He shrugged. “I’ve been like me, I guess. Like last night, only sweatier.”

“Did I see you last night?” I asked after a moment. My spine felt as if someone was about to hit me there.

“Course you did,” he said, looking hurt. “I bought you a drink.”

“That was nice of you. Where were we?”

“The Merciful Trap. Don’t you remember?”

“Let’s pretend I don’t.”

He’d had too much beer to notice the way I said it. “And you think I have a drinking problem. Yeah, you were burnin’ it last night. Dancing, buying rounds. You asked the band for a bunch of songs I never heard of.” He smiled at me. “They threw you out when they poured one round more than you could swap for.”

He hadn’t had too much beer. He must have watched my face shut up during that recitation, and known that it was an even trade for my unkindness. “Ah. I’m surprised you’ll be seen with me after that.”

“I’m savin’ your reputation,” he said. “Hey — will you introduce me to the redhead? The one with the shoes?”

“What redhead?” I asked, frightened.

“Oh, hell. You really don’t remember? Or are you just being a shit? When they tossed you at The Mercy, she went with you. And the guy dressed in gray, too, with the silvertones. They were worried about you.”

I wished I’d had the sense to be worried about me. But I couldn’t have. I hadn’t really been there. “What was I drinking?”

“Beer.”

“Was I taking anything else?”

“How should I know? You weren’t even drunk when they threw you out. Just kind of warmed up. You were maybe a little crazy, but not like you were dosed.”

“Such fine distinctions. If I wasn’t drunk, why don’t I remember anything?”

That startled him. “I don’t know. Hey, are you just saying you don’t remember so you don’t have to introduce me to the redhead?”

I smiled. “Me? The one who guarded fire for the Devil? Would I do a thing like that?”

“Like what?” said Dana from behind me, in her whiskey-liqueur voice. Of course; what was Leander without Hero? Cassidy was drunk, so it followed that Dana must be within striking distance.

She trailed a hand across my shoulders as she came around the table, sat in the chair between us, and laid her palm over Cassidy’s long, sharp-boned fingers. Dana couldn’t talk to anyone without touching. For someone like me, an acquaintance with Dana was a torture akin to water dripping slowly on one’s forehead.

“Cassidy thinks he’s found a chink in my obliging nature.”

“Shut up, Sparrow,” Cassidy said. Oh, Cassidy. I could have told her it was three redheads, and Dana wouldn’t have cared.

I’d have said Dana took her style from Bette Davis movies, if I thought she’d had access to them. Maybe she practiced in front of a mirror. Those Dana had access to. Her suit was metallic brown, fitted close to her tiny waist and just-ripe hips. Her silvery-blond hair fell forward over one shoulder, the end knotted off halfway down her breast with a black velvet ribbon. Her skin was smooth and faintly, rosily tan, all over her face and throat and disappearing between the lapels of her jacket. She had a supernatural artifice about her that made one want to pour water over her head just to test the strength of the illusion.