It was nearly eight A.M. when he emerged from the toilet. He quickly stashed the dope, guns, and cash in his backpack. He heard Cotton trudge up the stairs, punch in, and pour coffee into a mug his granddaughter had given him for his fifty-eighth birthday. He took a sip and spewed coffee from his mouth like Oliver Hardy in one of the old Laurel and Hardy farces. He said, “This coffee tastes burned. Why didn’t you make fresh? It’s not like you’ve got anything better to do. Hey, what’s so funny, bub? You look like the cat who swallowed the canary.”

“I did, Cotton. I swallowed the yellow bird whole.”

The next afternoon Clifford deposited $3,000 into his checking account. He wrote checks as partial payments to the three credit-card accounts. He paid Winston his growth-hormone debt in cash and then breezed down to the House of Roses. It was eight degrees out, but the old neighborhood felt like paradise. He sent six dozen red roses to Baby and a dozen yellow roses to his mother. He shucked out limp and greasy junkie-handled bills in payment. Yeah, the money was greasy, but even that was righteous. He didn’t give two shits about the petty day-by-day. After another snort of heroin he puked twice (hey, now, is that cool or what?), and then he flipped WLS on the radio and bopped around the kitchen in stocking feet. Goddamn it, muh fuck, let’s get down!

That night at work, kicking back on H, Clifford caught the next episode of the Baby show. “You lookin’ fine, girl. I’m goin’ make you mine, girl!” He flashed on the dope den. It was black and devoid of action. Oh ho ho haw!

Clifford called in sick the next day. He caught a cab over to Michigan Avenue and got a $100 haircut. So much for the mullet. He hadn’t even known it was a mullet until the stylist told him. He bought an Italian suit, size fifty-two, and gave the tailor an extra $200 to rush the job. He bought a pair of shoes, a $300 dress shirt, and a $400 silk tie. He paid for these in greasy junkie bills. He bought a carton of Gauloises and a $900 solid-gold lighter, a steal. The lighter generated a superheated laser beam, and according to the salesman it was fail-proof in hurricane-velocity winds. What Clifford liked most was the lighter’s car-door-sounding click. It was irresistible, and it took a blister on the thumb to stop him from clicking. Late the next morning, clicking his new lighter left-handed, Clifford called in sick again. He Michael Jackson–voiced it. “Hi, Gloria, it’s Cliff again. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Boy, if it wasn’t February I’d swear I have West Nile,” he said.

“There’s a lot of flu going around,” she said. “Take all the time you need, and you be careful, big boy.”