She was still wiping her nose when the waiter returned, bearing a new basket of wine and an aria he said was from Tosca. She listened with her chin resting on her fist, shooting glances at Sol. He looked enthralled, but his eyes were cool. Not a music fan, though he had to pretend to be, to fit in with his fantasy.

She had once allowed a friend to convince her to lay out three hundred dollars for a leather miniskirt and halter top. She kept it hanging in the far corner of her closet, price tags still attached, and took it out about twice a year to hold it up against her body and pose for the mirror. For those few guilty moments, she was somebody else. Somebody dangerous.

She wasn’t absolutely sure how much of Sol’s playacting was fantasy, and that scared her.

When the waiter stopped singing, she passed him a dollar. Before she could order, Sol spread his hand palm-out to stop her.

“Linguini for myself and the lady. And get rid of the minestrone, it’s cold, what’s the matter with you? Eh?”

The waiter stalked away in search of a more cultured audience. She bit off a desire to tell anybody who might listen that she hated linguini.

“I like you, Robby,” Sol said. “You’re an artist. You know how rare that is, your kind of game? Kids today, they gank old ladies for a couple dollars and change. No finesse, not like you. You and me, we’re old country.”

She doubted it. She was old country, born in County Meath; he was far too nostalgic to have ever been outside the States.

“So I worry when I see you acting crazy, baby.” He leaned over and laid his pinkie-ringed hand over hers. Up close, the ring looked chunky and uncomfortable, the diamond almost feverish in the middle of all that gold. “It isn’t good for business.”

“I’m okay,” she said. She slowly pulled her hand away. His smile faded.

“You better be. I gotta tell you, I got people to answer to. Your little operation down there, it’s nice, it’s profitable. Very low profile. We like that.”

We. She wondered what his bosses would think about the plural.

She thought she’d stepped down hard on her temper, but a little of it got control of her mouth and said, “So glad we’re making you happy, Sol.” The sarcasm was a little too obvious even for Sol.

While the storm built up in his dead-gray eyes, she looked away at a cheap concrete cherub in the corner. It looked dirty, too many pats from grease-smeared fingers, and the expression on its rough face looked more like indigestion than happiness.