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old days was a long fuckin’ time ago. You’re in a wheelchair and the doctor took some cancer out of my throat last year. They found a couple of spots on my liver they’re watching — they said if it spreads down there, that’s it — I’m a goner.”
    Bobby stared right into Victor’s yellowish eyes. The cancer didn’t surprise him — he knew there was something wrong with the guy. He said, “You know what I do every day now? When I’m not watching the fucking lineup on TV, I’m out in Central Park, shooting pictures of the broads in bikinis. I’ve got hundreds of pictures of boobs and asses, lined up on my walls like a fucking porno museum. Now you know that’s not me, right? You know that’s not what I do.”
    Bobby realized that he was talking too loud. People at other tables were looking over at him like he was crazy.Then Victor, looking at Bobby like maybe he thought he was crazy, too, said, “What’s this? You a photographer now or something?”
    “Why? You want me to take some pictures of your girlfriend? I’ll make her look so good they’ll put her in Penthouse .”
    “You couldn’t make my girlfriend look good,” Victor said. “To make her look good you’d have to shoot her with the fuckin’ lights out.”
    Bobby and Victor stared at each other seriously for a few seconds then they both started to laugh. After a while they stopped laughing, but when they looked at each other they started again. Finally, they got control of themselves. Bobby felt like it was old times again, like he and Victor were twenty-five years old, shooting the shit in some Hell’s Kitchen diner.
    Victor, still smiling, said, “If you want to see some good-looking ass you should check out the whores they got workin’ in this hotel.”
    Bobby knew Victor was just trying to change the subject but played along anyway, saying, “What? They got some good-looking hookers here?”
    “You kiddin’ me? These chicks ain’t the needle whores they got dancin’ on the stages on Queens Boulevard, you know what I’m saying? These are some high-class models they bring in here for the insurance faggots. You know what I’m talking about — call girls, escorts.”
    “Escorts, huh?” Bobby was getting a new idea. “They come here a lot?”
    “Every fucking night.”
    “Yeah? And you’re the bellhop here, right? I guess that means you take people up to their rooms.”
    “Why?” Victor asked.
    Bobby smiled, said, “Tell me something else. Can you get me some room keys?”

Six
    She’s a looker, yeah, probably. Jimmy’s not known to pass on a piece. It’s what got him into a fix more’n once, a looker. If you’re asking because you’re interested, remember what she’s doing with you before you fall in love.
    C HARLIE S TELLA, Cheapskates
    Max was in the Modell’s sneaker section, trying on a pair of Nike running shoes. He liked the way they fit, but there was no way he was buying them. They were on sale for seventy-nine bucks, but Max never paid discount for anything. Nah, he’d rather go to some classy store on Madison Avenue to get them, even if it cost him double.
    As he was trying on another pair, Max sensed movement next to him. He noticed that the briefcase he had put down next to him — with the ten thousand dollars, the extra set of keys to the apartment, and the code to the alarm with instructions — was gone. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw Popeye, wearing the leather jacket with the hole in it, walking away down the aisle at a normal pace, heading toward the stairs.
    Suddenly, Max realized that Deirdre was dead — there was no turning back. Even if he wanted to call off the murder, he couldn’t. He still had the phone number where he’d reached Popeye, but there had been a lot of background noise, and he’d had a feeling Popeye was at a pay phone somewhere. No, it was definitely over. By six P.M. Deirdre would be gone forever.
    Max doubted that he’d miss her very much, but thiswasn’t