“We’re done,” the woman said, and started to push by. Velvet grabbed the nearest piece of anatomy—elbow, bony—and hauled her to a stop.

“Buy me a drink,” she pleaded mushily. The woman just stared at her. God, she looked so cold, so goddamn cold. “Come on, please. Please. I wanna talk to you.”

She burst into tears that shook her so hard it hurt. She clung to the other woman for balance, hiding her face in the soggy mink and making loud helpless wails that she tried to gulp down along with bubbling vodka.

The woman’s arm went under her shoulders, moved her stumbling across the floor, and sat her down in a chair. Velvet mopped at her eyes with the back of one shaking hand and fumbled for a napkin; the other woman got to it first and used it to wipe her hands fastidiously clean before she sat down. She snapped her fingers over her head and glared at Myra, who started to weave back in their direction.

“Are you all right?” the thief asked. Velvet picked up the crumpled napkin and blew her nose, noisily.

“Shure. Course. Why?”

“Sweet Jesus,” the woman sighed. Myra wandered into range, and the thief waved her urgently over.

“Hey, whash your name?” Velvet asked. The other woman glanced at her, then quickly away. She had kind of a squarish face; the lipstick looked all wrong, too red. A pastel face, Velvet decided. Coral lip gloss. Peach eye shadow.

“Robby.”

“Like the robot?”

“You could say so.” The woman found another napkin and wiped her fingers again—small hands, stubby fingers, smooth French-manicured nails.

Velvet waved her arms bonelessly in the air and shouted, “Danger! Danger, Will Robinshon!” and giggled when the other woman flinched.

“Quiet!” Robby-the-robot hissed, and leaned forward. She looked as if she might have wanted to slap her, but there weren’t any more napkins on the table for her to wipe her fingers on. “Listen, you, you make trouble and they won’t serve you any more drinks, is that what you want?”

“You’re just worried ’cause of the money in your pockets.”

Myra drifted over like a corpse in a current, gave them each fish-eyed stares, and poised a chewed pencil with no eraser over her pad. She blew a pale pink bubble, inhaled it, and pointed her pencil at Robby.

“You,” Myra said. It sounded like she was identifying her at a lineup.

“I’m buying for my friend here—give her two vodka doubles, and keep ’em coming.”

The pencil swiveled like a machine-gun turret, and Velvet almost crossed her eyes staring at the empty metal socket where the eraser had once been.

“No banana daiquiri?”

“Vodka,” Velvet nodded. Myra rolled her eyes and wandered away again. The pencil ended up in her mouth, and Velvet wondered if the eraser had been mistaken for gum.