Sitting at a frosted glass desk in the shape of a baby grand piano, beneath a chandelier fashioned after a fifties B-movie flying saucer, was the receptionist—an attractive white woman in her late forties, early fifties, with spiked red hair, large round red-frame glasses and a red leather bodice barely able to contain her freckled breasts. She was not the impossibly white-skinned Goth woman Ducane had been employing as receptionist-cum-gargoyle last time I’d been by. Still, she was a woman you could look at in anticipation of hearing a uniquely entertaining life story.

“Where’s White Girl?” I said to the new receptionist.

She grinned, revealing rather large, perfectly aligned planks of luminous white teeth. “She’s touring with her band, Sapphire G-String!” she said with an easy southwestern drawl.

I extended my hand and said, “I’m—”

“I know who you are, Mr. Snow,” she said, resolutely holding her grin. Calmly she folded her hands on the desk; each long fingernail was painted a primary color different from the ones beside it. “I got a long-barrel Smith & Wesson in my desk drawer. Pearl handle. Belonged to my granddaddy, then my daddy, now me. Unlike White Girl, I’ve been shootin’ since I was six and have no compunction about it. Shoot the furry balls off a squirrel at a hundred yards. So. We gonna engage in the Alamo two-step or what, Mr. Snow?”

“I find myself at a disadvantage,” I said, extending my hand again. She didn’t take it. “What may I call you?”

“TB.”

“Like—tuberculosis?”

“Like Terri-Sue Boudreaux,” she said, sitting back in her chair, casually rocking and revealing meaty, freckled thighs. My synaptic interpretation of what I was seeing fluctuated wildly between a middle-aged lady dressed as Wonder Woman for Comic Con and a Japanese anime rendering of a big redheaded cowgirl from Texas.

“What’s your take on the Lions, TB?” I said.

“They need receivers who can actually catch the ball,” TB said. “Ain’t had that since they ran them little legs off Barry Sanders and squeezed Calvin ‘Megatron’ Johnson dry. And they need a defensive line that ain’t afraid of getting their feelings hurt. Other than that, I don’t give a shit. I’m a Cowboys girl.”

I turned to Tomás and smiled. “I like her.”

Tomás was unmoved. “Your sad excuse for an asshole boss in?”

“Sir,” TB said, “I’m not sure I like your attitude.”

Tomás appeared to be done with his wan attempt at diplomacy. “And I ain’t too sure I like standin’ here flappin’ gums with some West Texas scrub shovin’ all her bra’s business in my face.”

“You remind me of my second husband, God rest his soul,” TB told him sweetly. “A mule-kicker in the sack. Dumber than a bag of dollar-store hammers.”

“See?” I said to Tomás. “I like her!”