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“That’s the beauty of it. Sit down. This is pure Colombian. Free samples, limited time only.”
    The plastic bag is out. He cuts some lines on the cover of a pornographic magazine.
    “Oh man.” I laugh. “I just did some.”
    “More is better.”
    “Go for it,” I say. “I’m done.”
    “Bullshit,” he replies. “You’re a cop.”
    “Get a life.”
    “Then what’s the problem?”
    I stare at the lines of coke.
What is the parameter for
—“Just because I politely decline your hospitality doesn’t mean I’m a cop. I hate cops.”
    Jennifer says, “Just do it, honey.”
    —illegal activity?
    “See,” I vamp, “we just met. So how do I know it’s not rat poison?”
    The accountant snorts a line and offers up the rest.
    If I do it, will I be breaking the law?
    “My boyfriend said I gotta keep my head clear—”
    Will that invalidate—what did Diestal say about authorizing—
    The accountant whips a .38 automatic from an ankle holster and holds it to my head.
    “Fuck you. I’ve never seen a cop do dope. You’re a cop.”
    The hammer pulls back with a sound like rolling thunder. The steel barrel presses against my brain stem and at that moment I stop trying to figure out who is who, and what is true, and why I am falling through this cruel labyrinth.
    Enlightenment at gunpoint.
    “Jesus Christ,” pleads Jennifer.
    “I’m doing it, okay?”
    Cocaine—real cocaine—burns the lining of my nose and drips down my throat, and shortly my mind begins to hum a distracted tune while my heartbeat soars into the red zone: dreaming in bed and sprinting to the finish line at the same time.
    Things have shifted again. Is it the drug, or is everyone else melting down also? I see a briefcase open on top of the copier. It is empty. But it is not the briefcase I brought. I hear the guy with the shaved head trying to explain.
    “Look, we have a problem. There’s been a mistake, but don’t blame Jennifer,” he says.
    “I never said I knew her!” Jennifer is shouting.
    “She ripped us off.” The husband shrugs.
    The accountant scratches his ear. I notice he is still holding the gun.
    “So what happened?”
    “We picked up the wrong person,” says Jennifer. “I had a bad feeling about it when that ghetto car drove up—”
    “No way.” I swim toward the briefcase. “There was a hundred grand.”
    Well, there isn’t now.
    “That’s not my briefcase. That’s not the one I came in with,” I blurt. This one is cheap plastic. “I had a Gucci.”
    It echoes strangely.
Gucci?
Is that a real word?
    “What are you trying to say?” asks the accountant calmly.
    I catch Jennifer’s panicked look and switch direction as best I can.
    “I don’t know,” I say, “but something’s…messed up.”
    He fires the gun at close range into the chest of the man with the shaved head, who lifts up off the floor and flies backward, blood splattering the wood-paneled walls. Jennifer screams, “No, please God, no, no, no—” and he shoots her, too, and she jerks over a chair and sprawls on the floor, the pink sweatsuit staining red. The lackeys start dragging cartons containing freshly minted contraband away from a spreading pool of blood.
    The accountant is breathing hard. “I don’t like that kind of shit,” he says.
    Undercover operative may be authorized pursuant to section four—
    I have to save my own life.
    “They switched the briefcases,” I tell him. “They double-crossed us. You and me.”
    “You and me?”
    “You and me,” I insist. “We have to get rid of the bodies.”
    “Is that what they taught you in cop school?”
    He turns toward me and his eyes are tiny dots behind the glasses.
    “I’m going to help you,” I say. “Get some of that plastic and we’ll put these losers in the truck.”
    “I’ll tell you who’s a loser.”
    He shoves me into a windowless bathroom and locks the door. The bathtub is stained with old brown blood. Chains are embedded in the walls, handcuffs looped