He took the drink and spun on his stool, careful to keep his shoes off the ground. He’d poured about nine whiskeys there, and the puddle was growing sizable. The drunk act probably didn’t matter, but life had a wicked arm for curves. A smart hitter respected the plate.

The VIP lounge sat off the main floor, guarded by a bouncer with a shaved head. Gauzy green curtains puffed and swelled with the motion of air, like the room was breathing. Beyond them a mob of moneyed twenty-somethings danced beneath a frenzy of lasers, visible only as writhing silhouettes. It reminded Marshall of something out of a Bosch painting, a vision of a sweating hell. It was early yet, not even midnight, and the lounge had only a handful of Very Important People: a group nursing the bottle of thirty-dollar vodka they’d dropped two hundred on; a sugar daddy playing garter games with his stripper girlfriend; two lipstick lesbians comped in to add a whiff of the forbidden; and, at the end of the bar, two black guys. His marks.

The boss was dark-skinned and stylish, with a precise mustache,a gold Rolex dangling from French cuffs, and a tailored Armani suit. The other, straining against a Sean John tracksuit, was clearly muscle. Armani drank seltzer. The other didn’t drink at all. Marshall smiled to himself, then spilled his whiskey and ordered another.

The bartendress had just finished pouring it when Boss Man’s cell phone beeped. Marshall cradled his chin in his hands and stared forward, pretending to be lost in a liquor dream. From the corner of his eye, he saw the guy open the phone and scan the screen. His fingers punched keys quickly, replying to the text message. Then he dropped a fifty on the bar and slid off the stool. His bodyguard fell in behind him.