“I tried to fly,” she said. “But it didn’t work.”

Lisa’s arrangement with cocaine had been “low-key” and “social.” That’s how she described it, and Luke saw little reason to challenge her. You’re better without it, he’d ventured once, regarding her need to use before performing, to which Lisa had replied, unforgettably, You’ll always reach higher when you have something lifting you up. A contestable logic, he’d believed, in a person with so much natural talent.

She’d met Ramón at a launch party at the Whisky. Her producer, Moon Child, had made the introductions, getting directly to the point: “Ramón, this is Lisa Hayes, aka the second coming of Aretha. Lisa, this is Ramón Sojo Apa . . . Apa . . . oh fuck, I don’t know, but he makes the best blow this side of the Big River. Calls it Venezuelan Sugar. How cute is that?” Up until then, Lisa had procured her coke from a dealer out of West Hollywood—called himself the Bounce. Her first question to Ramón had been: “What makes your product so good?”

“I told her it was sleek,” Ramón said, blinking the blood out of his left eye. “A smoother up, a smoother down. No shade.”

“Sugar,” Lisa said. She smiled, so familiar—a shot to Luke’s solar plexus.

“When was this?” he asked.

“Four, five years ago.” Ramón squirmed, his face turned sideways with discomfort. “Motherfucker, I’m hurting here.”

“Yeah. Shame.” But Luke hoisted him—threw him onto the sofa. “Better?”

“Joder! No. Dios mío!”

“Too bad. Talk.”

Lisa had dropped the Bounce and switched her coke allegiance to Ramón. Her assistant, Jazmine, handled transactions. This was a side of Lisa’s life of which Luke had little knowledge, and no influence. She did her thing. Luke rolled with it.

“She invited me to Uncle Lizard’s. I didn’t want to go. Too far from home.” Ramón shook his head again. “But she said . . . she said I was the emperor of the high—”

“Emperor,” Lisa said.

“She said I needed to be there. She wanted to introduce me to some people. Spread the love. The sugar.”

Lisa had, by this time, shared with Ramón how she wanted to get into movies, and Ramón had shared with Lisa how he was working on a new product, one that accentuated natural ability, and elevated the user to the best possible version of themselves.

“Canary,” Luke said.

“A prototype,” Ramón said. “It wasn’t ready. I told her it wasn’t ready, but she insisted.”

“First,” Lisa said.

“Sí. She was the first person to test it,” Ramón said. “It . . . it didn’t go well.”