A glint from the framed photograph by her bed caught his eye. He went over and picked it up. Three faces smiled back. His own, his wife’s, and Abby’s. They were sitting in a ruined and overgrown amphitheater. Marielle had been organizing a joint project with Cranbrook House in Detroit and an Istanbul museum, so she and Spencer had decided to piggyback a family vacation on it. She’d insisted they see this lost city in the mountains—Termessos. They’d even had to get Abby her first passport. It had been an adventure from the get-go: their first and, as it turned out, only foreign vacation together.

Four years separated that moment from now. A lot could happen in four years. Recently, Abby had started asking about going back there. He replaced the picture. He had a business to save before they could think about expensive vacations.

Spencer was of the mind that alcohol was just amazing. It never ceased to impress him how everything bad could just melt away in its embrace. Old dreams got a fresh lick of paint and as for the bad things that hung around him like a heavy cloak, intricately embroidered with all his failings, it was like some well-trained maître d’ just stepped up behind and coaxed it off. Allow me, sir.

Another few big drinks. The temperature had finally dropped off a little. The sofa felt like it was made of warm mud. Its soft, heavy cushions enveloped Spencer. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d woken up there. His eyes started to close. His glass tilted and some of its contents tipped onto his leg. Liquid coolness stirred him.

Spencer feared sleep and the dreams it brought. He had his routine down to a fine art: coke to get through work, drink to get through the evening, weed to wind down. A couple of sleeping pills as a chaser.

Sometimes, though, he misjudged things—like tonight. He’d gotten home mightily pissed at himself. After the crazy episode with that suit and his bet, he could have come back with four grand. Four grand. Once he’d had the fender fixed—fifteen hundred bucks tops, more like nine hundred using his contacts—he could have still put a little dent in the runaway train that was Winchester Auto’s expenditure. But after a bruising encounter with the tables of the MGM Grand, he barely had enough to repair the fender—at buddy rates. Besides that, there was something else niggling him. Something he’d forgotten to do, something to do with money.

Ron! You were supposed to call Ron-at-the-fucking-Bank! Fuck!

He lurched out of the seat, stood unsteadily, and fished around in his pockets for his phone. Then he saw it jammed between the cushions of the sofa. He bent over to grab it but too quickly. As he scrolled through the numbers, his circulation couldn’t quite fuel his brain. He keeled over.