"She said you're soulless."

A car horn sent up a misty pastel plume, but the effects of Paintball were fading in the cool air. New York was returning to its proper level of grayscale grittiness: black sky, buildings the color of headstones, bone-white sidewalks.

Rovil shook his head unhappily. "I'm not very good at breaking up. When I realized I could not be with her, I stopped talking to her, stopped taking her messages. She was not happy."

"Because you were being an a.s.shole. Is this it?"

On the map our blue dot had arrived at the pizza shop, but we had not: The place was closed. Long closed, the front crawling with graffiti, the windows sh.e.l.lacked with paper notices of rock bands and lost kittens.

"This is unacceptable," I said. I turned in a circle, desperate.

High overhead, Dr. Gloria said, "Food truck!" and flew off.

"That way," I said, pointing after her.

Rovil hurried to catch up. "I suppose it was because I did not know what to say, and I wanted to stop thinking about what to say."

"I get it, kid. I spend most of my energy trying to not think."

It was not a food truck but an aluminum trailer, a single guy working a propane grill. Pictures of each food item were tiled across the top and sides, a necessary feature when serving the drunk community. I pointed at a faded picture of a gyro and said, "That. In my belly. Now."

Rovil ordered a water. While we waited for my food he said, "Did she talk about our new product?"

I decided not to get her in trouble. "What product?"

"Because we have a strict policy at LR. I could be in trouble if one of my staff violated the NDA."

"Relax, kid. Your ex-girlfriend is fine."

The cart man wrapped up my pita and set it on the counter. Rovil waved his pen at the man.

"Wait," I said. "I've got the tip." I dug in my purse. And what a miracle it was that I still had a purse! I never carried the d.a.m.n things. I found the bronze coin I was looking for and slammed it down on the counter. The gyro guy took one look at it and shook his head.

"What? Bad juju?" I asked. "One ju? You got something against jus?" At that moment, I believed this to be the most hilarious thing I had ever said.

Rovil picked up the coin, my six-month AA chip. He obviously didn't recognize what it was. He read aloud the words on the face: "Unity ... Service ... Recovery..."

"Back in the U-S-R," I said. "Rhymes with User."

I saw his expression change as he understood. "Lyda, I'm so sorry. This is why Ollie didn't want you to go out."

I thought, Have you not read my history? I started walking back to the club and Rovil's car. The gyro tasted wonderful. O steaming slabs of processed lamb! O Tzatziki sauce!

Dr. G looked at me over the top of her gla.s.ses. She was not amused by my little joke with the AA chip. I knew what she was thinking. Day one of sobriety starts now.

"Well it ain't dawn yet," I said.

"Pardon?" Rovil asked.

"The women in my life are overprotective." I wiped sauce from my lips. "There's nothing you could have done about it-I was going out with or without you. Sometimes my brain needs a little hammering to get it to shut up."

"You're worried about your daughter."

I stopped short. "I don't have a-wait. I've been talking about her, haven't I?"

"A lot," he said. "And not just to me."

I flashed on a memory of telling the brunette at the bar about Sasha. And someone else as well-a tall man with a chinstrap beard. And someone else ...

I tossed the remainder of the gyro into a doorway. Rovil looked at me in surprise. I'd only taken a few bites.

"What was I thinking, buying the street s.h.i.t?" I said. I started walking again. "All I wanted was a f.u.c.king slice. Take me home, Rovil."

"Please, one more thing." He touched my elbow to stop me. "Are we friends?"

"Of course."

"Then please trust me when I ask this of you."

"Yeah?"

"Stop fighting your G.o.d. You will be happier."

"Amen, brother," Dr. Gloria said.

"If you do that, I believe you will not need all the other ... substances."

"Oh, Rovil," I said. "You better hope the other Pharm Boys don't hear you say that."

By the time we returned to Rovil's place, dawn was muscling its way past the skysc.r.a.pers. Ollie was asleep on the living room couch, fully clothed. She jerked awake when Rovil shut the door behind us.

"Don't get up," I said, and headed for the guest room.

"Where have you been?" Ollie said.

"Later," I said. I left the living room before she could turn those a.n.a.lyst Eyes on me or smell my breath.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

On the edge of the desert there was a very large house where a girl named Sasha lived with a great number of people, some of whom lived there all the time, like Sasha and the maid Esperanza; and some, like the Gardeners Three, who did not live in the house but worked there almost every day; or the Mexican cleaning ladies who came on Mondays and Fridays. Others appeared only when Sasha drew them from the IF Deck, and still others arrived and departed unpredictably, like Grandpop, who lived in the house almost all of the time until he suddenly had to go on a trip, and Eduard and Suzette, who were hardly there at all but could show up on any given day.

This was one of the rare Full House days. Eduard, Suzette, and Grandpop were all returning to the house together. That morning, Esperanza began frantically picking up all of Sasha's art supplies and toys and clothes and carrying them to Sasha's bedroom. Later the maid cut short Sasha's latest project, forced her to change into a clean outfit (she'd dribbled green paint on her white shirt), and confined her to her room before she could do more damage.

This was not exactly a punishment. Sasha preferred her room to any other place in the house, and Esperanza knew this. Sasha spent hours there reading, or watching crime dramas that Grandpop would not have approved of, or using the house to spy on the adults. But there was no time for that today: Sasha had to call out the Deck Council.

Bucko the Pirate Bear sat on the bed, propped up between two pillows. He was her oldest friend, with fur rubbed thin in patches, and a wobbly eye that Esperanza had st.i.tched back into place more than once. (He could not afford to lose another one.) He considered it a point of distinction that he was not confined to the Deck like her other friends.

Sasha closed the door, and Bucko hopped up. "So I was thinking," he said. "Me, in the middle of a pack of zombies. I'm fighting 'em off with a cutla.s.s in one hand, and in the other I've got my flintlock, right? And I'm shooting it right into the face of a zombie."

"Sorry," she said. "Emergency council meeting."

"Oh jeez. You're not bringing out Zebo, are you? He's a pompous a.s.s."

"I'll bring out whoever I need." She climbed over the bed and dropped down into the s.p.a.ce between the bed and the wall. The blue drinking straw still lay across the floor vent. Good-Esperanza hadn't been cleaning back here. Sasha popped the floor vent from the carpet. A thin cord was tied to the underside of the vent. She pulled up the cord and retrieved a black bag that had been hanging down into the ductwork. The bag was something she'd found in Eduard's office. The little tag on it said it was a "Portable Black Hole," made by Sony. She'd looked up the product online. It blocked all electromagnetic fields, which was exactly the kind of thing you needed if you were trying to prevent people from geolocating their misplaced data devices.

She opened the bag. Inside were seven smart pens, two data fobs, a set of electronic keys that opened the high-security doors in the house and most of the cars, a tangle of data cables and adapters, and a deck of playing cards secured by a thick rubber band wrapped twice around: the IF Deck.

She rolled the rubber band from the deck and fanned through the cards. Most of them were ordinary playing cards, useful as decoys. But in the middle of the deck were eleven special cards that had been decorated and colored in, the newest in permanent marker, the oldest in crayon. But which did she need now?

Mother Maybelle, definitely. Her card was the eight of hearts, the two red circles of the number fattened with red crayon, the topmost circle sprouting two chubby arms. Then Zebo, the jack of diamonds, heavily redrawn with black marker. And of course Tinker, the three of clubs, to serve as secretary.

Her fingers hovered over a fourth card, the seven of spades. He was an old card, but she'd rubbed out the black crayon outline she'd scrawled when she was five, and had redrawn him as accurately as she could in black Sharpie, no colors. The 7 was the spine of a thin man in a black coat, leaning back against a wall, his wide hat covering his eyes. The card had been torn in half, width-wise, and taped back together. The Scotch tape blurred his face.

The Wander Man. She tilted the card, and he seemed to shift and nod.

Howdy, Miss Sasha.

She quickly pushed his card back into the deck. She may not have been able to get rid of him, but she did not have to bring him out.

The remaining three cards she turned faceup and tapped them: One, two, three. Immediately she smelled cigar smoke.

"My oh my," said a deep voice. "I sense that we are on the cusp of a momentous decision."

Sasha raised her head over the top of the bed. Zebo the Zalligator reclined in a chair that had not been there before, one hand tucked into the pocket of his red, diamond-pattern vest, the other nonchalantly holding a cigar to the side of his long, toothy mouth. He chuckled dryly. "A 'd.a.m.ned if you do, d.a.m.ned if you don't' type situation."

"Pay no mind to the carnivore, sweetness," Mother Maybelle said. She glided across the room in a cloud of petticoats, her golden curls swaying and bouncing. Sasha's friends never appeared in a puff of smoke or a flash of light. She simply noticed them, already in place like actors on a dim stage, waiting for the spotlight of her attention. And when it was time for them to go, she merely had to glance away and they'd slip into the shadows.

Mother Maybelle said, "There is always a right decision, and we will make it."

Tinker the Robot Boy trundled forward and clanged in agreement.

Sasha climbed back onto the bed next to Bucko. The bear said, "You don't even know what the question is, d.a.m.n it. Let her talk."

"We know what the question is, bear," Zebo said. "It's all she's been thinking about. Does she, or does she not, tell ol' Grandpop that his son is pulling the wool over his eyes, and darn near covering his entire head?"

Mother Maybelle said, "Are we talking about the secret messages, again?"

"Yes, it's the secret messages," Sasha said. Months ago she'd discovered that Eduard was not delivering messages to Grandpop, even though they were explicitly addressed to Edo Anderssen Vik. They were text messages, emails, phone messages-scores and scores of them. Grandpop's account, by contrast, received only messages from Eduard. Sasha had called a Deck Council to decide what to do. The council had advised to table the issue until more data could be collected. Sasha had set to work. In this house, there was no room and no account she couldn't get into. And it had become clear that Eduard was continuing to keep others from contacting his father.

Bucko had the same opinion as last time: "Eduard's a grog-sucking weasel."

"Young man! That's Sasha's father you're talking about," Mother Maybelle said.

"Adoptive father," Bucko said. "Junior's trying to steal Grandpop's money and take over the business. I say we expose the rat and let the bodies fall where they may."

Mother Maybelle said, "We still do not know if this is something sons regularly do for their fathers."

"Then I hope to never have sons," Zebo said. "However, let us not lose sight of the possibility that Edo told Eduard not to give him the messages. A firewall, if you will, protecting him from the tawdry world of business."

"Well," Mother Maybelle said, puffing the syllable full of air. "When it comes to the world of business and the world of adults in general there is too much that we do not understand."

"If Grandpop is okay with this, then he won't mind when we tell him," Sasha said.

"But Eduard will," Zebo said. "If you demonstrate that you've been snooping through his personals, he will come down on you like a mighty rain. There will be no more access to electronics. You will be a prisoner."

"Then you got to make it count," Bucko said. "Eddie Junior's been away for weeks. Get the latest messages off his pen and show 'em to Grandpop. Leave no room for Eddie to b.i.t.c.h out of this."

Sasha frowned. Even with a roomful of IFs, deciding was so hard. "Okay," she said. "I'll get the latest messages tonight. If Eduard's still hiding things, then I'll tell Grandpop tomorrow morning. Did you get all that, Tinker?"

The robot boy dinged twice. Of course he'd gotten it; Tinker forgot nothing.

"All right then," Sasha said. "Back in the deck."

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

Somehow, impossibly, Rovil got up and went to work the next morning. I ate a rock star breakfast: dry toast at noon.

Ollie watched me eat. She said, "You want to tell me what that was about?" "That" meaning several things: the freak-out after seeing Eduard, the night with Rovil, my decision to flood my bloodstream with toxins.

"Not really," I said.

"You're not solving anything by not talking to her," Gloria said. She sat in the living room, and if I didn't know better I would have thought she was nursing her own hangover.

"I know about Sasha," Ollie said.

"You know?"

"That day in the Marriott. I looked at your face, and I looked at hers. She has your cheekbones. Your eyes."

"You're f.u.c.king with me."

"I should have put it together earlier, but I wasn't on my game. I knew you'd had a child. And four years ago, Eduard and his wife Suzette became foster parents for a mentally handicapped girl from a group home in Lockport, Illinois. They adopted her a few months later. She was mixed-race, and six years old. The same age as your biological daughter."

"Is this what you've been doing? Digging through my life? Can you even help yourself?"