“Hey. Woah.” Yongli held up his hands. “I only know Je suis enchanté, madame. No one’s ever talked back to me before.” He laughed. “I’m impressed.” Then he leaned over confidentially. “Actually, I do know one other phrase, but it’s not the sort of thing you would say in polite company. And Li Yan is a bit sensitive. It’s way past his bedtime, you know.”

“I know. It’s my fault,” Margaret said. “I’m keeping him out late. But his uncle’s away, so he won’t get into any trouble.”

“Oh.” Yongli looked at Li knowingly. “When the mouse is away the cat will play.”

Li said, “I think that’s the other way round, Ma Yongli.”

“Ah,” Yongli said to Margaret, “I always get my cats mixed up with my mice. What will you have to drink?”

Margaret lifted her glass. It was almost empty. “Vodka tonic.”

Yongli pointed at Li’s glass. “Brandy,” he said. And to Margaret, “We have to celebrate. It is so long since I saw Big Li with a woman I was beginning to think he was gay. Back in a minute.” And he headed for the bar.

Li grinned, a little embarrassed. “Ignore him. He’s an idiot.”

“He’s nice.”

Li felt a pang of jealousy. “You probably think he’s good-looking. Most women do.”

“No.” She shook her head solemnly. “But he’s attractive. What was he doing in Switzerland?”

“Training as a chef. He spent time in the United States, as well.”

“Oh,” Margaret said, cocking an eyebrow. “He cooks, too? That makes him very attractive.” She had been immediately aware of that defensive look men got when they were jealous, and she enjoyed the fact that Li felt that way about her. If only he knew that Yongli wasn’t half as attractive as he was—at least, not in her eyes.

She was beginning to relax, the alcohol easing away some of the tension of the night. It also seemed to be going very quickly to her head. Perhaps it was the tiredness. She had slept for only a handful of hours during the last seventy-two.

Yongli returned with the drinks and sat down at their table with a beer. “So,” he said to Margaret. “Cut up anyone interesting recently?”

“Oh, just a burn victim, a stabbing, an Atlanto-occipital disarticulation. Would you like me to go into the gory details?”

Yongli shook his head and said firmly, “No thanks.”

“That’s my trouble,” Margaret said. “The only interesting people I ever get intimate with are dead. The live ones tend to lose interest in me as soon as they hear what I do for a living. They think I’m only after their bodies.”

Yongli laughed. “You can play with my organs any time.”

“I’m more interested in a man’s brain,” she said. “Only the sound of the saw cutting through the skull usually puts them off.”