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importing.”
    â€œAre you nuts? They shoot traffickers here.”
    Which got him a low guffaw. “But who’s going to suspect an Internationalista ? I don’t even use middlemen—just pick up my shipment twice a month, then drive down to the beach resorts and sell it to the Canucks and the European kids. I’ll even hit a roadblock sometimes. If I were a local, then the cops might search my car. But all they see is some gringo turista , and they wave me on.”
    The Frenchman’s lifted both arms to the sky.
    â€œLike waving on a king !”
    The girls behind them giggled at his antics, and a few passersby stared.
    They must hate us, Jack thought, watching the quiet people as they frowned and turned away. Deep down, they must really hate our guts. God, if it were me, I would.
    â€œIt’s going to go sour on you one of these fine days,” he told the Frenchman quietly. “You must realize that. You’re seriously nuts.”
    â€œSo what’s new?” A big hand clapped him on the back. “I’m crazy as a fox—and very happy. Screw you.”
    *   *   *
    Later, in the jam-packed Bodeguita del Medio—the tables and walls smothered with the signatures of all the customers who had passed through—Lola leaned across to Nona and the two began conversing in hushed tones, glancing across at Jack and smirking. Their Spanish was so peculiarly accented, when they talked among themselves, that he could barely understand a word that they were saying.
    So he looked to Pierre for an explanation.
    â€œLola’s telling how you asked if they were sisters,” the Frenchman beamed. “They reckon you’re kinky for that kind of thing.”
    Jack thought he heard another laugh directly behind him, exactly like the one he’d heard when twilight had been falling. But there were dozens of women in here.
    It could have been anyone.
    *   *   *
    Later still.
    Back in Jack’s hotel room. All four of them blasted from a whole evening of cocktails. Jack sitting down hard on the corner of his bed.
    A sliding noise of fabric across skin, a clattering of fallen shoes, and then a body moving toward him. He wasn’t sure which of the girls it was, couldn’t lift his head enough to make out her face, didn’t care. It occurred to him that he was simply going through the motions. How long had it been this way? How much of his life, since age nineteen, had followed the same patterns?
    Somewhere in the background, Pierre was saying things in French. And now Jack was beneath Lola/Nona and she was fumbling with his belt, and both the girls were making too much noise for a hotel room, it occurred to him, screeching and squealing, but it didn’t really matter, because he’d opened the windows when they’d first come in and the combined racket from the disco on the hotel roof and the cabaret across the street was just incredible, no one would hear anything above it.
    Such loud music, so much noise, his head was spinning, his thoughts blurring, their shapes altering like a kaleidoscope. And after a few minutes, the girls switched over, laughing.
    A while after that, Jack heard a familiar metallic click. He sat up sharply and pushed Nona/Lola off of him.
    Lola/Nona was at the foot of his bed, crouched over his music case. She’d opened it, was in the act of reaching down to pick up his cornet.
    And he lurched at her so savagely that the girl wailed with fright.
    â€œWho said you could touch that?!”
    He was out of control. His voice sounded insane, even to his own ears. The woman’s eyes became huge and her palms went to her mouth.
    â€œKeep your damned hands off my things!”
    Her fright transformed to anger. Her face screwed up and she began swearing at him volubly.
    Her companion had sprung off the bed and was yanking her dress back on, shooting him swift, worried glances and muttering, “Loco!