"You manage until you can't, you live until you don't." He finishes the cup, peat coiling down his throat; settles like coke into the barrel. "It's all the same trick."

Isaac nods to the bottle, the mug: If you please,

"The question is what you're buying."

What that price is worth. John isn't the type to spend freely — might have shaken off Isaac a dozen times over, if this were only about a secret; about blackmail.