“Oh, yeah. Perfect timing, too. That night he and his partner had had to chase a vehicle, and he’d banged his head on the rear-view mirror in the squad car when it jumped the curb. So he came home with a bandage on—like yours only smaller, actually. I was very brave and called him a crook anyway.”

“What did he say?”

“He said I didn’t understand.”

“Did he—did he straighten out eventually?”

“I don’t know.” I saw her shrug at least one shoulder. “We screamed at each other ‘til the neighbors phoned in a noise complaint, and then I ran away from home.” Her head lifted, turned a little to one side. She added, sounding almost amused, “It wasn’t like I could call the police.”

“Yeah,” I said after a moment. So was she a cop to prove to herself it could be done right? To even the overall score for her father? I remembered her reaction when she’d realized that one of her fellow officers had to be part of the group that put, and kept, the passport on the streets. “And you still can’t.”

Some quick motion of her head showed me that she understood the reference. “No. There’s just me.”

Maybe she thought, after that account of her history, that I’d answer with something melodramatic, like, “And me.” An appeal to the swashbuckler after all. What I said was, “I’d better go see if Tick-Tick’s still asleep.”

She stood up and stretched her spine, both hands on the small of her back. “Give her my best.”

“Sure.”

I stayed where I was, expecting her to get into the car and drive away. Instead she reached out two fingers and pinched a lock of my hair that had fallen down in my eyes. “You need a haircut,” she said, and deftly flipped the lock back off my forehead, never touching the skin. “G’night.”

Then she got in the car and started the engine. The Triumph pulled away primly, as if out of respect for the night and the sleeping locals.

A haircut. A haircut, for crying out loud.

At least maybe nothing would happen to make me have to admit to Tick-Tick that she’d been right, that I did have a thing for Sunny Rico. If I was very lucky, maybe nobody would mention it to Sunny Rico, either.

My scalp tingled, in the front, right along the hairline. I scorned to rub it.

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