“Something like that. I want to make sure we’re all set for Ellen and Klein on Thursday.” I knew she wouldn’t argue with that.

But Lou was too keyed up to be cautious. She bounced in her seat, the yellow light of the afternoon sun setting her hair on fire. “C’mon, Jackal can wait for one drink.”

Yes, he could. But I couldn’t. “Sorry,” I said. “Rain check.”

“Oh.” Lou’s smile faltered briefly, but then it brightened again. “Well, what about tomorrow night? Head to Olvera Street, scope out the fund-raiser location?” I knew what she was thinking: if I could wrap up Klein within the week, maybe we could have a girl in place in time for Carrigan’s campaign event in a few weeks. It wasn’t likely, but it was possible.

I said yes, of course.

As she shot south, back to Tarantula Gardens, Lou turned to me and said: “You’re not afraid of Ellen, are you?”

“What?”

“I keep thinking about it. Her feelings for the mark. Our biggest rule, you know.”

I laughed uneasily, fiddling with the radio to have something to do with my hands. Scared of Ellen—I was, but she barely made my top five.

“Please,” I said, laughing it off. I was so good I nearly convinced myself. “Like that puffball has the stuff to scare me.”

“By the end of the week,” Lou reminded me. There was a little steel in her voice.

“Money in the bank, baby,” I said, making her smile. “I’ll bring a camera myself.”

Lou dropped me off at my place—she’d offered to take me directly to Jackal’s, but I’d begged off, saying I’d need my car for a speedy postcoital getaway. She’d smiled at that and shook her head, and I waited ten whole minutes after her car rounded the corner from my complex before heading to Ellen’s, hoping I wasn’t already too late.

It wasn’t feasible for me to stake out the Alto Nido Apartments, Ellen’s complex, every night without Lou getting suspicious, but I had a hunch I couldn’t shake. If gambling had been my vice and not Jackal’s, I’d have laid money that she’d try to find a way to see Klein without me. Ellen might have won our skirmish in the office, but that victory had come with a price. Now I had a better measure of what she was capable of, and I didn’t plan to lose the war.

Her apartment faced an alley, which sounded good in theory. But alleys were terrible for surveillance. There’s no good way to camp out in an alley and not be remembered, unless you’re a bum, and there were still some lines I wasn’t willing to cross for the job.