“And you do realize, of course,” Myron said, “that steroids make your testicles shrink.”

Then from behind him, Esperanza said, “He’s with me, Kyle.”

Myron turned, saw Esperanza, and managed not to say, “Wow,” out loud, though it wasn’t easy. He had known Esperanza for two decades now, had worked side by side with her, and sometimes, when you see someone every day and become best friends, you just forget what a total knee-knocking sizzler she is. When they met, Esperanza had been a scantily clad professional wrestler known as Little Pocahontas. Lovely, lithe, and teeth-meltingly hot, she left being the glamour girl of FLOW (Fabulous Ladies of Wrestling) to become his personal assistant while getting her law degree at night. She had moved up the ranks, so to speak, and was now Myron’s partner at MB Reps.

Kleavage Kyle’s face broke into a smile. “Poca? Girl, is that really you? You look good enough to lick like an ice cream cone.”

Myron nodded. “Smooth line, Kyle.”

Esperanza offered her cheek for a buss. “Nice to see you too,” she said.

“Been too long, Poca.”

Esperanza’s dark beauty brought on images of moonlit skies, night walks on the beach, olive trees in a gentle breeze. She wore hoop earrings. Her long black hair always had the perfect muss to it. Her sheer white blouse had been fitted by a benevolent deity; it may have been open a button too low but it was all working.

The three goons stepped back now. One released the velvet rope. Esperanza rewarded him with a dazzling smile. As Myron followed, Kleavage Kyle positioned himself to bump into Myron. Myron braced himself and made sure that Kyle got the worst of it. Esperanza muttered, “Men.”

Kleavage Kyle whispered to Myron: “We ain’t through, bub.”

“We’ll do lunch,” Myron said. “Maybe catch a matinee of South Pacific.”

As they headed inside, Esperanza shot Myron a look and shook her head.

“What?”

“I said dress to impress. You look like you’re heading to a parent-teacher conference for a fifth grader.”

Myron pointed at his feet. “In Ferragamo loafers?”

“And what were you starting up with those Neanderthals for?”

“He called a girl chunky.”

“And you came to her rescue?”

“Well, no. But he said it right to her face. ‘Your friends can come in but you can’t because you’re chunky.’ Who does that?”

The main room in the club was dark with neon accents. There were large-screen TVs in one section because if you’re out at a nightclub, what you really want to do, Myron guessed, was watch TV. The sound system, approximately the size and dimension of a Who stadium concert’s, assaulted the senses. The DJ played “house music,” a practice whereby the “talented” DJ takes what might ordinarily be a decent song and absolutely destroys it by adding some kind of synthesized bass or electronic beat. There was a laser show, something Myron thought went out of style after a Blue Öyster Cult tour in 1979, and a bevy of young thin-sticks oohed and ahhed over a special effect on the dance floor whereby said floor belched steam, as though you couldn’t see that on the street near any Con Ed truck.