“He says, ‘You ought to have known I’d do it! Didn’t I steal a crutch from a cripple?’ ”

Elizabeth said, “Did you tell that for a reason?”

“The first time we met,” I said, “maybe that was instinct or reflex, but each of us established who we were. Very clearly. You’re someone who tries to fuck people over for money. I showed you that I would knock you down, take your gun, steal your phone, and walk off with the money. Like stealing a crutch from a cripple.

“Here we are again. I expected you’d try it again. You should have expected that I’d be ready to do something about it. Again.”

“You said it was an accident.”

“Maybe that’s doing you a favor,” I said, a little harsh, a little patronizing. “Anybody asks you, you can say that to the very best of your knowledge it was an accident. That you never heard anyone say anything else. You can say it with conviction. Without some little flicker or flutter, inside or out. You can say it with a polygraph and the needle won’t twitch. Me saying it was an accident protects you. And you will pay me.”

“How’s that?” Elizabeth said, with that ace-in-the-hole attitude people learn by binge watching Billionaire.

“My tape of you asking and me saying no.”

“If you go after us,” she said, still sounding like an as-seen-on-TV person, “we definitely won’t pay you. Since it’s an accident, we’re not at risk. Mexican standoff, that’s what it’s called.”

I sighed. “What I’ll do is go to each of you. Individually. The first one to pay me gets a pass. Then the other one goes down.” I looked back and forth. Like I was trying to calculate who would crack first. Which I was. Madelaine would roll over out of simple fear. Elizabeth was quite crafty enough to know that she was in a race to do it before her client folded.

Maddie placed her drink down on the railing with a drunk’s careful attention to making sure it was centered and balanced and wouldn’t tumble over and embarrass her. She took a breath. She opened her mouth to speak. Before a single sound emerged, Elizabeth preempted the punchline, “Of course, our intention is to pay you.”

“Good,” I said.

There was a pause, then, in a more realistic and straightforward way, she said, “I have one last question.”

“What?”

“The girl. Will she hold up?”

“Of course,” I said, revealing not a single sign of how worried I was about it.

“You’re certain?” Madelaine asked.

“How,” Elizabeth asked, “can you be certain?”

“Because, just like you, the only information she has is that it was an accident. A goddamn accident.”