"Same hotel, but I got jumped several blocks away," Dempster told her. "I thought this was a great place. I had a real nice time last night, very relaxing. It's cozy, don't you think?"

"It certainly is fancy."

They crossed the lobby towards the lounge. Sandra stopped just outside of it to marvel at a tiled stone stand about three feet high and two and a half feet wide, displaying an enormous clay pot encased in glass. "Wow," she said, "this is really beautiful." There was a sweet glimmer in her eyes as she studied the pot's bird motif.

"Looks like Acoma, eighteenth century," Dempster said, "not that I really know anything about pottery."

"Something Jack Dempster doesn't know much about? Maybe you were lying to me."

They entered the lounge. Twelve or fourteen people were spread out at various tables, most of them older, somewhere between the ages of sixty and seventy. Spanish guitar music played softly through speakers, adding just the lightest glaze of sound to the quiet, dimly lit ambience.

"I'm impressed," Sandra said. "This place has real class."

"It's got nothing on you."

She grinned at him. "I don't know whether to call you a flirt or a suck up."

"I like to think of myself as both."

It wasn't until they sat down that Dempster realized they'd just sat at the same table he'd sat at last night. He glanced down at the chandelier's reflection, remembered his conversation with himself, then shrugged it off and looked up into Sandra's beautiful eyes.

"Have I told you how stunning you are?"

She smiled. "No, you haven't."

"Well, you're stunning."

"Merci beaucoup, vous le bel Homme."

"I'm starting to think," he said, "that that's the only French you know."

"En Haut le votre."

"Huh?"

"Up yours."

He laughed. "Nice. How would I reverse that?"

"By getting me drunk."

Before it could go any further the waitress with the lazy eye showed up. She studied Dempster briefly, either trying to place him from last night or confused by the new appearance that came courtesy of last night's beating. "What can I get for you guys?"

"What kinds of beer do you have?" Sandra asked. The waitress rattled off a list.

Sandra contemplated for a moment, then ordered a St. Pauli Girl. "I've heard it's Germany's fun-loving beer," she added.

Letting out an incredibly fake laugh, the waitress said, "Okay, and I need to see your I.D., please."

Dempster leaned back in his seat. "What's French for little baby girl?" he asked.

"En haut le votre."

She handed the waitress her I.D.

The waitress checked it. Once satisfied, she handed it back, then turned to Dempster. "And for you?"

"Well, if Germany's that fun-loving with the stuff, I guess I'll take one too."

It was clear the waitress wanted to roll her eyes. "Sounds like this table will be fun," she said. Her tone was jolly, though with a clear sarcastic undertone.

Dempster looked at Sandra. "Knock knock."

"Who's there?"

"Gestapo."

"Gestapo who?"

"Ve vill ask ze questions!"

Sandra laughed. The waitress turned and walked away.

Sandra said, "She looks fairly German."

"She should have a beer with us, then."

Sandra looked about, all through the air.

"What?"

"I was trying to come up with a joke about your wienerschnitzel."

"Too little too late, I guess."

The waitress returned with two bottles and two glasses. She set them down and asked if there was anything else she could bring them at the moment.

"I think that'll do it," Dempster said. Then he turned to Sandra. "So where's the one place in the world you wanna go more than anywhere else?"

She poured one of the bottles. "That's the thing. I wanna go everywhere. When I was five or so, I got in trouble for drawing hieroglyphics all over my bedroom walls because I wanted to live in ancient Egypt."

"I'm sure your parents loved you for that one."

"For an entire month one time, because I wanted to be British, I refused to drink anything other than tea. Another time my friend Emerald and I ruined my mother's favorite bed sheets, trying to make kimonos." She sucked the foam from the top of her glass. "I've had thoughts and fantasies about living just about everywhere. I don't think there's anywhere on the planet that I don't want to at least visit."

"All right, well, if things work out, you can ruin the sheets and draw as much as you want on the walls. Sound good?"

"Will you make me tea while I do?"

"Sure." He poured his own glass, then asked, "What if we find ourselves stuck somewhere?"

"I don't see us getting stuck unless we choose to stick."

"You know, this isn't all gonna be peaches and cream."

"Do we need to keep talking about it? I mean, do we need to keep talking about it that way? We'll figure it out as we go."

"All right, all right. I just can't help worrying."

"Well stop. Things will happen as they're supposed to happen, right? Peaches and cream or sardines and milk. Things will happen. We'll figure them out."

She was so beautiful. The brightness in her face across the table, a source of beauty he could compare to nothing else. He wanted to speak but couldn't. All he knew for certain was that whatever the emotional thing inside him was, it was the dawn of a new future. He could feel it.

"Soon as we get out of this town," he told her, feeling a little stupid even as he said it, "I'm gonna buy you something really nice."

A light chuckle escaped her. "What, are you talking, like, diamonds, a gift basket, or a Play Station 3?"

"I dunno. Which would you like?"

"I'd like the one that comes from here." She pointed to her chest.

"I don't think any of those can come from your breasts."

"Well maybe one could come from your heart."

"You mean that figuratively, right?"

"You're a goofball."

"And you're beautiful."

"You're only saying that because you wanna score."

"I thought I already was gonna score."

"Yeah, well, we'll see." She smiled a cute, girly smile at him.

Just then a man passed by their table with the countenance of a degraded, washed-up diplomat. About forty-five-ish, with salt and pepper hair and a matching mustache, he wore the dark blue uniform of a police officer, only he didn't have a gun on his belt, and the badge on his chest was a subtle, embroidered patch complimenting the one sewn onto his sleeve. Dempster watched him say hello to the waitress. Watched them talk, seemingly about nothing for roughly thirty seconds or so. Then they parted, and when the guard neared their table again, Dempster waved to him with a certain dapper air, and asked him for the time. The guard, visage unchanged, took a couple steps forward and looked at his watch while Dempster looked at his outfit.

"Going on ten," he said.

"Thank you."

He watched Howard leave.

"Somewhere you need to be?"

Turning back to Sandra he lifted his beer, "No, just curious," and took a sip. "Where are we gonna stay tonight?"

"I thought I was staying with you," she said.

"Well, yeah, but I got no place to stay."

"Where have you been staying?"

"Somewhere I'm not staying anymore."

"Then how come I checked out of the Quality Inn?"

"Because it would be wise to stay somewhere different tonight."

"Ah, I get it." She smiled. "This is work related, isn't it?"

"Yes, but it's merely a precaution on my part. Just to keep everything on the safe side."

Sandra sipped her beer, rolled the glass in her hand, studied it with acute intrigue. Then, with her voice deep and husky, downright serious and matter-of-fact, she said, "I'm safe with you, aren't I?"

He took hold of his own beer. "Of course you are."

When he set it down, beyond Sandra, something moved within the lounge and caught his attention. It grew stronger until it dominated him, and when Sandra asked him what was wrong, all he could do was gape at what he saw behind her.

"Jack, what is it? You're freaking me out."

The longest moment of them all, trapping him where he was, pointing at him, then advancing. His toes curled up in his shoes. He stared with mistrust, watched the hips sway, waver with an air of frustration, like a snake whose strike has fallen short. He watched her cross the lounge. And then she was standing at their table. There were sparks in her eyes, and tightly pressed lips on her mouth, which opened just long enough to say, "Sometimes the world is too small, don't you think?"

Grasping for words, finding none, he looked down at the table, and tried to find his reflection, hoping it might offer up some advice. It felt as though he was walking down a dark street, a narrow street, and finally into a dead end. His mind scrambled for something to say. Anything that might prevent disaster; but all that came to him were snippets of random song lyrics, not a single one of which had even the slightest relevance to what was going on.

Carly looked him over, said, "You look like you were ravaged by dogs," then turned to Sandra. "I'm gonna take a guess that you're Sandra," she said.

"Yeah, that's right."

"Hi, I'm Carly." She extended her hand. "We spoke on the phone."

Sandra shook her hand with extreme hesitance, and cut a sudden, fuming glance across the table at Dempster, who felt his stomach constrict.

Now you've done it, he told himself. Here's where everything comes together and then falls apart before your eyes. Here's where everything crumbles.

Sandra, shoulders taut, reached for her drink. She took a contemplative sip, then set it down, and watched the bubbles in it rise. Her lips were as tight as Carly's now.

And Carly, with that calculated smirk on her face, narrowed her eyes at Dempster and said, "You two having fun?"

Dempster squirmed, like he was being called on to answer a question at school when he hadn't studied. He offered a reluctant "Yeah," then gave a nervous shrug, proving himself to be at a loss. He kicked himself and dug deeper, unable to find anything other than some lyrics from Mary Chapin Carpenter, and even they were muddled.

Before he could make a complete fool of himself, Sandra chimed in. "We're having a blast."

"I'm glad to hear it," Carly said.

"We're having such a good time," Sandra went on, "that not thirty seconds before you showed up, we were asking ourselves, 'What's the one thing in the world that could possibly ruin such a perfect night?' And you know what we concluded? We concluded that the only thing would be an insecure redhead who can only survive the world by walking around with a trashy fagade and acting like she owns it." She lifted her beer."