Mia stood up. Susannah promptly came forward and made her sit down again.

What did you do that for? Mia asked, surprised.

I don’t know, I don’t have a clue. But let’s us palaver a little. Why don’t you start by telling me where you want to go?

I need a telefung. Someone will call.

Telephone, Susannah said. And by the way, there’s blood on our shirt, sugar, Margaret Eisenhart’s blood, and sooner or later someone’s gonna recognize it for what it is. Then where will you be?

The response to this was wordless, a swell of smiling contempt. It made Susannah angry. Five minutes ago—or maybe fifteen, it was hard to keep track of time when you were having fun—this hijacking bitch had been screaming for help. And now that she’d gotten it, what her rescuer got was an internal contemptuous smile. What made it worse was that the bitch was right: she could probably stroll around Midtown all day without anyone asking her if that was dried blood on her shirt, or had she maybe just spilled her chocolate egg-cream.

All right, she said, but even if nobody bothers you about the blood, where are you going to store your goods? Then another question occurred to her, one that probably should have come to her right away.

Mia, how do you even know what a telephone is? And don’t tell me they have em where you came from, either.

No response. Only a kind of watchful silence. But she had wiped the smile off the bitch’s face; she’d done that much.

You have friends, don’t you? Or at least you think they’re friends. Folks you’ve been talking to behind my back. Folks that’ll help you. Or so you think.

Are you going to help me or not? Back to that. And angry. But beneath the anger, what? Fright? Probably that was too strong, at least for now. But worry, certainly. How long have I—have we—got before the labor starts up again?

Susannah guessed somewhere between six and ten hours—certainly before midnight saw in June second—but tried to keep this to herself.

I don’t know. Not all that long.

Then we have to get started. I have to find a telefung. Phone. In a private place.

Susannah thought there was a hotel at the First Avenue end of Forty-sixth Street, and tried to keep this to herself. Her eyes went back to the bag, once pink, now red, and suddenly she understood. Not everything, but enough to dismay and anger her.

I’ll leave it here, Mia had said, speaking of the ring Eddie had made her, I’ll leave it here, where he’ll find it. Later, if ka wills, you may wear it again.

Not a promise, exactly, at least not a direct one, but Mia had certainly implied—

Dull anger surged through Susannah’s mind. No, she’d not promised. She had simply led Susannah in a certain direction, and Susannah had done the rest.

She didn’t cozen me; she let me cozen myself.