They listen to it for a minute, some dude saying she’s the hottest girl to ever slide into the club. “About my mother,” Padgett finishes.

“OK, stop. I’ll tell you, OK? This is a no-bullshit thing I am not showing anyone. First, let’s grab a lunch. It’s right nearby and they have this great sandwich.”

“Who are you?” she asks him.

The car pulls up to a raggedy parking lot full of shirtless guys and jeeps. He puts on different sunglasses.

“Master of disguise,” she says.

“You can wait in the car. What do you want on your sandwich? They have one really great one.”

“Don’t get me that. Get me a sad soggy terrible sandwich, thanks.”

He checks his wallet and waves good-bye. Padgett loses herself for a moment among the attractive young men out the window, and has the usual daydream, whenever a boy leaves a girl in a car, of tearing out of there. But then the Vic is bounding back with two paper sacks and a bottle of beer, tall like a church spire in his fit hand, with a complicated mess of cork and strap for a top.

“Drink up.”

“It’s eleven something in the morning.”

“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter. You snuck the wine from the lobby before we left, didn’t you?”

The label cold-sweats in her hand. A drawing of a monk, the words chocolate and hops. “Are we going to eat in the parking lot?”

“We’ll eat after.”

The sacks hit the backseat, where an empty plastic throne waits for the baby who, Padgett realizes, must have been in someone’s care all weekend. The bottle comes open like a belt buckle and she drinks, prickly with thirst and questions. It’s strong, muggy, the first taste. Not her liking, usually. “What are we doing?”

“Do you want to see something? About ten miles more. I’ll show you this, something real from me, no disguise or polish. Now polish it off.”

She swigs again, and the beer moves around in her stomach like a hungry shark. Her heartbeat is undisguised in her ears. It feels so strong. “Every mogul has one,” he is saying, “but mine’s a secret.”

“Did you just say mogul? Did you just call yourself—”

“Tycoon,” the Vic says, chuckling. “Bigwig. Fat cat. Titan of industry. One guy’s making a train, the other one’s fixing Africa. There’s guys building a big clock in the desert, have you heard this? Lasts for a thousand years. Nine generations hence they’ll thank those clock builders.”

“Hence?” she asks. “I’m not sure in the deep future they’ll really be thanking them for a clock. They won’t need a clock.”

“What do you think they need?”

“My guess,” Padgett says, still sipping, “is money.”