An old-fashioned girl. Tyler suppressed a smirk. A month ago, he didn’t know what eightballs were, but in the past few weeks he had dispensed several powdery packets of the cocaine and heroin used to concoct the cocktail, which seemed to be a favorite among the most hard-core users. Without a word, he fished in his track suit jacket pocket and pulled out two separate wads of silver foil. They looked as if they had been hastily packaged, but Tyler knew better. He had selected them earlier from the briefcase full of perfectly matching packets that had arrived along with his instructions. Then he had taken the time to grind them with a foot into the hotel bathroom’s floor to produce an even more tattered and authentic looking result.

Tyler held the silver foil out in front of him in his open palm. When the woman reached for his hand, he closed it shut around the foil. She jerked her hand back as if it had been slapped. She stared up at Tyler with a look of sudden desperation. Her hand fumbled inside her purse but emerged empty. “I got jack right now for cash, but I got something else …” Tyler knew where she was heading but he kept his fist closed and watched her expressionlessly.

“We can get a room around the corner.” She forced her eyes wider and slowly ran her tongue along her upper lip until it touched the crusting sore at the edge. “And I do everything there. Everything.” She pointed to his fist and gyrated her bony hips slightly, causing her to stumble a step. “Know what, baby? I’m going to give you the fuck of the century in trade,’kay?”

The thought intensified Tyler’s nausea, but he maintained his poker face. Focus. He opened his fist. “Tonight’s your lucky night,” he said. “Since I’m new to these parts, I’m offering samplers. This one’s on me.”

The woman’s hand shot out and grabbed the packets with surprising deftness.

Tyler watched as she jammed the foil deep into her handbag. “You got your own rig?” he asked, referring to the syringe and needle she would require.

“Yeah, yeah, in here,” she said distractedly, snapping up the purse as if he might revoke his offer at any moment.

“What’s your name?”

“Carol,” she sniffled. She shuffled on the spot, looking desperate to leave.

“Carol,” he repeated, amused by the middle-class blandness of how it sounded under the circumstances. “Next time, you’ll know who to see about buying your stuff, right?”

“Oh, absolutely, you’re my new man, baby,” she said, not bothering to ask his name. Then she swiveled on the spot and lurched on her pumps back to the Dumpster.