She knew the words were right. Yet they were having no impact at all on her feelings.

Ben drained his glass. “Another?”

She polished hers off, too, fighting the urge to grimace. “Your turn to buy.”

He ordered them two more. She wondered if it was a good idea. She was already buzzed from the first. But there had been a challenge in his offer, and she wasn't going to back away from it.

You see how stupid you're being? she thought. But once again the words had no effect.

They sat in silence for a few minutes. The waitress brought their drinks and moved off. Sarah took a sip and glanced out the window, musing, enjoying her buzz. She liked the bar. She liked sitting in the gloom, watching the street outside as though from some kind of secret aerie. Pearl 's was right across the street; she could see the entrance clearly.

And then it hit her. Damn him. Goddamn him.

“You never went to Pearl 's,” she said. “You announced you were going there because you thought I might follow you. You came here to watch and see if I did.”

He shrugged. “Something like that.”

“Something like that… I get it, it wasn't me you were expecting, it was what, the other bad people? The Iranian terrorists I work for?”

“I have a suspicious nature, remember?”

“You know what? You're full of shit. No one's suspicious of everyone, not even someone like you.”

“You need to get out more often.”

“I get out plenty. You spent time here when you were a kid, didn't you? It's why you wanted to stay in the city instead of at an airport hotel. And you wanted proximity to North Beach, too, right? Because you know the layout, you knew you could set something like this up. You expect me to believe this is just routine for you? You do it for everyone?”

“I do it when I need to.”

“You'd be doing it if I weren't Iranian?”

“Like I said, I do it when I need to.”

“Why don't you just admit it's because I'm Iranian, that you have a problem with that?”

“I don't have to admit anything to you.”

“Of course you don't. You don't even have to admit it to yourself. Not if you don't have the balls.”

He put his hands on the table and leaned forward. “Listen, honey. You don't live in the real world. You live in a fantasy. And if something intrudes on your little delusion-if you actually have to acknowledge one of the serving class that makes your lifestyle possible, if you get even a hint of a notion of what has to be done on your behalf so you can live the way you think you deserve to-you have a moral-outrage hissy fit. Forgive me if I find it hard to take you seriously.”

He leaned back and finished his gin in one long swallow.

“You're right,” she said. “What I really need to do is wander the earth unfettered and alone, killing people along the way who need killing, wallowing in the tragic nobility of my sacrifice. Oh, and I'll have to abandon my family, of course. That's obviously part of enlightenment.”

She leaned back and emptied her glass as he had his. The gin scorched her throat and burned its way into her belly. She squeezed her eyes shut and shuddered with the effort not to cough.

When she opened her eyes, he was looking at her. He was extremely still and she had no idea what he was thinking. Had she hurt him? She'd been trying to and suddenly regretted it. What he'd said to her had been mean, no doubt, but she wondered if what she had just done in response hadn't been outright cruel. The one didn't justify the other. She wanted to apologize but sensed that doing so would make it worse. Acting as though she knew she had hurt him, and was now trying to make him feel better, would be twisting the knife.

“I think I've had too much to drink,” she said, hoping he would read it as the oblique apology she intended.

“I'll walk you back to the hotel,” he said. She'd been expecting an insult, something about her inability to hold her liquor, maybe, and the fact that he seemed to have lost any enthusiasm for that made her wonder again if she'd gone too far.

They headed down Columbus, then into Chinatown. The moon was higher now, the wind colder than it had been earlier. In the useless, yellowish glow of the streetlamps, objects seemed indistinct, insubstantial; cars and signs and storefronts melded together, tenebrous elements possessed by the dark.

She noticed his head moving as they walked, looking left and right, even checking behind them when they crossed a street or turned a corner. You could never sneak up on him, she thought. You'd have to hit him head-on. The thought felt odd to her and she realized she was drunk.

The hotel was pleasantly warm, the glow of light from chandeliers and wall sconces fuzzy at its edges, the sound of their footfalls on the carpet like muffled heartbeats in the silence. In the elevator they said nothing, and she was very aware of his closeness. He walked her to her room and waited while she fished her key card from her jeans. She opened the door and turned to him. “I want to ask you something,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Does Alex even know?”

“Know what?”

“That he has a niece.”

There was a pause. He said, “I don't know why he would.”

“You never told him, then.”

“We don't talk.”

“Why not?”

“Do you have brothers or sisters?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Well, it would be hard to explain, then.”

“Try.”

“It's a long story.”

“Do we not have time?”

“We don't. You need to get a good night's sleep so you can work on Obsidian tomorrow. And I have something to do tonight.”

“What?”

“I'll tell you in the morning.”

She wanted to say more. More than that, she wanted him to come in. Really wanted him to. But she was afraid to ask.

They stood there for a moment. He looked away and said, “You know Alex is in love with you.”

Whatever she'd been expecting, it hadn't been that. “What? He is not.”

“Yeah, he is.”

“He told you that?”

“No. He would never tell me.”

“Then how do you know?”

He sighed. “He's my brother.”

Why was he telling her this? Was he saying… he wanted to come in but didn't want to hurt Alex? They were so out of touch Alex didn't even know about Ben's child. Why would he care? And anyway, Alex wasn't in love with her, that was ridiculous.

“I have no idea what to say to that,” she said.

He smiled, but his eyes were sad. “Say good night.”

She looked at him, waiting. Then she said, “Good night.”

And then he was walking away. His arms moved, and suddenly he had a key card in one hand and a gun in the other. She thought, What the hell? He opened the door and in one fluid movement was gone, the clack of the lock closing behind him the only evidence that an instant before he'd been there.

She stood for a moment, feeling drunk and confused and oddly bereft. He needed his gun to go into his hotel room at night? He was crazy. He must be crazy.

She waited a moment, but he didn't come back out.

She went inside. Nothing had happened. She told herself that was a good thing.