“What’s up?” she said.

“I’m having second thoughts about sending the girls,” he said. “I just saw the chief of police.”

“At the house?” she said.

“No, at Cumberland Farms. He was buying milk.”

“Do you think he was following you?”

“No,” Eddie said, though the thought had never occurred to him. “Not following me. I’m pretty sure he got there first.”

“I don’t understand,” Barbie said. “What’s the problem, then?”

“It’s illegal.”

“You just figured that out?”

“You don’t have a gut feeling on this, do you?” he asked. Barbie’s instincts were uncanny. She could see certain things before they happened.

“My gut feeling is that it will be just fine,” Barbie said. “Not to mention very lucrative. I suggested it, remember? If it makes you feel better, just tell yourself it was all my idea.”

“All your idea, but it will be me going to jail.”

“That’s not going to happen, Ed.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“What if I get in trouble? Are you even on island?”

Silence. Then, “Yes, actually, I am, if you must know.”

“Okay, good,” Eddie said.

“Text me when you have the cash,” she said.

“Will do,” he said, and he hung up. They were going to do this, then. He and Barbie were going to become de facto pimp and madam of a Russian prostitution ring down on Low Beach Road.

One more phone call, he thought. To the girls, to make sure they knew what they were getting into.

Nadia answered the phone.

Eddie said, “Are you ladies ready?”

“Yes, we ready,” Nadia said. “We all go to salon to get manicure, pedicure, Eddie, with our own money, because there is more, bigger money coming tonight.”

“Nice,” Eddie said. “I’m sure you look very pretty.”

“Who cares about pretty?” Nadia said. “Hands will be ruined tomorrow anyway, with the cleaning.”

“Okay, Cinderella,” Eddie said. “I’ll see you shortly.”

He popped two more Tums. They weren’t working. His heartburn was so bad that he really needed prescription-strength medication, but who had time to go to the doctor?

Eddie pulled up in front of the house and sat in the dark car, waiting for Nadia and the other girls. Then he realized he should go down to the house and meet Ronan LNW and get the money part squared away so that the money and the girls weren’t connected. This was Eddie’s logic, but he wished he had some guidelines. Surely some depraved soul on the Internet had written a manual on how to run a prostitution ring without getting caught?

The front door to the house was standing wide open, and in the background, Eddie could hear Eric Clapton singing “Cocaine.”

“Knock, knock!” Eddie said, stepping into the foyer. “Hello, hello!” He didn’t feel bad about his intrusion. Technically, while the owner was in L.A., this house was Eddie’s responsibility.

He nearly collided with Ronan LNW, who was rushing down the stairs, holding a mirror crisscrossed with lines of cocaine, like a white, powdery tic-tac-toe board. Ronan was in bare feet, wearing jeans and an unbuttoned white shirt.

“Fast Eddie!” he said. His nostrils were pink and twitchy as a rabbit’s, and his pupils had been swallowed up by green iris; Eddie had the unsettling thought that he was dealing with a zombie. And Ronan was sweating profusely. “Are the girls here? You probably want your money. Here, hold this.”

He handed Eddie the mirror, and Eddie gazed down at his reflection, cut through by lines of coke. He was simply not comfortable with any of this.

Ronan appeared with a regular brown paper bag from the Stop & Shop. “Here you go, man. They’ll come every night this week, right? And I’m paying half now and half at the end?”

Eddie nodded, afraid to give verbal confirmation, lest there was a wiretap somewhere in the house. He was anxious to get the drugs out of his hands. Back in the late 1980s, when Eddie arrived on Nantucket, everyone he knew had done drugs. When Eddie worked at the Straight Wharf, cocaine had practically been served at the staff meal. But Eddie had steered clear of the stuff. Back then, he’d still been a runner, and he feared contaminating his body. Besides which, he knew drugs were bad; he’d seen them undo half his high school class in New Bedford.

He handed Ronan back the mirror and accepted the paper bag, then peered inside. Cash. For one glorious moment, Eddie’s heart felt like a helium balloon.

Ronan nodded down at the mirror. “You wanna do a line, man?”

Eddie held up a palm. “No, thanks. Not my scene. I’m a father.”

Ronan stared at him.

Eddie thought, And I’m a pimp.

Ronan said, “You know, I like that hat.” He took Eddie’s Panama hat off his head and placed it on his own.

Eddie wanted to reach out and reclaim it. He was willing to do just about anything to make this transaction go smoothly, but giving up his Panama hat wasn’t one of them. He always kept a stable of three hats, just in case, so he did have two others just like it at home—but each hat cost $375 and took six weeks to replace.

“I get them specially made in Montecristi, Ecuador,” Eddie said.

“Cool,” Ronan LNW said. His eyes were spinning spirals, like in the cartoons. Eddie was afraid to touch him or even ask for the hat back. If Ronan LNW was dealing in prostitutes and drugs, then he probably had a gun, too. Eddie could not believe how nefarious this situation was turning out to be.