Getting pulled over turned out to be a lucky break, he realized, in that the route back to civilization after the fantasy was long and tortuous. The cop slowed and waved good-bye in front of the Cockatoo. It was after three A.M. on a weekday but the parking lot was chocked with Rolls, Lamborghinis, Maseratis, and a rare mauve Daimler, a few pedestrian Mercedes; a single silver Husqvarna dirt bike was chained to a post with a silver chain.

There was a definite attempt to turn Warlock away in the foyer. The bouncers were twins, male and female, and both over two hundred pounds in garish punk outfits. But the single toilet marked Who Cares was close by and the decorator he had met at Mrs. Rabun’s gallery was in the process of coming out of Who Cares.

“Hockney!” he screamed, embracing Warlock. “Are the se assholes trying to keep you out of my club?” The bouncers cringed back against the cigarette machine as if hit across the upper lips with a crop. “We’re all here. Gloria will be crazy to see you.”

“I was a little lonely, you know, taking the night air.” Warlock was led through the club, noting that it held the demimonde, no doubt providing a pressure valve for the swells.

“You’ve got a homing device, baby. You’re in the right place.”

Mrs. Rabun waved from a table around which sat a dozen male admirers. Warlock was introduced to the guest of honor, a purportedly important western artist. The artist leaned back in his chair with expensive cowboy boots—an eel and ostrich combo—resting on the tablecloth. His denim was faded and patched and his silver Zuni concho belt had torn a hole in the leather chair.

Finding Mrs. Rabun was a coincidence of not quite Zhivago importance. She kissed him effusively and rolled her cynical eyes at her audience and the table littered with magnums of vintage champagne—Ruinart, Cristal, Pérignon. Warlock figured she was picking up the tab for the mud bath. It wasn’t hard to see where the money went.

“How about a rooty-toot-toot,” his immediate neighbor on the left asked, pouring Warlock a lump of white powder and passing a silver straw.

“Paese che vai, usanza che trovi,” he muttered, snorting the powder and catching Mrs. Rabun’s eye. It was his sole Italian sentence and meant, vaguely, that it’s best to go along with the crowd.

“You’re full of surprises, dear Hockney.” The nickname was sticking.

“Are you David Hockney, the Englishman? Your art sucks,” said the western artist, jealous for attention. He whispered a number of filthy imprecations at Gloria Rabun, who was not entirely displeased.