“What is it?” He turned to look out the window. The truck downstairs was empty now, its small load wheeled into the nightclub on a handcart. He watched the driver lower the rear panel, hop back into his cab, and then start pulling out into the street.

The door inched open and one of Nick’s crew, a muscular kid named Bakach, leaned his head inside.

“The Arab woman is here,” he said in thickly accented English. “With her friend.”

Nicky shifted his attention back to the mirror and gave himself a final inspection. She was even earlier than he’d expected. Whatever her ultimate plans for the merchandise, she obviously wasn’t wasting a minute.

“Send them in,” he said, satisfied with his appearance. “And tell Janos and Kos I want the packages.”

Bakach nodded, disappeared, and returned a minute later with Nick’s two visitors.

Nick turned toward the woman as she entered.

“Hello, Gilea,” he said, looking at her. She was beautiful, really very sexy, her shoulder-length black hair cut at a neat angle, her large slanting eyes reminding him of an exotic cat. Her tweed coat was open and revealed fine long legs below a short leather skirt.

He wondered fleetingly whether she might be interested in something more than a professional relationship.

“Nick,” she said, her high-heeled boots clicking on the floor as she came farther into the room. The tall man who had arrived with her had a thin scar curling down his cheek under a scruffy growth of beard. He followed a step behind her and stopped moving when she stopped. Nick saw the slight bulge of a pistol beneath his car jacket.

“I saw the truck outside,” she said. “Can 1 assume my delivery has arrived?”

“My men are bringing it up right now,” he said, and motioned to a chair by his desk. “Why don’t you relax while you wait?”

She stared coldly into his face.

“I’ll stand,” she said.

Minutes later there was another knock on the door. Nick opened it and a couple of his men came in carrying a medium-sized wooden shipping crate between them. There were two more crates in the outer corridor. The men carefully set the first crate on the floor and brought the others in one at a time, putting them down beside it. The third box had a crowbar resting on its lid.

Gilea stood there in silence, her dark brown eyes trained on the crates.

“I want to have a look,” she said.

Nick gave Kos a nod.

Kos lifted the crowbar, slid its flat edge between the lid and the upper corner of the box, and began prying it open. While he waited, Nick glanced over at Gilea. Her eyes had narrowed, and the tip of her tongue was gliding back and forth across her bottom lip.

The lid finally came loose. Gilea bent over the crate and reached inside, her hand burrowing through a layer of Styrofoam packing material.