Ilya was thirty-six years old and without a lot of years left for this kind of life, which is how she got teamed up with Cosmo. He’d promised to take care of her, promising that she’d never get arrested again and that he’d make enough money that she’d seldom have to sell her ass. But so far, she was making more money with her ass than he was making with the addicts who brought him things to trade for drugs.

Cosmo saw the outside light on after he’d parked half a block away and walked through the alley to the garage apartment with its termite-eaten stairway leading up. He was puzzled because she did not have a massage scheduled. He had specifically asked her about that. He felt a rush of fear through his bowels because it could mean a warning from her. But no, he could see her moving past the window. If cops were there, she’d be sitting, probably handcuffed. He took the stairs two at a time stealthily and opened the door without announcing his presence.

“Hi, Cosmo!” Olive Oyl said, with a gap-toothed smile, sitting on the small settee.

“Evening, Cosmo,” Farley said with his usual smirk, sitting next to Olive.

“Hello to you, Olive. Hello to you, Farley,” Cosmo said. “You did not call me. I am not expecting you to come here tonight.”

“They called me,” Ilya said, “after you went to Dmitri’s.”

Cosmo shot her a look. Stupid woman. She mentioned Dmitri in front of these addicts. He turned to Farley and said, “What is it you bring for me?”

“A business proposition,” Farley said, still smirking.

Puzzled, Cosmo looked at Ilya. Her blond hair was pulled straight back in a tight bun, which she would never do if she was expecting guests, even addict customers like these. And her makeup was haphazardly applied, and there were dark lines under her eyes. He guessed that she had been taking one of her long afternoon naps when the freaks called, and hadn’t really pulled herself together before their arrival. Ilya showed Cosmo a very worried face.

“What business?” Cosmo asked.

“Sort of a partnership,” Farley said.

“I do not understand.”

“We figure that the last stuff we brought you was worth more than the few teeners you gave us. A whole lot more.”

“It is very hard thing to sell credit-card information and the banking paper today. Everyone who do crystal can make many deals today. Everybody know about-how they call it?”

“Identity theft,” Farley said.

“Yes,” Cosmo said. “So I do not make enough money to pay me back for crystal I give to you, Farley.”

“Four lousy teeners,” Farley reminded him. “That’s one-quarter of an ounce. In your country maybe seven grams, right? What’d you pay, sixty bucks a teener?”

Cosmo was getting angry and said, “We do a deal. It is done. Too late for to complain, Farley. It is done. You go someplace else next time, you don’t like us.”

Cosmo’s tone disturbed Olive, who said, “Oh, we like you, Cosmo, and we like Ilya too! Don’t we, Farley?”

“Shut up, Olive,” Farley said. “I’m a smart man, Cosmo. A very smart man.”

Olive was about to verbally agree, but Farley elbowed her into silence. “Cosmo, I read every fucking thing that I bring to people I deal with. I read those letters from a certain jewelry store. I thought maybe you could do something with it. Like maybe sell the information to some experienced burglar who might tunnel in through the roof when the store was closed and steal the stones. It never occurred to me that somebody might go in with guns and take over the place like Bonnie and Clyde. See, I’m not a violent man and I didn’t think you were.”

Now Ilya looked like she was about ready to cry, and Cosmo glowered at her. “You talk shit, Farley,” he said.

“I watch lots of TV, Cosmo. Smoking glass does that to you. Maybe I don’t read the papers much anymore but I watch lots of TV. That hand grenade trick made all the local news shows the night you did it. Shortly after I’d brought the jewelry store’s letters to you.”

All Cosmo could say was “You talk shit, Farley.”

“The description they gave on the news was you.” Then he looked at Ilya, saying, “And you, Ilya. I been thinking this over. I can hardly think of anything else.”

Cosmo was now glancing wildly from Farley to Ilya and back again. “I do not like this talk,” he said.

“There’s one more letter you should have,” Farley said. “But I didn’t bring it with me. I left it with a friend.” Farley felt a pang of fear shoot through him when he added, “If I don’t get home safe and sound tonight, he’s going to deliver the letter to the Hollywood police station.”

Olive looked quizzically at Farley and said, “Me too, Farley. Safe and sound, right?”

“Shut up, Olive,” Farley said, smelling his own perspiration now, thinking how the TV news bunny said the guy was waving around a pistol on the night of the robbery.

After a long silence, Cosmo said, “You want from me what?”

“Oh, about fifteen thousand,” Farley said.

Cosmo jumped to his feet and yelled, “You crazy! You crazy man!”

“Don’t touch me!” Farley cried. “Don’t touch me! I gotta arrive home safe and sound or you’re toast!”

Olive put her arms around Farley to calm him down and stop his shaking. Cosmo sat back down, sighed, ran his fingers through his heavy black hair, and said, “I give you ten. I give you ten thousands sometime next month. Money will come in the month of June. I have nothing today. Nothing.”

Farley figured he’d better settle for the ten, and he was trembling when he and Olive stood. He took her hand. Violence was not his gig. A man like this looking at him with murder in his face? All this was new to Farley Ramsdale.

Farley said, “Okay, but don’t try to sneak outta town. I got somebody watching the house twenty-four-seven.”

Then, before Cosmo could reply and frighten him again, Farley and Olive scuttled down the staircase, Farley yelping out loud when he almost stepped on a half-eaten rat by the bottom step. A black feral cat hissed at him.

By the time they reached the doughnut shop on Santa Monica where the tweakers hung out, Farley had recovered somewhat. In fact, he was feeling downright macho thinking about the ten large that would be theirs next month.

“I hope you don’t think that goat eater had me scared,” he said to Olive, even though he’d been so shaky he’d had to pull over and let her take the wheel.

“Of course not, Farley,” Olive said. “You were very brave.”

“There’s nothing to be scared of,” he said. “Shit, they used a phony hand grenade, didn’t they? I’ll bet their gun was phony, too. What’d that news reader with the tits call it? A ‘semiautomatic pistol’? I’ll bet it was a fucking toy gun dressed up to look bad.”

“It’s hard to believe Cosmo and Ilya would shoot anybody,” Olive agreed.

“Trouble is,” Farley reminded her, “we ain’t got enough glass to last till next month. We gotta get to the cybercafé and do some business. Like, right away.”

“Right away, Farley.” She wished they had some money for a good meal. Farley was looking more like a ghost than he ever had.

The cybercafé they chose was in a strip mall. It was a large two-story commercial building with at least a hundred computers going day and night. There was lots of business that could be done on the Internet. A tweaker could buy drugs from an on-line bulletin board or maybe do a little whoring on the Internet-male or female, take your choice. Money could be wired from one account to another. Or a tweaker could just sit there phishing for PIN numbers and credit-card information. The computers were cheap and could be rented by the hour. Just like the dragons working the corner by the cybercafé.

One of the dragons, a six-foot-tall black queen in full drag with a blond wig, short red sheath, three-inch yellow spikes, red plastic bracelets, and yellow ear loops, spotted Farley and Olive and approached them, saying, “You holding any crystal tonight?” The dragon had scored from Farley on a few occasions when he was dealing crack.