Paolo considered for a full minute, staring at the flickering set with narrowed serious eyes.

“Mrs. Howell,” he said.

She realized she’d been staring too long. Time to go. She gathered up her clothes—the mink had managed to fluff out again, there was quality for you—and was turning her panty hose back inside-out, when suddenly the TV went off. She looked up to find Paolo staring at her.

“I love you,” he said. There was nothing in his face, nothing in his voice. For a bad second she thought he meant it, until he started laughing. She got dressed and closed the loft door. Somewhere in the distance, she heard the methodical twig-snap of whipcracks. Ming was busy. Velvet squared her shoulders and started down the hall, toward the elevator. A hollow-eyed man dressed in a Metallica T-shirt and crusty gray pants sat at the far end, waiting; she wasn’t sure if he was a client or a bum or a killer. As she walked past him, she felt hands on her back, ghost-hands, cold.

Fucking hallways.

She really, really needed a drink or she would ralph all over the mink.

Chapter Six

Robby

Robby adjusted her jacket and checked her reflection in the mirror one more time—hair neatly styled, makeup minimal, face under control. She felt ever so slightly sick to her stomach—souvenir of her half of a vodka bottle—but the headache was gone, thank god. She needed every brain cell firing.

She touched up her lipstick, a color just a shade darker than her lips, and blotted the excess away on a square of toilet tissue. Focus, she told herself. Her fingers were vibrating, and not from the scent of money. She clenched them hard enough to hurt, then relaxed them. The tremble was gone.

She opened the bathroom door and walked out into the garlic-scented dimness of the restaurant, past a stocky-looking waiter singing in a reedy tenor while he poured red wine from a wicker-wrapped bottle. It took a second for her eyes to adjust, and then she spotted Sol Lipsky in the back booth, smiling and nodding at her.

Panic flared white under her skin.

Jim wasn’t there. Goddamn him, Jim wasn’t in the booth, wasn’t anywhere in view, and Sol was making his big round Italian gestures, smile cool and getting colder the longer she paused.

She had to move. Door or booth. Escape or—

There was no escape, not really. She walked toward the booth.

“Robby, Robby, sweetheart, so good to see you. Wine? Good for the heart.” Sol never stopped to hear her answer. He didn’t pour very well; drops of red splashed on the red-checkered plastic tablecloth. Robby automatically dabbed them up with her thin napkin, then wiped some scattered bread crumbs off the table as well. It didn’t really matter; the plastic still felt as sticky as a porn palace floor.