V INCE MASUOKA HAD A SMALL HOUSE IN NORTH Miami, at the end of a dead-end street off N.E. 125th Street. It was painted pale yellow with pastel purple trim, which really made me question my taste in associates. There were a few very well-barbered bushes in the front yard and a cactus garden by the front door, and he had a row of those solar-powered lamps lighting the cobblestone walkway to his front door.

I had been there once before, a little more than a year ago, when Vince had decided for some reason to have a costume party. I had taken Rita, since the whole purpose of having a disguise is to be seen wearing it. She had gone as Peter Pan, and I was Zorro, of course; the Dark Avenger with a ready blade. Vince had answered the door in a body-hugging satin gown with a basket of fruit on his head.

J. Edgar Hoover? I asked him.

You’re very close. Carmen Miranda, he had said before leading us in to a fountain of lethal fruit punch. I had taken one sip and decided to stick with the sodas, but of course that had been before my conversion to a beer-swilling red-blooded male. There had been a nonstop soundtrack of monotonous techno-pop music turned up to a volume designed to induce voluntary self-performed brain surgery, and the party had gotten exceedingly loud and hilarious.

As far as I knew, Vince had not entertained since then, at least not on that scale. Still, the memory apparently lingered, and Vince had no trouble in gathering an enthusiastic crowd to join in my humiliation with only twenty-four-hours’ notice. True to his word, there were dirty movies playing all over the house on a number of video monitors he had set up, even out back on his patio. And, of course, the fruit-punch fountain was back.

Because the rumors of that first party were still fresh on the grapevine, the place was packed with rowdy people, mostly male, who attacked the punch like they had heard there was a prize for the first one to achieve permanent brain damage. I even knew a few of the partiers. Angel Batista-no-relation was there from work, along with Camilla Figg and a handful of other forensic lab geeks, and a few cops I knew, including the four who had not fucked it up for Sergeant Doakes. The rest of the crowd seemed to be pulled off South Beach at random, chosen for their ability to make a loud, high-pitched WHOO! sound when the music changed or the video monitor showed something particularly undignified.