Robby sank into a floral armchair, closed her eyes, and pressed both hands against her throbbing forehead. After a minute, something cold touched her arm, and she looked up to find Mark holding out a bottle of Perrier, a serious look on his thin delicate face.

“None of my business,” he said, “but, honey, I’d be a little choosier if I were you.”

She took the bottle and knocked it lightly against the side of his head. He staggered back in mock pain and dropped into a chair on the other side of the couch, near Kelly.

“It’s not funny,” said Jim. His voice was muffled, because he was in the process of stripping off layers of stinking sweaters and ragged shirts. His tatty raincoat lay in a tired slump on the carpet. “Well? Who is she?”

“Nobody,” Robby said, and sipped. The water had a bitter undertaste, or maybe that was just her mood. “A drunk. Look, she tagged me in the bar, then followed me out on the street. I almost got busted before I quieted her down. Just leave her alone. I’ll feed her some drinks, and she won’t remember her name, much less where she’s been.”

Jim fought his way free of the sweaters and stood there, hair a leonine bristling mass around his face, glaring at her. He picked up the clothes and began stuffing them into a garbage sack, the better to ferment the odors.

“Stupid,” he muttered. “Unbelievable. This is my home, Robby, what were you thinking? Oh, forget it.”

“You’ll feel better after you take a shower,” Mark offered kindly. Jim’s eyes sleeted over.

“There is a hooker in my bathroom.”

On cue, there was noise from that direction. Bumps. Knocks. The struggle subsided into ominous silence. Robby sagged deeper into her armchair under the weight of Jim’s stare.

“Sorry.”

“Let’s just get this over with,” Jim said with careful precision. “Kelly?”

Kelly, still smirking, sat up and pulled her purse out from under the table. She spilled out wallets and began stripping the contents into neat piles. Identification, credit cards, cash. Mark opened his back-pack, searched between textbooks, and added his take to the pile. Robby flicked the latches on her briefcase and pulled cash from under her carefully folded business suit and shoes.

“My Amex guy’s out of town,” Mark said as he sorted credit cards into stacks—green, silver, gold. He frowned over a couple and put them aside in a reject pile. “Jim, you got anybody for those?”

“Amex? No. I’ll take VISA and MasterCard. Oh, and Antoine says he can move all the ID we have.”

“That’s good, ’cause it looks like I got a lot of it today. Shit, you’d think these SMU assholes would have cash.” Mark himself was a sometime-student at Texas Christian University, an arch-rival of Southern Methodist University, and appropriately prejudiced on the subject.

“ATM cards?” Robby asked, and held up one in its suede-paper folder. Kelly beckoned without looking up; Robby slid it over the table toward her.