands you,” he says at last, “like I do.”

“I don’t want to be understood that way,” says Padgett, and despite herself, pours them both more drink, falling down upon her throat like the shade of an umbrella. “I made a promise to him,” she says.

“You are naked in front of me,” Martin says, “when you say that.”

She sips again and gestures to the sex they had. “I thought it was, I thought we could just—”

“Well, I made a promise too,” Martin says, and Padgett almost covers her eyes in embarrassment. It is a speech coming, as sure as itch from a mosquito, or rain from a black cloud already raining, a speech made of whiskey and broke loneliness, a chip, for three years, on his weakening shoulder. “I promised I wouldn’t let you slip away with everything, leaving me empty as hell. I set things, all of this, up. I rescued you from over a barrel, put on a party to throw you at him.” He sips again while they both think over how far this is from what they both know is the truth. “You landed him and OK, you are making something work. When you go to a restaurant, you don’t have to eat the food they bring out, even when you order it up and they serve it to you.” His drink is not done but he pours more, and a little splashes to the floor. “But Padgett,” he says, “Padgett, you have to pay.”

Padgett watches it sink in, the whiskey, not far from her things on the carpet, her bra stretched out wiry and bent like a daddy longlegs. How dirty it is, where they are. She should put everything on and leave. “If it’s money,” she says finally.

“If it’s money. Listen to you. Only a rich person, someone who could scatter thousands upon thousands—”

“Martin, I can’t. The money’s out of my reach.”

“I just saw you co-chairing,” he says, the word all wrong for his snarl, “an evening that raised one point five mil.”

“And what? You think I can put a bunch of it in a sack and bring it to you?” She does not add “And that disease, that continent is desperate,” because here he is, desperate too.

“How did you buy this shoe?” He looks ridiculous, naked, holding it up.

“On a card,” she says. “The Vic’s got the bug about cashless, you must know that.”

“You see? You still call him—”

“For you I do. And for you I’d find money, but honey, there’s nothing to be found.”

The honey makes the barman clench his fists.