“Drink?” Velvet asked, and leaned toward the mirror to look at her chin. “Ow. Shit.”

Cold pressure on her arm. Velvet looked down to find a glass of what was either water or vodka; she took it and sipped.

Not water. She emptied it in a gulp.

When she wandered out, dragging her torn dress and soggy mink, the suit was sitting on a peach-colored sofa, pretending to read a magazine. She had a glass in front of her, too, primly half-full. Velvet saw the bottle of Stoli on the kitchen bar and headed for it, poured herself a tall refill.

“Feeling better?” The suit pretended to care. Velvet just drank. The warmth spread through her and triggered an earthquake in her stomach; she swallowed two or three times.

“Yeah.” Her voice sounded softer than she meant it to, smeared by the drinks. “What’s it to you?”

“I don’t want to haul your dead butt back out to the street.” That had the ring of truth. Velvet picked up the Stoli bottle, plopped herself in a big fat chair, and put her feet up on the coffee table. She raised the bottle vaguely in the suit’s direction.

“Cheers.” She drank, a swallow of liquid ice. “Where’s your buddies?”

“Gone.” The thief drank a little sip of what looked like Scotch. The taste of smoke shot through Velvet’s mouth, and her throat spasmed. “You could at least say thank you.”

Velvet stared at her, then looked away. Whoever the guy with the hair was, he had nice digs; she liked the pictures on the wall. The TV looked like fun.

The vodka picked her up on a big cold wave, and she shut her eyes. The world felt like it was sliding to the right; she leaned left to balance.

“Thanks,” she said huskily. “For the—thing on the street. I think.”

“You think?” the suit snorted. A picture popped into Velvet’s head, a fat metal robot, waving accordion arms.

Robby. The suit’s name was Robby. Velvet celebrated with another mouthful of Stoli.

“Been that kind of a day,” she said. She looked at the bottle—four inches left in it—and waggled it in Robby’s direction. “Gotta friend for this? ’S gonna get lonely.”

“You realize that if I keep giving you drinks, you’re probably going to pass out.” Schoolteacher talk; the brown eyes behind those round glasses looked so damn fucking superior. Velvet flashed a tinsel-bright smile.

“It’s a hobby.”

She drank in silence, watched inches go down her throat as she thought about Ming. Maybe if she got drunk enough, she wouldn’t care about Ming, wouldn’t be scared. Maybe.

Robby sipped like a goddamn PTA mom.

“Y’ live here?” Velvet asked. Robby shook her head. “’S nice. Mean it. Nishe.”