He’s wrapping up a call on speakerphone, the only piece of technology on his glass-topped desk. I give him a bit of space and wait in the doorway.

“That’s not what we agreed to, Tony. It’s not even close.”

As usual, Maxim is impeccably dressed. Custom suit, three-piece and pin-striped. Double-knotted silk tie. Pocket scarf, arranged just so. His hair is still thick and white, combed straight back off his forehead. Say what you will of Maxim’s businesses, but he’s got the mobster look down pat.

On the other end of the line, Tony launches into what promises to be a longwinded rebuttal, which Maxim cuts off ten seconds in.

“Tomorrow. You have until the end of the day.” He punches a button and gives the phone a noisy shove. “Well, well, well. If it ain’t the Steak King, as I live and breathe.”

Barely. Maxim’s lungs sound like a rock tumbler filled with gravel, a noisy in and out that makes my own chest seize in sympathy. Maxim smokes like a chimney. He doesn’t exercise or sleep. He eats fried potatoes and red meat drowning in butter sauce, which he washes down with booze. But he’s trim and energetic and when he’s zipping around town in his convertible Maserati, he looks like a million bucks. Maxim is like one of those deep-water sharks—he’ll live to be four hundred.

I lift a hand in greeting. “Maxim. You’re looking good. Have you been working out again?”

He laughs, a harsh, phlegmy sound. “Flattery will get you nowhere, kid. Now sit down and tell me some good news. You look like shit, by the way.”

I glance behind me for one of the matching white leather chairs stationed across from his desk, and that’s when I see him—a guy I didn’t notice before, leaning against the far glass wall like a silent sentry. I take in his oily hair, his black leather jacket, and he lifts a pocked chin in greeting.

I turn back, sinking onto the chair. I don’t love the idea of an audience, especially considering what I came here to do—beg Maxim for another loan, a whopper, and before I’ve paid back what I owe him on the last one—but I also don’t have a choice. The clock is ticking, each second pounding with urgency in my chest.

“I feel like shit, too, honestly.” My leg is going to town under the glass table, and I swing my ankle over the knee and bear down, forcing the thing to stop bouncing. I tell myself to calm down, slow down. Business with Maxim always requires a bit of finessing. “It’s been a day.”

“I hear Nick pulled through.”