His finger is coated with the remains of a basket of buffalo wings, and sauce on fingers is something that has always irritated me more than it reasonably should.

‘We got a time-out room just back here,’ I say, not looking at the brown gunk under his nails. What is wrong with people? You eat, you keep your mouth closed, you wipe your fingers. How hard is that? ‘Why don’t we discuss your issues back there?’

Connie is quiet, trying to hold her anger in, chewing on some nicotine gum like it’s one of the guy’s balls. Connie has a temper, but she won’t slap without good reason. She’s got two kids in a crèche over on Cypress, so she needs the paycheque.

‘Okay, Dan,’ she says. ‘But can we move it along? I got people dying to tip me. This is an open-and-shut case.’

The pointer laughs, like it’s funny she should use that terminology.

I shepherd them into the time-out room, which is barely more than a broom closet; in fact there are a couple of mops growing like dreadlocked palms out of a cardboard box island in the corner.

‘You okay?’ I ask Connie, glad to see she’s not smoking. Six months and counting.

She nods, sitting on a ratty sofa. ‘Dude licked my ass. Licked it. You got any wipes, Daniel?’

I hand her a slim pack. You always carry a pack of antiseptic wipes working a bottom-rung New Jersey casino like Slotz. There’s all sorts of stuff you can catch just hanging around.

I look away while Connie is wiping the barbecue sauce off her behind. You can’t help noticing cleavage in this place, but I figure you can avoid the lower regions. I try to keep my eyes above the waist; leaves everybody with something. So while she’s cleaning up, I turn to the guy. The licker.

‘What were you thinking, sir? There’s no touching. Can’t you read?’

The guy is going to rub me the wrong way. I can tell just by his hair, a red frizz sitting on his head like a nest fell off a roof.

‘I saw the plaque, Daniel,’ he says, pointing towards the casino floor. This guy is a pointing machine. ‘It says do not touch.’

‘And what did you do? You touched.’

‘No,’ says the guy, switching his pointing finger over to me, so close I can smell the sauce, which is putting me off barbecue for a month at least. Except ribs. ‘I didn’t touch. You touch with your hands. I tasted.’

He stops talking then, like I need a second for this brilliant argument to sink in.

‘You think I never heard that stupid shit before? You seriously think you’re the first guy to try that on?’