Eddie watched her tongue peek out and run around her lips. He plainly thought he'd died and gone to heaven. "I guess it's not much fun watching something like that all alone."

"Be more fun with somebody." She gave him a look that told him he was the only possible somebody. "If I had a set that worked, it might be nice. I like daytime, you know. When everybody else is working or shopping, and you can be… in bed." Sighing, she ran her fingertip around her mug.

"It's daytime now."

"Yeah. But I haven't got a TV." She giggled, as if it were a great joke.

"I might be able to help you with that, baby."

She let her eyes widen, then brought her lashes coyly down. "Aw, gee, that's really sweet of you, Eddie. I couldn't let you give me the fifty. It wouldn't be right."

"What do you want to toss money at an old set for, anyway? You can have a new one."

"Oh, yeah." She snorted into her beer. "And I could have me a diamond tiara, too."

"Can't help you on that, but I can get you a set."

"Come on." She shot him a disbelieving look and let her hand rest on his knee. "How?"

He puffed out his massive chest. "Just so happens, I'm in the business."

"You sell TVs?" She cocked her head and had her eyes blinking in fascination. "You're pulling my leg."

"Not now." He winked. "Maybe later."

Mel laughed heartily. "Oh, you're a card, Sir Eddie." She drank again, sighed again. "I wish you weren't fooling. If you could get me one, I'd be awfully grateful."

He leaned closer. She could smell the beer and smoke on his breath. "How grateful?"

Mel wiggled toward him, put her mouth to his ear and whispered a suggestion that would have made the worldly Sebastian stutter.

Short of breath, Eddie finished off his beer in one gulp and grabbed her hand. "Come on, sweet thing. I got something to show you."

Mel went along, not bothering to glance in Sebastian's direction. She sincerely hoped that what Eddie was about to show her was a television.

"Where're we going?" she asked as he led her to the back of the building.

"My office, babe." A sly wink. "Me and my partners got a little business back here."

He took her over a rubble of broken bottles, trash and piles of gravel to another concrete building, perhaps half the size of the bar. After three raps on the door, it was opened by a skinny man of about twenty wearing horn-rims and carrying a clipboard.

"What's the deal, Eddie?"

"The lady needs a TV." He swung his arm over Mel's shoulder and squeezed. "Crystal, honey, this is Bobby."

"Meetcha," Bobby said with a bounce of his head. "Look, Eddie, I don't think this is a good idea. Frank's going to be mad as hell."

"Hey, I got as much right as Frank." Eddie bulled his way in.

Ah, Mel thought, and sighed. For real.

The fluorescent bulbs overhead shone down on the blank single eyes of more than a dozen televisions. They sat cheek by jowl with CD players, VCRs, stereo systems. Tossed in for good measure were several boom boxes, personal computers, telephone answering machines, and one lonely microwave oven.

"Wow!" She clapped her hands together. "Oh, wow, Eddie! Look at all this! It's like a regular department store."

Full of confidence, and swaying only a little, Eddie winked at the nervous Bobby. "We're what you call suppliers. We don't do any retail out of here. This is just like our warehouse. Go ahead, look around."

Still playing her role, Mel walked over to the televisions, running her hands over their screens as if her fingers were walking in mink.

"Frank's not going to like this," Bobby hissed.

"So what he don't know he don't have to not like. Right, Bobby?"

Bobby, who was outweighed by a hundred pounds, nodded. "Sure, Eddie. But bringing a broad in here—"

"She's okay. Great legs, but not much brains. I'm going to give her a set—and then I'm going to get lucky." He moved past Eddie to join Mel. "See one you like, baby?"

"Oh, they're great. Really great. Do you mean I can really have one? Just pick one out and have it?"

"Why, sure." He gave her a quick, intimate squeeze. "We got this breakage insurance. So I'll just have old Bobby there put down like one got busted. That's all there is to it."

"Really?" She tossed her head, moving just far enough out of reach that she could easily slip a hand into her bag. "That's great, Eddie. But it looks to me like you're the one who's busted."

She pulled out a nickel-plated .38.

"A cop!" Bobby nearly screeched the words, while Eddie's face settled into a thoughtful frown. "Jeez, Eddie, she's a cop!"

"There you go. Don't," she warned as Bobby edged to the door. "Just have a seat, Bobby. On the floor there. And sit on your hands, will you?"

"You bitch," Eddie said, in a considering voice that put Mel on guard. "I should've smelled cop."

"I'm private," she told him. "That might be the reason." She gestured with the gun. "Let's take it outside, Eddie."

"No woman's going to double-cross me—gun or no gun."

He lunged.

She didn't want to shoot him. She really didn't. He wasn't anything more than a fat, second-rate thief, and he didn't deserve a bullet. Instead, she twisted, veering left and counting on her speed and agility and his beer-induced sluggishness.

He missed and rammed headlong into a twenty-five inch screen. Mel wasn't sure who was the victor, but the screen cracked like an egg, and Eddie went down hard.

There was a sound behind her. When she whirled she had time to see Sebastian wrap an arm around Bobby's throat. One quick squeeze had him dropping the hammer he'd been lifting over Mel's head.

"It probably wouldn't have made a dent," Sebastian said between his teeth as Bobby crumpled bonelessly to the concrete floor. "You didn't tell me you had a gun."

"I didn't think I had to. You're supposed to be psychic."

Sebastian picked up the hammer, tapping it gently against his palm. "Keep it up, Sutherland."