“Not really. But if you like, I can pretend to be scared of you. You seem to want it so bad.”

“I won’t forget about this,” Carrigan said, trying to make it a threat as he stood up from the table. He threw down a few dollars. The edge of one caught the lip of my champagne saucer, and I left it dangling there as I took another sip, smiling up at him. If he was trying to make me feel cheap, it didn’t work. Nothing could.

“No,” I said, “I wouldn’t expect you to.”

“You really would’ve used those photographs? With your face all over them? You really would’ve sent them to the paper?”

He was looking for a moment of softness from me, some trace of the woman he thought he’d been fucking.

“What do you think?” I said.

The last I saw of him was the line of his shoulders moving for the door. Back to the wife. Maybe this would be a lesson for him. Maybe he’d learn not to go sniffing after strange women to feel like a hero. Maybe he’d go back to that strong wife of his and appreciate her more now. Or maybe he’d learned nothing at all.

I stayed at the bar for another drink or two, watching the clientele get sloshed and then soaked. This time tomorrow, Jackal would be on his way to his new life—whatever that was.

Before I’d left to meet Carrigan, Jackal had suggested one last goodbye drink. I’d told him no, I’d drop the money off in the morning—“What, a lovers’ goodbye? You must be thinking of some other woman”—but now I found myself dialing Jackal’s number. “I changed my mind. I do want that drink.”

“You always do.”

“Meet me at my place? Bring something.”

There was a pause. “You don’t want to go anywhere?”

“Not gin,” I said. “Something expensive. Come soon.” I hung up.

When Jackal rang my doorbell, he was carrying two nice bottles of pinot noir and an overstuffed file folder of the photographs. “I know you don’t drink white,” he said.

“Good boy,” I said, tucking the prints under my arm. Jackal made a face. I found us two glasses, and then changed my mind, uncorking them both and handing him one of the bottles. He sat down on my couch and started to drink. I put his cut on the table, and he counted it there, his mouth moving with the numbers.