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bracer. My waitress looked disappointed when I went to the bar instead of my old table. She decided to give me the cold shoulder and didn’t look in my direction again. I felt like downing my drink and getting another, but my head was getting a little foggy again so I nursed the one I had, chewed some ice and waited for Paula.
    About half an hour later I still had the same drink, the bartender was asking if I wanted anything else every couple of minutes and looking disgusted every time I said no, when Paula came out.
    “Ready?” I asked as she sat next to me. Her perfume was an exotic fragrance. Even here, ten feet below street level in the winter, it made me think of white sand beaches, palm trees and those drinks with the little umbrellas.
    “Ready when you are Mr. Randall,” she cooed. I’d sell out my brother if she would only call me Frank. I’d have to get a brother first, but that was just a detail.
    “Stay here and I’ll get us a cab.”
    “I’ll come with you.”
    “No, it’s getting cold. I’ll be back when I’ve got a hack waiting.” I needed to clear my head anyway.
    I left her and walked outside and up the steps to the street. The wind had come up and I pulled my collar close to my ears. The rain from earlier was now a frozen glaze on the pavement. The streetlights danced off the ice. It twinkled like diamonds. It was pretty to look at, but it was dangerous to walk on. I’d have to watch my step.
    A cab was crawling down the avenue and I raised my hand to hail it. He pulled over and slid to a stop. Through the one inch opening that the cabbie rolled his window down I said to wait and I’d be back with a lady.
    “Okay buddy, but the meter starts now and I need a deposit to wait.”
    Everybody was getting into my pockets tonight. I dug out a twenty and stuffed it through the gap in the window and turned to go back in and get Paula.
    To my left in a small parking lot a young couple were arguing. He called her a liar and smacked her in the chops. Before I knew what I was doing I sang out: “Hey take it easy over there.”
    The man turned towards me with an ugly expression, but before he could say anything the girl jumped in. “Mind your own business, why don’t cha.”
    “I just thought you needed some help,” I said.
    Then she used that same two-word phrase the cabbie had used earlier. I was getting sick of it.
    “You heard her,” the man said with a laugh.
    I had a reply, but I bit it off and went back in the club. I decided to throw away all my Good Samaritan medals when I got home.
    Paula wasn’t at the bar when I got back. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I didn’t want to lose her after everything else I had done tonight. I never should have let her out of my sight. I was in a near panic when the bartender walked over and said Paula was in the ladies room. She had told him she would be right back and I was to wait. I was so relieved that I celebrated with another drink. I sat with my back to the bar and kept my eyes glued on the ladies room and waited for Paula to emerge. I wasn’t going to let my guard down again.
    To my surprise the next person to come through the door I was watching was Susie. To my greater surprise she spotted me and came directly over. And I had thought that I was through with her. She sat down next to me without an invitation.
    “I want to talk to you Randall, she announced.
    “It seems unavoidable,” I admitted.
    “No jokes Randall.”
    “Alright, no jokes.”
    “I’ve been talking with Paula-”
    “And you want two hundred dollars to tell me what she said,” I interrupted.
    “I thought we had a truce.”
    “Sorry, that’s the last one I had in me. Go ahead I’ll be a good boy.”
    She glared hard at me.
    “Just listen. Don’t say a word. Like I said, I’ve been talking to Paula and she says that you’re on the level. And you really are here to help her, so take this back.”
    She stuffed the two hundred that I had given her into my