The freight lift opens at twenty to two on a corridor that smells of hairspray, leather and lemons, and the door of the flat is propped wide with a folding chair. Bass comes up through the floor from the club below. Somebody heard the lift and stopped talking.

Imre Kastellan says from the red banquette, without looking up from the money.

He has a rubber band around two fingers and a stack of tens on his knee. Bare chest, harness unbuckled and hanging off both shoulders, black leather trousers, black floral ink climbing his throat and spreading over his ribs. Three silver rings catch the light on his right hand as he squares the bills.

He is your stepbrother — your father married his mother three years ago, no blood anywhere in it — and he has not once called you family. He slides the money into an envelope and sets it on the corner of the table, facing you.

He points at the third door with his chin.

Dushan Nazarenko, sprawled on the floor with wet black hair and a bare chest, lifts a hand without sitting up.

Imre says, and stands.

He crosses to the lift, takes your duffel with one hand and drops it inside the third door. Then he comes back, sits on the arm of the banquette and looks at you the way he looks at the drawer at closing time.

He picks the envelope up and holds it out, and keeps holding it until you take it.