“What’s a nice girl—” he began. Robby ran her fingertips over the bulge of his wallet.

“Buzz off,” the hooker said without even looking at him. “We’re closed.”

Robby was only dimly aware of the man withdrawing, nursing his wounds; the hooker had an eelskin purse on a thin gold chain, and the catch was not quite closed. Robby cocked her head and stared at it, interested. The woman’s Scotch arrived, doubled, and she tipped it back into her mouth and swallowed until it was dry. She coughed like a cat with a hairball. “Oh, Jesus, it tastes like smoke. Uh—vodka. Double.”

Robby sipped her drink and watched. The hooker opened the eelskin purse and peeled a twenty off a wad of bills that looked as wet as the mink dripping on her shoulders. “Hit me until I don’t care, okay?”

“Whatever,” the bartender shrugged. The hooker fumbled her glass and sent vodka spilling over the bar toward Robby, who scooted her stool away from the danger. The woman’s face was flushed.

“Sorry,” the hooker mumbled. “’M having a crisis.”

Robby nodded noncommittally and returned to sipping at her Bushmill’s, and watched the hooker down vodkas, one after another, a masochist getting slaps in the face. After a while, the woman took another twenty out and waved it at the bartender, in case her tab was running down; the drinks kept coming.

Robby sat, relaxed, and chewed a straw while she waited for her chance.

All in all, it was shaping up to be a great day.

“Same again,” Velvet ordered, and wrestled with the mink. It clung like sweat. Before the bartender could turn away, she grabbed his white sleeve. “Hey. No cheap stuff, goddamn it. I’m paying for the real thing. Russian shit.”

She had to admit, she couldn’t tell the difference between Russian vodka and Mexican vodka, but it sounded good. He shrugged and tilted a bottle over her glass for the sixth time, or the twentieth, she’d given up counting. She almost spilled the drink in her haste to get it to her lips, and took in à long spicy sip of cold mist, a swallow of fire and ice.

Fire. She choked and coughed and burst into tears. Goddamn freaks. She dabbed frantically at her eyes with a cocktail napkin, tried to tilt her head back, but all that did was make cold snail-trails down the side of her face. The tight-assed woman in the business suit on her left leaned forward for a handful of pretzels and pretended not to notice. After another minute the suit finished her drink and disappeared toward the neon-lit hallway that said things like PHONE and RESTROOMS and POOL. Thinking about the bathroom made Velvet remember that she really ought to throw up.