I stood on the sidewalk staring down at her. Last night Sunny Rico had been a tough, driven cop in a sleek, strange car, with a grip on the scruff of my neck. Now she was… still that. But her smile was relaxed, her body loose, and her damned car showed its age with the glamour of darkness off it.

“You’re off duty,” I hazarded.

Rico slid the sunglasses down her nose and frowned at me over them. “How did you know?”

“If I told you, you’d be annoyed. What are you doing here if you’re off duty?”

“I feel a strong urge to say, ‘If I told you, you’d be annoyed.’ I may be off duty, but Linn isn’t. And Linn’s combing over last night’s apartment building even as we speak. I don’t know about you, but I’m crazy to find out what he’s found out.”

“Huh.” I tried to look nonchalant. But after telling the Ticker about the night’s adventures, and hearing her speculations about the mechanics of dropping ceilings with magic, I actually did want to know.

“You should put on a pair of pants, though.”

You better not be blushing, I warned myself. “I’m wearing pants.”

“No, you’re not. You’re wearing the oldest pair of cutoffs in the known universe. If I’m seen in public with you, people will think I’ve gone back to living on the street.”

“Jeez, nobody likes the way I dress this morning.” I left her waiting in the car and went upstairs to put on jeans. I did it because I wasn’t sure where we were going or how long we’d be there. It had, I was certain, nothing to do with how cops get tans.

We laid a little rubber leaving the curb; Rico drove like a reckless motorcyclist, which caused me to wonder what she’d driven before she’d dedicated her free time to the Spitfire. As the dusty trees of Liberation Row flicked by, she asked, “What’s the going rate, anyway? I said I’d pay you for this.”

“It’s usually by the job. I’m beginning to think I ought to charge by the hour for this one.”

“By the day, anyway. Why can’t I just ask you to find the guy responsible for making and distributing this shit?”

“I don’t know. It just doesn’t work that way.”

“What way does it work?”