Dana dropped some of the tea in a china pot and lit the gas under the kettle. “Be right back,” she said, and whisked out the door.

“Wait!” I yelled. “Wait… You don’t have a private line, do you?”

She stuck her head back into the room and smiled. “I’m discreet, sugar.”

Without Dana, the room was much larger. Still, nothing in it seemed quite in focus. I stared at the wide-open roses in front of me. Down the hall I could hear, barely, the rise and fall of Dana’s voice as she talked on the phone. Finding me a corpse-removal service. I could probably have done it myself, if I wasn’t so rattled. But no — the telephone; this apartment, uncontestedly hers, filled with luxuries; the shop logo on the box; the tea — Dana had connections, of a sort I would never have expected. I knew people, from deals, from the Underbridge, but I couldn’t call them connections.

She came back in. “Where’s your place, sugar?”

“Why?”

“They’ll meet us there.”

I told her, because I couldn’t see any way not to. She went back down the hall.

When she returned, the teakettle had begun to hoot. She did appropriate things with kettle and teapot, and brought all the paraphernalia to the table.

“Shouldn’t we go?” I asked. If my privacy had to be invaded, it seemed better to get there first and prepare the ground.

“Drink your tea.” She poured, through a strainer, into two thin china cups that matched. For some reason, I thought of Sherrea, with no food in the house. I drank my tea, with milk in it.

It was beginning to catch up to me that I hadn’t had enough sleep. That would explain my inability to concentrate, the distance everything seemed to recede to. Dana watched me over the rim of her cup, wearing her purring look. The angle was flattering.

“Why do you treat Cassidy so badly?” I asked suddenly.

“Do I treat him badly?” She sipped tea. “I don’t think I do. He’s one of my best friends, honey.”

“That’s not how he thinks of you.”

Left shoulder up, eyebrows raised, mouth pursed — it was such a graceful expression of regret that I couldn’t tell if it was genuine. “I can’t do anything about that.”

“You could stop giving him encouragement.”

“I treat him just the same as I treat you.”

“Ah, but I’m not your type.”

“Neither is Cassidy.”

“You should tell him so.”

She laughed. “Oh, Sparrow, honey, when did you start up in the lonely-hearts business? I thought you didn’t mess with romance.” She put the emphasis heavily on the first syllable, and grinned.

It was true; it wasn’t my place, my right, or my business. I turned my teacup around between my hands. I hadn’t had caffeine for months. I could almost feel my blood vessels narrowing.

“Cassidy,” she continued, “is having himself a fine time. He’ll collect just enough heartbreak, and then he’ll get tired of it and give up. In the meantime, he’s getting a little excitement, and not taking any harm. D’you want anything to eat with that?”