“I was in here an hour or so ago,” I told the bartender. “I didn’t happen to leave my attaché case here, did I?”

“You mean like a briefcase?”

“Right.”

“About so wide and so high? Brass locks here and here?”

“You haven’t seen it, have you?”

“’Fraid not,” he said. “I couldn’t swear to it, but I don’t think you had it with you. I remember you, on account of you were with a guy knocked off a double like he had a train to catch, and you didn’t have nothing yourself.”

“Well, that was then and this is now,” I said.

“What’ll you have?”

“What my friend had. Double vodka.”

I won’t drink anything when I go out housebreaking, not a drop, not so much as a sip of beer. But I’d done my work for the night, if you wanted to call it work. I called it a waste of time, and not a whole lot of fun.

He poured from the same bottle, the one with the guy sporting the astrakhan hat and the savage grin. The brand name was Ludomir, and it was a new one on me. I picked up my glass and tossed off the shot and thought I was going to die.

“Jesus,” I said.

“Something the matter?”

“People drink this stuff?”

“What’s wrong with it? If you’re gonna tell me it’s watered, save your breath, okay? Because it’s not.”

“Watered?” I said. “If it’s diluted with anything, my guess would be formaldehyde. Ludomir, huh? I never heard of it.”

“We just started pouring it a month or so ago,” he said. “I don’t do the ordering, but when the boss tells me to make it the house vodka, you know what that tells me?”

“It’s cheap.”

“Bingo,” he said. He hefted the bottle, studied the label. “‘Product of Bulgaria,’” he read. “Imported, no less. Says right here it’s a hundred proof.”