She shook her head. "Have they come yet?"

"Your refugees? No. Senor Becket called. He's sending them over in a taxi. A special taxi driven by a police officer. Who are they?"

"No se."

Rodolfo raised his eyebrows.

She shrugged. "If they become a problem here, I'll find another place for them."

"Senor Becket asks this? And you are willing to do this for him?"

"This and more."

"Who is he?"

She hesitated. The INS were not Tio Rodolfo's favorite organization and frankly, a lot of their reputation was earned, but he would have to know sooner or later.

"Thomas is a commander in the INS. He is investigating the Open Lotus, the drowned ones I found."

Rodolfo's face closed down. "Lobos de la frontera."

She nodded and held up the ring. "este lobo es mi companero por todo la vida."

"Se casaron?"

We haven't had the time to get married-or anything else.

"Sin su bendicion? Claro que no."

"My blessing, eh." He looked at her. "Does he love you?"

Even to the edge of doom. "He does."

"And you love him?"

"Oh, Tio, so very much.""You will have to invite me to the wedding."

Patricia breathed a sigh of relief. "Who else would give away the bride?"

They stood together in contented silence for a few moments; then Rodolfo gestured. A taxi was approaching from the bay side, ordinary enough, but farther out, a police patrol boat paralleled it.

"Your refugees?"

"Quizas."

A Hispanic man wearing his right arm in a sling got out of the taxi, helped by a teenage girl. There was no exchange of money, and the taxi pulled away as soon as the two of them were on the dock. Tio Rodolfo took two menus from the station.

"Here, you be the recepcionista. Take them to the patio de la familia. I'll meet you there." He turned to the back of the restaurant.

She walked forward to meet the pair. The man was staring at her, his eyes large.

The girl was swiveling her head back and forth, trying to take in everything.

"Buenos dias," she said. "Bienvenidos. Dos para cenar?"

The man blinked. "I would like to speak with Senor Santos."

"Of course. Your names?"

"Vigil. Maximilian y Zaneta." He indicated his daughter.

"Mucho gusto. Me llamo Viola."

The girl stopped looking around. "Viola, but that's-. I heard you drowned."

Her English was good, with a slight Texas drawl.

"Commander Becket always exaggerates," she said, letting them know they'd definitely come to the right place. "Follow me, please." She led them back through the kitchen, then down the hallway to the patio where she'd told Thomas about her adventures with the Open Lotus and the Sycorax. Tio Rodolfo was waiting.

"Senor Maximilian Vigil y Senorita Zaneta Vigil. Senor Rodolfo Santos."

Tio Rodolfo was standing with his arms behind his back, formal and severe. "

Bienvenidos. Vigil? Conoces a Eduardo Vigil de Tampico?"

For the first time since he'd stepped from the taxi, Maximilian smiled. "Mi abuelo!"

Rodolfo's face went from polite to delighted. He slapped his chest. "Fue tio de mi madre!" He spread his arms wide. "Primo!"

Patricia, bemused, shook her head. What is that? Second cousins? First cousins once removed? Whatever. It wasn't that surprising-the Deluge had scattered families like chaff from wheat, and lost and unknown relatives reconnected at theoddest times.

It looked like Thomas's refugees were going to work out.

MOST RADIANT EXQUISITE.

AND UNMATCHABLE BEAUTY.

CAN YOU MEET ME.

AT BARNEY'S OFFICE.

1800 HOURS.

T.

IS THERE A BED.

P.

AFTER.

T.

ON YOUR ATTENDANCE, MY LORD.

P.

Patricia went by the hotel for casual clothing, but kept the disguise on. She took the Intercity ferry over to Palacios and walked through the shopping district, spending time in shops, pretending to look at the back side of window displays, but, in fact, looking for anyone interested in her.

As she went in the public door of the Central Precinct, she wondered if any of these police might be Nat-Al sympathizers or outright members.

She doubted it-the ethnic mix of the New Galveston police reflected the Strand's diverse culture. A lot of care was taken to recruit multilingual men and woman with psych reviews for bigotry and xenophobia.

Still, she didn't give her own name at the desk. "Viola Sebastian to see Major Paine by arrangement."

The desk sergeant put the call through and, before Patricia could sit down, a policewoman came from the back to escort her out of the public area.

"A bathroom first, please?"

"Certainly, ma'am." The officer showed her a restroom outside of dispatch. "I'llbe right here."

"Okay. It'll be a minute."

She used the handicapped stall, packing away the dress and falsies, wig, and the elevator boots. When she came out of the bathroom, she was wearing comfortable sandals and Thomas's dress shirt over shorts, and all the makeup had been washed down the sink.

The policewoman looked at her, then past her, then back again, to take in the shoulder bag, the same bag Viola Sebastian had been carrying.

"I'm ready," Patricia smiled.

"Wow," said the officer. "Assemblywoman Beenan. This way, please."

A door on the far side of dispatch opened onto a room labeled Special Operations. A set of communications consoles ran around the room and a conference table was in the middle. She saw Thomas, in jeans and a sport shirt, leaning against the near side of the conference table and talking to Major Paine and to two INS officers in uniform. Three uniformed police manned comm stations, headsets on.

The officer who'd escorted her from the front closed the door behind them both and took a seat at one of the other stations. Thomas stopped talking in midsentence when he saw her and breathed out, a deep sigh ending in a smile. The other three men turned around, but she didn't really see them.

"What's wrong? Why are you so pale?" She'd dropped the bag and moved forward.

Thomas looked surprised.

Major Paine bent over suddenly, laughing. "I'll break it to her gently, he said! It's only a scratch, he said!"

Thomas glared at Major Paine. Then he stepped up to her, taking her hands in his. "I'm glad to see you. I expected you to show up in your Raquel Welch outfit."

She shrugged. "I just changed out of it. What's 'just a scratch'?"

He shrugged as if it were nothing. "They tried to get at me today, in the Abattoir."

He touched the left side of his stomach. "They had to put in some stitches."

One of the INS officers, a black man, said, "Fifty-three, right? Thirteen internal and forty out-"

"Thank you, Jazz. You are, uh, precise, even if not exactly helpful."

"Shouldn't you be in a hospital?" she asked.

"No, I shouldn't," he said firmly. He turned back to the INS officers. "Patricia, Iwould like you to meet Lieutenant Jazz Graham, my executive officer, and Ensign Bartholomew Terkel, our newest investigator. Gentleman, Patricia Beenan."

She shook their hands. Fifty-three stitches? "Was it a knife? Did you lose a lot of blood?"

"A nasty little prison knife. A bit of blood, yes. But in the end, it bought much.

We know who the victims were on the Open Lotus."

She blinked, confused. "I see, you walked up to someone and said, 'If you tell me who the victims are, I'll let you cut me open'?"

He shook his head. "It's not that straightforward."

"Why am I not surprised?"

He drew her over to the conference table and held a chair for her. "Here, let me tell you a story."

She pulled him around the front of the chair. "You sit." She pulled out another chair for herself and watched as he lowered himself and then winced as he leaned back. She intoned, "Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, 'tis enough. Where is my page? Go, villain, fetch a surgeon."

Thomas groaned. "Do you know every line of Shakespeare? Or was that somebody else?"

"It's no good if you don't get the reference. It was Mercutio shortly before he croaks, in Romeo and Juliet. We have a deal, remember?"

"Okay, I get it. I get it. No bombs, No knives."

She flushed, remembering her bomb. "Go on, tell me this story. Is it in iambic pentameter?"

"It could be. What is that line from the beginning of Romeo and Juliet? Two households, alike in..."

She closed her eyes for a moment. "Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where we lay our scene, from ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean."

"Yeah, that's it. Well, trade Bogota for Verona, and the Gomez family can be the Capulets and the Encinas family can be the Montagues. Change both alike in dignity to both alike in land ownership."

"Oh. And from which family do we draw our victims?"

"The Monta-that is, the Encinas family. The ancient grudge is there. The Gomez cocaine cartel has been after the Encinas mountain coffee plantations since before the Deluge, as often as not with open warfare. There have been periods of truce and periods of bloodshed, but it really heated up about five years ago.""How did you identify them?"

"Well, when we found the bomb-"