Back on the floor he returned to the table, where Ears's drink stood, and set his own down right next to it. He saw Ears finishing up with the girl. She was leaning into him, her breasts an inch from his nose. A little chitchat would follow, then Ears would return. Victor picked up Ears's drink, slid his own over a few inches, and casually drank a good half of Ear's drink in one long slow gulp and put the glass close to him, making it look like he'd been steadily working through his drink. Vic's original drink, now laced with the contents from the glass vial, appeared to be Ears's untouched drink. Vic pulled out his cell phone, turned it on, listened to nothing, nodded a few times, then clapped it shut just as Ears and the girl arrived.
"What's up?" Ears said.
"Violet was looking out across her window, saw somebody in the yard," said Victor. "Guy inside the gate."
Ears sat down, glanced hungrily at the girl.
"You were born paranoid."
"Gotta check it out. Don't want the cops coming around, either. Fucking sucks."
Ears nodded. He'd already hinted to the girl how rich he was, Victor knew, not that the girls here didn't start trying to figure that out right away. Victor rose, tapped his fist to Ears's. "I know you think I'm crazy."
"I do, yes. Came out of the womb freakin' paranoid."
"We'll do that money thing later-"
"Got it right here, man," said Ears, tapping his breast pocket.
"Ahh, you got a good thing going here with this nice young lady," Vic said magnanimously. "No need to do business here. We'll do it tomorrow, what do you say?"
"Whatever you want, Vic. You better hope I don't spend it tonight. Could end up in Atlantic City, who knows what could happen."
"But I'm not forgetting my side of the deal." Vic turned to the girl. "He's a good man," he told her. "Guy's an old pal of mine, okay?" He tossed off the rest of what had originally been Ears's drink, drained it, ice and all. Then he pulled out his roll of hundreds, gave her ten. "So, listen, I'm buying him a really nice evening, okay?"
"Oh, wow," she murmured.
"Yo, Vic, this is above and beyond the call of duty," Ears said excitedly, hitting what he thought was his own drink hard.
"Not a problem." He touched knuckles with Ears and left.
At the door he beckoned one of the bouncers, who lurched over.
"I came in with my friend," said Victor, pulling out a hundred-dollar bill. "But now I got to go."
He handed the bill to the man, who accepted it as if it was his due even as he inspected its authenticity. "What's the problem?"
"My friend is taking that-he drinks too much, liver is bad, and he's taking that medicine that makes you throw up if you drink too much alcohol, makes you sick very fast."
"He's gonna get sick?"
"Maybe, maybe not," said Victor. "But if he does, I want you to drag him out of here and put him in a cab and send him downtown to the SoHo Grand Hotel."
"For a hundred?"
"No. That was just to have the conversation." Victor smiled and pulled out another hundred and slipped it to the man, who snapped it away. "What hotel?"
"SoHo Grand. Very cool hotel, man. Big time there."
"That's right."
"Cool."
Outside, Victor turned the corner, pulled the vial from his pocket and flipped it into the street, where it popped. The pieces would be crushed by thousands of cars into powder by the next morning. He'd seen Ears drink at least an ounce of his drink, which meant half an ounce of the mixture. All he needed to do was take one more good pull, and then he'd have an ounce in his system. The methyl ethyl ke-tone went straight into the bloodstream. The sauce killed you about three different ways. Maybe he should have popped Richie that way. But he hadn't because there would have been a chance that Sharon would screw it up and kill herself instead of Richie. Though it would have saved Vic a lot of trouble, the cleanup job, moving Richie's body. But no, that had been a piece of luck, he told himself, because it was while he was cleaning up that he discovered that someone had been there. Gotten the tip-off from the smell of Clorox and the light off in the bedroom. He kept walking. The night felt good, and he was going to go sit at the bar of the Plaza Hotel, talk to the bartender, and any lonely woman who might be there, be seen on about five different security cameras, proving his whereabouts if anyone wanted to know later, and, most important, think of a way to trap the guy who was hunting him.
When I get that guy, Vic thought, I'm done.
Inside the strip club, Ears took another big slug from his drink, finished it. He felt better than he had in a long time, relaxed, glad Victor and his freakin' paranoia were gone. Not that Vic was wrong to be paranoid, because the guys with the big shoes had noticed how strangely he'd been acting and were definitely not happy about it. They'd already decided to string him along on the gas station thing then make a move when he'd calmed down. Pop him when he wasn't expecting it. That way James Tonelli could move in on the pharmaceutical company exec, Tom somebody, who had requested the hit on the cleaning company. That guy was going to pay big for silence about the Mexican girls. Big. They'd stumbled onto a gold mine! No way were the big shoes going to let Vic screw this up, either. You could put a fork into Vic, because he was done.
Meanwhile, Ears planned to have some fun. He liked this girl and her hard little nipples and he was definitely going to get her into one of the private lounges and get Victor's money's worth out of her.
"Having a great time here," Ears said, nodding in self-confirmation. "And you are a hell of a classy babe."
"We could go in the back to the Champagne Lounge," suggested the girl, who had introduced herself as Barbi, a fake name of course, making sure her hand rested on his thigh, her pink fingernail scratching through the fabric atop his penis. "Get a bottle, and we can play show-and-tell."
"Show-and-tell?" said Ears.
"Yes," the girl said flirtatiously. "I show, and you tell me how good I look."
"Hey, hey, that does sound-"
Ears was looking at her strangely, misunderstandingly.
"You okay, mister?"
"Yeah, yeah, I just got this-" He fell to the floor on one knee, gurgling. His glass toppled to the carpeting. Barbi realized he was no longer good for any money, so she stood up and turned on her heel, retreating to the ladies' room. This was what the girls tipped the bouncers for, right? To deal with the pass-outs?
The bouncers saw a man go down, nodded to each other, and lifted Ears up by the elbows. He wasn't light. His mouth was wet and hung open.
"Okay, pal."
They dragged him out the front door as a Mexican kid vacuumed up the glass. A cab was waiting. A cab was always waiting at this place. Ears gurgled and thrashed his head.
"SoHo Grand," said the bouncer, pushing Ears inside and slamming the door shut. He gave the cabby a fifty, more than enough to shut him up, and meanwhile counted himself pleased with the easy money he'd just earned. The big guy had slumped over in the seat.
"He gonna get out by himself?" said the worried cabby.
"The doorman will help."
The cabby lifted his open palms. "Is this bullshit or what?"
"All right." The bouncer peeled off another twenty. Seventy dollars for a fifteen-buck fare.
The cabby nodded in disgust, took the bill, and let his foot off the brake. Thirty blocks south he turned off into one of the side streets. The SoHo Grand was a hot place, filled with movie stars and rich Europeans. The doormen wouldn't take this guy. Plus the cabby didn't like how quiet it was back there. Usually the drunk guys rolled around a bit, started to snore. He clicked off his meter. If anyone asked, which they wouldn't, the fare had told him he didn't feel well and wanted to walk, get some air. He turned off his lights and engine and just sat there.