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shallowly, aware of a small tic under my left eye. So far, I’d managed to blank the things I should be feeling, but I knew I couldn’t keep it up forever.For the first time in years I wanted something that came in small rolls of foil, wanted it suddenly and completely with a need that defied all reason.
    I forced myself to push open the door and walk into the bar. It was mainly empty, a few hopheads nodding over their drinks. I went straight through into the back area, which is smaller, cozier, and also where the owner tends to hang out.
    “Jack Randall,” said a voice, and I turned.
    Howie was sitting at one of the tables, piles of receipts and general administrative junk strewn all around him. That kind of stuff makes me want to go back to barter economy, but Howie lives for it. An unopened bottle of Jack Daniels was at his right elbow, next to a large bucket of ice and two empty glasses. He was slightly rounder, had lost a little hair and gained an alarming scar on his forehead, but apart from that he looked pretty much the same. He grinned at me affably, a picture of relaxation.
    “Guess you’re not surprised to see me,” I said.
    “To see you, no. To see you alive , always, and especially today. Dath? Paulie?” Howie gave an upward nod toward the couple of steroid abusers lurking round a table near the back. They rose and split up, one going to cover the front entrance, the other the back. I’m a cautious man, but Howie sleeps with a bazooka under his pillow. Dath nodded at me as he passed. “The guys at the back door gave me a call,” Howie told me, dropping a couple of cubes of ice into the glasses, and then filling both with whiskey. “Sounded like it had to be you.”
    “That’s a big drink,” I said, accepting a glass.
    “By whose standards? Come on, Jack, I’ve seen you unconscious earlier than this. Time was you thought by nine o’clock the evening was getting old. You want any Rapt while you’re here?”
    I shook my head, silently cursing Howie for being able to read my mind. “I’ve cleaned up a little,” I said.
    He laughed. “You just think you have,” he said, andlifted one of the glasses. “A man who lays it on like you did never goes on vacation.”
    I chinked my glass against his and drank. Howie drained his in one, leaned back, and patted his stomach comfortably with both hands.
    “How’s tricks?” I asked, looking around the bar.
    “Tricky,” he said. “But what about this? Couples, okay, they’re always ringing each other up, inviting each other round for dinner. Sounds like a great idea at the time—some wine, fine conversation, a chance to peek down the other woman’s blouse. But then the day starts to approach, and everyone’s thinking, Jesus H—why did we agree to this? The hosts are dreading all the admin-restocking the drinks cabinet, cooking fiddly food, making sure all the tubes of Gonorrhea-Be-Gone in the bathroom are hidden. The guests are thinking about getting expensive cabs and babysitters and not being able to smoke. Complete downer all round. You with me so far?”
    “Yes,” I said, though I wasn’t sure I was.
    “Okay. So the idea is this. A Date Canceling Service. The day before the evening’s supposed to happen, the guests ring up and cancel. They call it off, politely, just before anyone has to actually do anything. Everyone gets a nice warm glow about agreeing to see each other, but no one has to tidy up afterward or schlepp baby photos halfway across town. Everyone can just sit in their own apartments and have a perfectly good evening by themselves, and they’ll enjoy if all the more because they thought they were going to have to go out.”
    “Where do you come in?”
    “I come up with an excuse for canceling—won’t even have to be a good one, because no one wants to go through with it anyway. You can say, ‘My head has exploded and Janet has turned into an egg’ and it’ll be, ‘Oh, sorry to hear that, some other time then, yeah,