The Breeze, as he watched the injured Billy skulk away, felt a twinge of remorse.

Forget it, he thought, Billy had it coming. After the deal tomorrow he wouldn’t need Billy or any of the quarter-ounce-a-week buyers of his ilk. The Breeze was eager for the time when he could afford to be without friends. He strutted across the dance floor toward the blond in the leather pants.

Having wafted through most of his forty years as a single man, The Breeze had come to recognize the importance of the pickup line. At best, it should be original, charming, concise but lyrical — a catalyst to invoke curiosity and lust. Knowing this, he approached his quarry with the calm of a well-armed man.

“Yo, babe,” he said, “I’ve got a gram of prime Peruvian marching powder. You want to go for a walk?”

“Pardon me?” the girl said, somewhere between astonishment and disgust. The Breeze noticed that she had a wide-eyed, fawnlike look — Bambi with too much mascara.

He gave her his best surfer-boy smile. “I was wondering if you’d like to powder your nose.”

“You’re old enough to be my father,” she said.

The Breeze was staggered by the rejection. As the girl escaped onto the crowded dance floor, he fell back to the bar to consider strategy.

Go on to the next one? Everybody gets tubed now and then; you just have to climb back on the board and wait for the next wave. He scanned the dance floor looking for a chance at the wild ride. Nothing but sorority girls with absolutely perfect hair. No chance. His fantasy of jumping one and using her until her perfect hair was tangled into a hopeless knot at the back of her head had been relegated long ago to the realm of fairy tales and free money.

The energy in San Junipero was all wrong. It didn’t matter — he’d be a rich man tomorrow. Best to catch a ride back to Pine Cove. With luck he could get to the Head of the Slug Saloon before last call and pick up one of the standby bitches who still valued good company and didn’t require a hundred bucks worth of blow to get upside down with you.