It wouldn't be Simon who went to that rendezvous at the Brown Derby, of course. She was going to go herself, wearing his face, voice, and persona. If necessary, it would be 'Simon' who quietly killed Erik Lensherr and disposed of the body. The real Simon had an alibi for the day; an enthusiastic collector of stamps, he would be giving a lecture with an accompanying slide show at the Greater Los Angeles Area Philatelic Society when she met Wanda and Pietro's father. The twins themselves would be in Kindergarten at the Montessori School in Santa Monica.

Dressing in the man's suit she kept on hand for such transgender outings and carrying an attaché case, she caught a taxi and was at her destination at a quarter to two. The Brown Derby was a landmark of Hollywood, a silly-looking building in the shape for which it was named; a round-crowned hat. Entering, she glanced around, and was not surprised to find Lensherr waiting in the foyer seating area.

"Mr. Lensherr?" 'Simon' approached him, making it clear it was a question. Oh, lord. He's even better-looking in the light of day. I thought it was all the tuxedo and the low lighting. What would Simon do if he had to talk seriously to some man he found very attractive? Just be serious, I suppose. Flirting could get him into dangerous waters.

"Yes. You're Miss Rowan's manager, I take it?"

"I am." Shifting the attaché case to the other hand, 'Simon' shook Lensherr's hand. "No talk until we have a seat, all right?"

"Very well." A modest tip got them an isolated booth.

"I'm not entirely sure why we're here." Lensherr said. "It seems to me there's very little purpose to this meeting."

She raised an eyebrow as she had seen Simon do hundreds of times. "There's a great deal of purpose, Mr. Lensherr. Robin—that's what Miss Rowan's friends call her—told me all about last night. You made quite an impression on her, I must add." A touch of flattery never hurts.

"Oh?" Lensherr sat up straighter.

"Yes. She's badly frightened—for the children's sake, of course." Neither does a dash of ice water.

"I see. I certainly never meant to frighten her—and the children have nothing to fear from me."

"Don't they? I don't know how much thought you may have put into your plans, but consider it from the point of view of the children. All their lives, they were shuffled from one orphanage to another, knowing themselves unwanted and unloved. Finally, someone comes along who does care about them, someone who rescues them from an existence so hideous one photographer compared it to Auschwitz—."

"I think if anyone is qualified to compare something to Auschwitz, it is I," Lensherr said, suddenly tight-lipped. He pushed up his sleeves to reveal a tattooed number.

I didn't know about that. Recovering herself, she opened the attaché case, and took out the issue of Life magazine which had the article on the orphanage. "Then you will be the best judge of the conditions these photographs show." She slid it across the table to him.

He opened it. Mike's photographs had turned out well. The squalor, the filth, the retarded children tied down in their beds, the drunken caretakers—it was all there. And she herself of course, with the real Simon.

She watched his face. "Mr. Lensherr, I gather you feel your children are being exploited for their publicity value. Let me tell you now that between the time when this story came out, when Robin rescued and adopted them, until the article in Photoplay, nothing has appeared about them in the news. She answers questions about them when she's interviewed, once in a while she's photographed with them when she picks them up at school, but she isn't exploiting them. She wants them to have as normal and quiet a life as possible."

"I had no idea—." Lensherr murmured, looking at the photo of her coaxing the children out of the hole in the wall. "What a hideous place…"

"And you should know." 'Simon' commented. "That is where they came from, Mr. Lensherr. That was the fifth, and by all accounts the worst, of the orphanages they were put in. Can you imagine what she means to them? Can you imagine how they will react if you come into their lives, and say, 'Hello, I'm your father and you have to leave your mother and live with me from now on.'? They will hate you. They will be afraid. They will cry for her, the only trustworthy adult they have ever known, and—."

"You can stop there." Lensherr said, roughly. "I see your point. But last night! The way she had the tongues hanging out of men's mouths, panting after her, during that song!"

"It's an act, Mr. Lensherr. You needn't think she's dragging your children along to orgies—or entertaining men in her home. If you listen to what people say about her, you'll find she's considered quite the prude—lives very quietly, reads actual books—.Lately she's been reading up on mutants, don't ask me why." That's my ammunition if all else fails—telling him they're mutants. If that doesn't work, I'll just have to break his neck.

"There's a great difference between the real person and the public persona. Barbara Hutton married Cary Grant thinking she was marrying 'Cary Grant'. Rita Hayworth herself said, 'Every man I have known has fallen in love with 'Gilda'—her greatest role—'and wakened with me."

"All right, then. What if she marries, and has children of her own?"

"She won't." By this time, their food had arrived, and 'Simon' waited for the server to leave before glancing around. "This is in the strictest confidence. Do you understand?"

"I—what are you about to tell me?" Erik Lensherr looked suspicious.

"Nothing scandalous, but damaging to her career nonetheless. Can you promise you will keep this a secret?"

"If it won't hurt the children."

"Ah. I can see I'm going to have to trust you. Robin has a heart condition, Mr. Lensherr, which makes it unlikely she will live beyond forty." It was a lie, of course. He saw my lips turn blue last night. He'll believe this.

"That makes having children of her own out of the question. It makes marriage very unlikely. She'll live at least another ten years, fifteen with care. Long enough for Pietro and Wanda to reach their twenty-first birthdays, perhaps."

Lensherr's handsome face contorted with concern and pity. "That poor girl. All that beauty to come to…nothing. Is there no hope?" Good, he's coming around. That's sympathy I'm reading on his face. Oh, if only…

She would have liked to kiss him—not while wearing Simon's face and a male-appearing body, of course—and do more than kiss, if she knew she could keep from reverting. Something about him appealed to her, as few other men did—even in Hollywood, a town stuffed full of handsome men.

"Not as medical science stands today. It's very unlikely to happen before she's thirty-five, I'm told. Youth and vigor will be on her side for a while longer—as long as she doesn't tax her system. That's why she lives so quietly. Given what you have just learned, will you agree, here and now, out of court, to a shared custody arrangement? Pietro and Wanda will continue to live with her. You will find somewhere to live in the area. Then you and she will work out a mutually satisfactory schedule of times and days you'll see your children. Major decisions concerning the children will be made together—just as if you were an amicably divorced couple, like so many others in this town."

Lensherr was quiet for a long moment. "You and she do realize that any court would grant me full custody in an instant, don't you?"

"Entirely so, Mr. Lensherr, but would it be in the best interest of Pietro and Wanda?"

"All right. I'll agree on the condition that if she marries, I get full custody of them immediately—and if anything happens to her, there is to be no other guardian."

"She wouldn't have it any other way, Mr. Lensherr. Now that's settled, shall I take you by her house? If we hurry, we'll be there in time for the two of you to get the children from school."