Zeb waited around Queers that night until I knocked off. I say waited, but a more accurate description would be passed out in the all-night pharmacy across the street. He was more or less hurled into my path by the proprietor as I walked home.

‘And keep your prick away from my customers!’ was the farewell comment.

Obviously Zeb had been up to no good just before passing out. Perhaps the two were connected.

I was in a pretty crappy mood, having just told my boss where he could shove his mascara pencil, but something about the sheer wretchedness of this figure at my feet dissolved my gloom, and I picked the little guy off the ground and frogmarched him a couple of blocks to Kellogg’s diner on Metropolitan.

He came to a little after a jug of coffee, and greeted me like a lost comrade.

‘Hey, Paddy O’Mickster. Where are we? What happened?’

‘You were trying to inject some dick fat into a customer, apparently.’

It took Zeb a minute to process this, then a slow grin lit his features. ‘Funny. You’re a funny guy, Irish. I didn’t get that sense when you were in uniform.’

‘The name is Daniel McEvoy,’ I say without extending my hand. ‘Paddy O’Mickster was my mother’s second choice.’

Zeb actually slapped the table. ‘More with the funny. I love this guy,’ he announced to the diner’s five patrons. ‘So, Daniel McEvoy, you gonna admit me to Queers tomorrow night? Now that we’ve broken the ice?’

In response to this, I explained how I was off the Queers door because of a make-up disagreement.

‘I am surprised,’ said Zeb. ‘Why would anyone quit over a little mascara? Hell, I’m wearing women’s panties right now. You never know, right?’

At this point I was half amused, half thinking of leaving. This guy was despicable, but he had a certain sleazy charm.

‘So, anyways, Daniel O’McEvoy. You’re out of a job and I got a job with no one in it, so what do you say? You wanna work for Zeb Kronski?’

This was about the vaguest employment offer I had ever heard, and considering the man before me was wearing women’s panties, I thought I should ask for a couple more details.

It turned out that since Zeb didn’t have a licence to practise in the US, he was doing the Botox party rounds on a cash-only basis and had already been ripped off twice. He could do with someone to hump the wad, as he put it.

Once he explained, I signed on for a week. Provisionally. See how things panned out.