I thought of my ass flying over my head. “There’s a rush?”

“No rush,” she said. “Why don’t you stand up?”

“Maybe I like it here.”

“Stand up,” she said and stood herself. She held her arms out to me.

“I’m working up to it.”

“Stand,” she said. “Come to me, baby.”

I did. I put my arms on the chair and did it. Except, somehow, I was still sitting. My brain had moved, but my body was of another opinion. How professional were Socia’s people? Could they fit a bomb seamlessly into a wooden chair? Of course not. I’ve heard of people dying in a lot of ways, but getting blown up by a completely undetectable bomb in a thin wooden chair isn’t one of them. Course, maybe I was being honored by being the first.

“Skid?”

“Yeah?”

“Anytime you’re ready.”

“OK. Well, see I ”

Her hands grabbed mine and she yanked me up out of the chair. I fell against her and we banged into the desk and didn’t blow up. She laughed, an explosion in itself, and I realized she hadn’t been entirely sure herself. But she’d pulled me out anyway. She said, “Oh, Jesus!”

I started to laugh too, the laugh of someone who hasn’t slept in a week, a laugh along a razor blade. I held on to her, my hands tight around her waist, her breasts rising and falling against my chest. We were both drenched in sweat, but her eyes were pulsing, the dark pupils large and drunk with the taste of a moment that wasn’t our last on earth.

I kissed her then and she returned it. For a moment, everything was heightened the sound of a car horn four stories below, the smell of fresh summer air mingling with spring’s dust in the window screen, the salty whiff of fresh perspiration at our hairlines, the slight pain from my still swollen lips, the taste of her lips and tongue still slightly cool from the pale ale we’d drunk an hour before.

Then the phone rang.

She pulled back, her hands on my chest, and slid away from me along the desk. She was smiling, but it was one of disbelief and her eyes were already taking on a spectre of regret and fear. God only knows what mine looked like.

I answered the phone with a hoarse, “Hello.”

“You still sitting down?”

“No,” I said. “I’m looking out the window for my ass.” “Uh-huh. Well, just remember, Kenzie anyone can get to anyone, and anyone can get to you.”

“What can I do for you, Marion?”

“You gone come see me, have a chat with me.”

“I am, am I?”

“Bet your ass.” He chuckled softly.

“Well, Marion, I’ll tell you, I’m booked solid till October. Why don’t you try back around Halloween?”

All he said was, “Two-oh-five Howe Street.” It was all he had to say. It was Angie’s address.

I said, “Where and when?”