I closed my eyes and felt the nicotine wash over my brain. "And you?" I asked. "Do you sin?" Wondering if he'd admit to the DSU's crimes.

"I do what must be done, Horace." He reached behind him, fingered a gold-fringed American flag.

"I mean, what's the big deal?" I insisted, pushing the bounds of good taste, and not giving a s.h.i.t. "So people disagree with you. Dissidents. Whatever the f.u.c.k you want to call them. So what?"

Ambo looked at me sadly. "One man, Horace," he said. He dropped his boots to the floor. "It only takes one man. To 'save the world.'" He made exaggerated finger quotes. "Or should I say, destroy it."

I sucked on my cigarette. "And what's so bad about saving the world?"

"It can't be saved." He threw his arms out wide and knocked over a potted fern. Ignored the wreckage. "We are imperfect creatures on an imperfect planet. America is the best thing that ever happened to humanity. These people would tear down everything we have built-and put what in its place?" He shrugged. "Socialism? Dead and buried. Didn't work. Now what? They have no idea."

"So at worst they're deluded fools. Why can't you live and let live? How are they even a threat?"

"Because it only takes one man," he said again, jamming his finger down into his desk. "One voice of dissent can send ripples around the world. People don't know what's good for them. For their own sake we must prevent them from speaking against us-even thinking against us. Against America."

What a bunch of bulls.h.i.t. "And how do you stop people thinking?" I asked.

"Fear," he said simply. "We are the agents of fear."

"And so you sin," I concluded. "Taking a bullet for humanity, so to speak."

He either didn't catch my sarcasm or chose to ignore it. He lowered his head. "And so I sin."

The vice-regal toilet flushed. Pitt stumbled from the bathroom, stuffing his shirt into his white pants. A trickle of blood shone on his upper lip. He snorted it back into place. "Dad's got lots of sins, don't you, Dad?"

Ambo nodded. "I do."

Pitt buckled his belt, flipped up his white penguin tails and sat on Ambo's desk. On the wall hung photos of the President and Secretary of State. He picked up two jars. "See this?"

He lifted one above his head. A regular jam jar, full of what looked like mola.s.ses.

"Blackstrap?"

"Oil."

Ambo chuckled. "First wildcat strike I ever done. Nigeria, nineteen-"

"-sixty-five. Number dead? One hundred and twenty-seven."

Ambo frowned, looked at the floor. He nodded again, twitched his head from side to side. "We be patriots, son. We do what must be done."

Pitt put the jar of oil back on the desk. He held aloft another jar, this one filled with white pellets.

"Vitamin C?" I guessed.

"Lithium." He rattled the jar. "My inheritance."

"That's enough," Ambo said.

"Don't you think he ought to know? I mean, if-"

"I said, enough!"

It was the first and only time I ever saw Ambo raise his voice. Pitt got off the desk, slouched down into his chair, lit a cigarette. He smoked in silence for a long moment.

I cleared my throat. "Ought to know what?"

"Only way to the top's over a pile of corpses." He turned, looked at his father. "You really feel no guilt?"

"Helps to be a Christian, son."

"I forgot. Jesus will forgive me."

"He will. Don't you ever doubt it."

Pitt made a rude noise with his mouth.

Ambo stood. Held out a hand. "Horace. A word with my son. You don't mind?"

I put my cigarette between my lips. I stood too, took his hand. "Don't rough him up too much, sir."

He slapped me on the shoulder, walked me to the door. "You're a bad influence on my son, you know that?"

I laughed. "You think so?"

He grinned, opened the carved wooden door. The noise of the party spilled into the room. A marine guard in full dress chokers stood to attention outside.

"You're too good for this world, Horace. Go do something bad."

That was the day I found out who Lynn really was.

I elbowed my way through the crowd, the men a swarm of ghosts, my single speck of black the only blemish. Waiters slid sideways through the throng, trays of champagne balanced one-handed over their heads, their free palms brushing the b.u.t.tocks of Peru's leading diplomatic ladies, dresses of colorful silk, taffeta.

Men stalked the four corners of the room like boxers waiting for the bell, white cords curling from their ears. They wore blue blazers, held their hands tight over their nuts, as though warding off a low blow. Bra.s.s cuff b.u.t.tons winked at the crowd from crotch level. They watched us through sungla.s.ses. They watched me. I was easy to spot. A stain of sin in a sea of purity.

I stumbled through the crowd, wishing I had brought my soap dish. Two days without a hit. I took a drag on my cigarette, but it didn't do me any good. I was afraid I might fall asleep standing up. Where was I going to find a dealer on a dance floor full of diplomats?

Everywhere I looked I saw t.i.ts. t.i.ts and a.s.s. A dozen languages cooed sweet words into the ears of a hundred married women, their plunging necklines sweeping to their navels. Maybe I could find something old and s.k.a.n.ky.

I spotted the bar across the room. A waiter pa.s.sed nearby, champagne gla.s.ses aloft, distributing his worldly delight to the surrounding throng. I shouldered my way toward him but managed only to follow in his wake, collecting conversations as I went. A German whispered to an Englishwoman his preference for hot English mustard, and its application to a variety of sausage types. A j.a.panese man wearing a sash grinned, spoke Spanish to a Chinese woman, deploring the rape of Nanking. An American woman propositioned a timid Dutchman in gla.s.ses, her bra.s.sy tones crashing like cymbals on those around her.

I made it to the bar. I grabbed an empty water gla.s.s, pointed to a bottle of the cheapest pisco on the shelf. "Don't stop till I say when."

"Hey, that's my line!"

She leaned against the bar, b.r.e.a.s.t.s suspended in midair by a strapless blue gown. I could tell they were fake. They also looked delicious. It was time to leave. Run away. Any woman who'd want you is a woman you don't want to know. My hand felt wet. I turned back to the barman.

"But, sir, you did not say 'when.'"

"Funny man. Ought to come around that bar and knock you senseless."

The barman, I realized too late, was a lesser species of goon, like those in the corners. He put the bottle down. He cracked his knuckles and smiled.

"Sir, I should like to see you try."

"a.s.shole."

I gulped my drink, shook the pisco off my hand. I turned to go.

"Wait." She touched my forearm. "He doesn't just serve booze. Be nice."

"You mean-"

"Shh." She fingered her cleavage. The corner of a small plastic bag peeked out from one side of her b.o.o.b.

I looked more closely at her face. Her eyes were still pretty, a striking green. She was wrinkled, but not wrinkled enough for me. My need for a hit overwhelmed my revulsion, though, and I put my hand on her bare elbow. "You want to go somewhere we can share that?"

She chuckled. "You don't remember me, do you?"

"Should I?"

She leaned into me, her whiskey breath panting on my neck. "The Rat's Nest? That booth?"

It came back to me, a sledgehammer driving a spike into my brain. The frenzied dance floor, the shots, the c.o.ke, a furious attempt to make the time pa.s.s, keep the thoughts at bay, repulse the creeping darkness that threatened to engulf my soul, then the final hurried fumblings in the dark, ending only in sadness and an abrupt return to reality, the futility of it all.

"Oh," I said. "Hi. How's it going?"

Her hand clutched my back, drowning my senses in whiskey and perfume. "I'm old enough to be your mother," she breathed in my ear, pride in her voice, the pride of a lioness in another mother's cub.

"I'm young enough to be your lover," I said. I grabbed her drink from the bar, poured it down my throat.

"Meet me at the top of the stairs in ten minutes," she whispered again, then pulled away. She held out her hand in incongruous formality. "Name's Lynn, by the way. Pleased to meet you."

Before I could think of an appropriate comeback, like, for instance, my name, she engaged in conversation in Spanish with a Peruvian naval officer in full dress choker whites.

"Amigo."

A voice at my elbow. The bartender with an att.i.tude.

"Whaddaya want, cabron."

"You should be more careful."

"Of what?" I spat on the floor. "You?"

"No, amigo," he said gently, poured me a drink. "That woman."

"What about her?"

At that moment a delegation of j.a.panese crowded around me, jabbering in accented Spanish, demanding more liquor. The bartender said something to me. I held my hand to my ear. He shrugged, and turned to make the drinks.

Careful of what? I studied the crowded ballroom, felt the pisco melting my brain. Lynn was nowhere to be seen.

It was time. I pushed through the crowd, letting silken slippery b.u.t.tocks caress my knuckles as I made my way toward the stairs. I climbed halfway up, to the second landing of the curving marble staircase. The bartender below was pouring drinks. He didn't look up. I scanned the room for Lynn. I didn't see her. I turned to climb again, felt a finger on my shoulder.

"You lost, sir?"

The hand dropped again, clutched its crotch. The lips plastered to the hard jaw neither smiled nor frowned. An American flag pin soiled his left lapel. Were it not for the crisp crease in his gray slacks, you could mistake him for a garden-variety rent-a-cop.

"Just going to the bathroom."

"Bathroom's downstairs, sir."

"But I was up here just a minute ago!" I protested.

The man's face was granite.

A rustling of silk charged up the stairs.

"A friend of the amba.s.sador's," Lynn cooed. "Do let him up."

He nodded, turned aside. We climbed together, and she slithered her hand under my arm, her elbow-length blue glove stroking the back of my hand. On the top landing she led me down a familiar corridor. We pa.s.sed a marine guard at attention beside a carved wooden door. I heard voices raised in argument, Pitt's voice, Ambo's voice, shouting, a crash as something broke.

"Quickly," she said, her finger to her lips.

I followed her around a corner, to the end of the hallway. She opened a door. An enormous bathroom gaped white and spotless. She pushed me inside. She looked back over her shoulder, then darted in, closing and locking the door. She fumbled for the light switch, found it. I blinked. The incandescent bulb's harsh rays shattered against the sharp reflecting surfaces.

"Well," she said. Her cleavage rose and fell.

I nodded. "Let's see it."

She reached behind her back. A zipper hummed.

"No, no," I said. "This."

I plucked the bag of cocaine from her cleavage without bothering to touch her breast.

She smiled. "First things first." She retrieved a small mirror and a razor blade from the top of the medicine cabinet. I held the bag to the light, flicked it with my fingertip. Looked to be about a gram. I opened the bag, poured the entire pouch onto the mirror.

"Wow," she said. "You're hard core."

I ignored her. I snorted more than half of the white powder, a stream of cocaine bliss. I sat on the toilet.

She said, "You needed that."

I nodded. My eyes rolled up inside my head. Numb. So numb. The pain ebbs. There is nothing. No past. No future. Only now.

Lynn daintily cut the rest into a fine powder. She unfurled a crisp Benjamin from her other breast, snorted a thin line. She leaned back against the sink, her hands on the lip of the basin.