He pushes a place on his nose that, in a few years, will be holding up his glasses. “Bored of that,” he says, “all the rich jokes.”

“That must be very tough. Is your plane fancy?”

“You know,” he says, “it really is.”

“Good. I’d hate to buy a plane and then it’s just an old van in the sky that needs reupholstering.”

“I was just in it a few hours ago.”

“Where did it take you?”

“Overseas. I had to oversee something.”

“China? Little kids not soldering the wires quick enough?”

“I don’t touch hardware. Amsterdam. And no, I didn’t smoke anything. And you know what?”

Padgett has to bite her tongue instead of saying, as she would to her brother, “Chicken butt,” and then wonders why she is bothering. “I don’t know,” she answers out loud.

“I think they were conning me. We would talk and they would confer, and I swear it was so gibberishy I have decided Dutch is not a real language, just fakey words in no order. What do you say to that?”

“As the Dutch say,” Padgett punchlines for him, “jicama blowjob peanut.” They talk like this for a while, so it is seeming. She leans in and out of being plastered, while the Vic just pats the sleeping baby and pokes his ice. She can’t decide if she’s flirting with him or kicking his ass. Shandra flits in on her way out and kisses Padgett, what the fuck was that, on the cheek. Three songs, or maybe the same song, take up the idea that women ought to get nasty on the dance floor, and then stop.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” Martin is megaphoning through his legal pad folded into a sloppy cone. Padgett is the only woman left in the room. “This is a raid! It is two in the morning, and the law says you must leave the speakeasy.”

“The speakeasy’s kowtowing to the law?” asks a fratty guy, to general chucklery.

“The Vic is the law in this town,” shouts another one.

“We are turning on the lights,” Martin continues, his voice old-timey through the cone. “Advise your eyes.”

Padgett wants to leave before she’s squinting. She is just steadying for a sec before the treacherous climb up the staircase when a hand stops hers on the banister. Across the room, Martin is grinning like she’s shouted “Bingo!” and makes, as all boys make, a gun out of his cocked finger. He pulls the trigger and Padgett’s eyes follow the imaginary path of the invisible bullet to the young, wide face of the Vic, handsome with money and babydom and a confident, bolted smile.

“I’ll walk you out,” the Vic tells her. “Let me walk you out.”