On the way to her apartment—some barely decent complex down around Wilshire, just off Detroit—he fiddled with the CD player–slash-stereo while asking her a rash of seemingly simple questions but ones that he had actually perfected from a number of previous attempts. There was no specific order to them, but each was designed to accomplish two general things: put the girl-slash-woman at ease and give him a basic understanding of what her position in the creative community was. By question 3 they’d decided to swing past his place first, and it didn’t take more than five answers—well, after the “Where you from?” and “Oh, sure, I’ve been there!” give-and-take—before he knew without a doubt that she was a keeper. Now, by “keeper” he didn’t mean that this was the girl-slash-woman of his dreams or anything silly like that, oh no, but just that she was easily someone who was worth being around for a bit, having some fun with, and then getting rid of when it was time to get serious about hooking up with somebody for the summer. See, the “summer” girl-slash-woman was always a big deal and not to be taken lightly. No, this one here was nothing more than a soft target and he knew it. Hell, even she probably knew it and it didn’t seem to bother her. Not one tiny bit.