Linn stood up, too, more slowly than I had, as if he were the bruised and battered one. “She does, I think, and the reverse as well, which may be why she will not now employ you. Good day, and thank you for your help.”

I watched him go. He took polite leave of the Ticker as he passed the workbench.

She stayed where she was until we heard the elevator squeak. Then she ambled up to the kitchen level and put the heat on under the teakettle. “How are you doing, my dear?”

Except for the head wound, and feeling mostly as if I’d been kicked down a long flight of stairs, I was fine.

When I said so to the Ticker, she sighed and asked, “Very well, then; what’s the plan?”

“I haven’t made one yet,” I said, since I knew denying it would be a waste of time. I hoisted myself back onto the window sill.

“Tell me when you have, then. Because if you try to tiptoe off and indulge in heroics by yourself, I shall have you changed into something. Something slow.” She considered. “Which wouldn’t be so much of a change, now that I think on it.”

“Ha. Ha. Did you hear any of the stuff that Linn said to me?”

“I very carefully did not.”

“Did he send you away? I didn’t notice him doing it.”

“Not really. He was uncomfortable, so I made to wander off, and he didn’t stop me. If he’d asked me to sit back down, I would have tried to make you go away, unless he made it clear that he was simply uncomfortable with what he had to do, and that we were both welcome to attend on his discomfort.”

“Well, there was some to attend on. Rico officially tossed me off the job. Linn has unofficially asked me if I couldn’t find it in my heart to be curious enough about the case to go on working on it privately.”

“Did you tell him you didn’t need a hobby?”

“No. I told him I had every intention of continuing to dig up dirt on this. Which you already knew, so don’t try to look surprised.”

“I am much too lazy to feign anything so difficult as surprise at what you’ll do next. You’re angry, aren’t you?”

My forehead itched under the bandage; I pressed it a little, knowing that wouldn’t really help. “I guess I am.”

“Linn made you so?”

“It’s—yeah. I don’t—I can’t really explain why, even.”

“No, I expect you can’t, though you would never consider doing what he’s done, and if you were accused of doing so, you would think it a blow to your honor.”