Nancy lived in a tiny apartment four blocks from the Company-leased temp housing that that Lily had lived in. Judging by the condition of the furniture, it had come with the apartment, and had been there for thirty or forty years.

There was a rose-colored cover over the ancient couch, neatly smoothed, with burgundy throw pillows on each end. Framed posters, photos of musical instruments and roses, hung on the walls. Pink curtains. Nancy had tried to make the place look like home. Instead, it was just sad.

The rookie was drunk, no question, but she was not puke-in-the-Mercedes drunk, much less falling-down drunk. Lily stayed while Nancy showered – forever – and tucked her into bed. As much exhausted as intoxicated, she promptly fell asleep. Lily checked the apartment for car keys, but there were none. She left her phone number and locked the door behind her as she left.

At her own apartment, Lily shucked out of her own clothes, which reeked of stale beer and cigarettes, and into clean, equally casual ones. She called the office. No news on Vince's death, no clue yet when they could deliver the body. She reported her activities to Simms. He grunted non-commitally and hung up on her.

Lily shook her head. "I have got to stop letting him hang around with Control."

She wandered the apartment, restless. It was still early evening. Control would not be joining her, now or later; they rarely risked more than one or two nights a week together, and certainly never two in a row. The minute anyone found out about their relationship …

Lily shook her head. She wasn't hungry; the burger had filled her up, and the stout beer filled in the gaps. Her laundry was done. She had the files on Vince's failed trainees to go over, but she wasn't in the mood. No bills to pay. She flicked on the TV and surfed the channels, but nothing caught her interest. She had movies on tape, but they bored her, too. Books, likewise.

Generally, on the few nights she was in her own home, she was perfectly content on her own. Tonight the apartment felt like a jail cell.

Vince's death felt like a weight across her shoulders. Nancy's fast-changing attitude, now needy, now abrasive, was exhausting. Lily wanted to be with her lover, but it was a dull-edged want, certainly not worth calling in the dangerous marker, having him break pattern to see her. The secrecy of their relationship, usually merely annoying, was suddenly oppressive. She wanted to call him and say, 'Meet me for drinks at Windows, and then we'll catch a show.' But that couldn't happen. Not this night, not any night, not ever.

Not even if she quit her job, moved out to the suburbs, and had his children. Hell, she'd see less of him then than she did now.

Lily stuffed her knuckles in her mouth and very quietly screamed.

Then she straightened and sighed, wiped her hand on her pants. She got her box of paints and stencils from the kitchen cupboard and went into the bathroom.

The jungle room, she mused. The room had originally been painted pale green. She had stenciled a small, demur line of leaves over the bathroom mirror. Then she'd painted over them and replaced them with much larger, bolder leaves. She liked the effect. She painted lines down each side of the mirror, and across the bottom. Then around the sides of the shower surround. Then around the door. Above and below the towel bars. Around the sink, the toilet tank, and the tiny linen cupboard.

The rest of the pale green space was so small it looked ridiculous, so she filled it with leaves as well.

The tiny bathroom had become a jungle.

Control had bought her flower stencils for Christmas, orchids and tiger lilies, and bright paints in every color. The jungle was blooming.

She picked a spot and a bright pink base color and set to work.

The minute the brush met the wall, her phone rang.

"Oh, God, please don't let that be Nancy," she said aloud as she went to answer it. "Hello?"

"Hey, you naked?"

Lily grinned. "I'm not, but I can be."

"Ah, skip it, then," Kostmayer answered. "McCall stood me up. You wanna go to a ball game?"

"Tonight?"

"Yeah."

"Like … now?"

"Yeah."

"Who's playing?"

"Yankees, Indians."

"The Yankees suck this year."

"I know. But hell, they ought to be able to beat the Indians, anyhow."

"Okay."

"Good. Grab a jacket. I'm out front."

Lily laughed. "Pretty damn sure of yourself, aren't you?"

"That's what you love about me."

It was, as Harry Carey would have said, a beautiful night for baseball. Cool, not cold. Cloudless sky, pale blue fading to navy. Light breeze coming in off the left field fence. Empty seats in abundance.

"Cold beer here."

"Right here," Kostmayer called. "Two," he said, without checking.

"This is probably enough for me," Lily said, chugging a quarter of the lager. "I already had a stout."

"Early start tonight?"

"Long story." She gestured towards the field. "Who's this loser?"

Mickey squinted. "Cadaret. Left-handed pitcher."

"Yeah," Lily said dryly, "I probably coulda' guessed he was left-handed, just by the way he throws."

"Ah, shut up."

"So McCall stood you up, huh?"

"Uh-huh. Says he's working with a client."

"And he didn't include you? How sad."

Mickey shrugged. "He does handle things on his own sometimes. But I sorta get the feeling he ditched me for a woman."

"The historian."

"You know about her?"

"Just mutterings and rumors." Lily put the soles of her shoes against the back of the empty seat in front of her. "If it's any comfort, he never invites me on any of his little adventures."

"That's because your boyfriend threatened to rip his arms off if he did."

"Oh."

"Cracker Jacks!"

"Right here!" Kostmayer yelled. And then, "Aw, come on, that was a strike!"

"Walked him," Lily said serenely. "So where's your woman tonight?"

"Berlin," Mickey scowled.

"Ah."

"Willy-boy invited her personally. Took her on a tour of the city hall and such. Very impressed with her work. "

"Aren't we all." Lily claimed a handful of the sticky popcorn. "Heard she got another book deal."

"And a contract offer from UPI."

"She gonna take it or stay free-lance?"

Mickey sighed. "I don't know. They're telling her they can get her into all the hot spots."

"You mean the places we hang out?"

"Yep."

"She needs to go back to Ireland."

"Tell me about it."

"You set a date yet?"

"No"

"Pretzels! Hot pretzels!"

"Right here!"

"So after all the trouble I went through to get you engaged, you're just going to let it sit."

Kostmayer glared at her. "It would be better, Romanov, if you never reminded me about what you did for our engagement again."

"Let it go, Mickey. We've already decided I was right."

"If I had caught you on the streets …"

"What?" Lily tore a curve off his pretzel and nibbled it.

"I probably would have killed you."

"No, you wouldn't."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"No, you're not."

"Mickey," Lily said calmly, "if you'd really meant to kill me that day, you'd have shot me before I ever got to the door the first time."

He thought about it for a long moment. Then he juggled his food and took a long pull on his beer. "You're probably right."

"Uh-huh."

"Probably."

"Cotton candy! Peanuts!"

"Here!" Lily shot one hand up. "One of each."

"You know," Mickey paused while a fly ball sailed over the right-field fence, "we probably ought to get some real food."

"In a while. I'm not really hungry, I took Nancy for burgers at Domingo's."

"Nancy?"

"Nancy Campbell. Used to be a redhead. Rookie."

Mickey shook his head. "Never met her."

"She was at the party."

He shrugged. "Pretty much everybody was gone when I got there."

"Oh." Lily washed down a handful of cotton candy with more beer. "She was Vince's trainee."

"What the hell happened to Vince, anyhow? I heard he got shot."

"In Prague," Lily confirmed. "By a distraught former Soviet sniper whose wife left him for a foreigner."

"Bullshit."

"That's the story of the moment, anyhow. The tie boys are highly skeptical."

"Yeah, no kidding." He shook his head. "That sucks."

Lily nodded. "Nancy was with him. She got splatted."

"Splatted?"

"With Vince's brains."

"Oh, lovely. So when is she leaving for Happy Hills?"

"Control wants to see if she can be salvaged."

Mickey bit his lower lip, biting back his initial response to that announcement. "Uh-huh."

"That's not the good part."

"What's the good part?"

"He gave her to me."

Kostmayer finished the pretzel and most of his beer as the Yankees adroitly blew a double-play chance. "What, as some kind of kinky sex toy thing?"

"No, as my very own rookie. I get to finish her training."

"Well, that's not exactly the blind leading the blind," Mickey allowed. "More like the insane leading the splatted."

Lily stole more Cracker Jacks. "They want me to decide if she's fit for field work."

"You."

"Uh-huh."

"How you gonna do that?"

"Damned if I know."

"Hot dogs! Getcher hot dogs!"

"Hey, three, right here!" Mickey called. "You want one?" he asked Lily. She shook her

head. "Make it four," he told the vendor. "She always steals one."

"Yeah, buddy," the vendor answered, "all the girls love my wieners."

When he retreated, Lily took one of the dogs. "Could you put a little more mustard on this?" she asked.

"I could, but it would just fall off."

They ate through the inning change, and while the Indians pitcher struck out two Yankees. "So. What are you going to do?"

"About what?"

"About your rookie."

Lily shrugged. "I don't know. Spend time with her, I guess. Make her go see my shrink. But the thing is, she totally freaked when Vince went down. Froze up. Stumbled to a phone booth and called home. Simms couldn't get her to move. She forgot everything. All her training just went shooop, out the window. And they want me to figure out if it'll happen again."

"You gotta take her back to the field," Mickey said grimly.

"Can't."

"There's no other way. You can't tell how she'll function in the field until she's in the field. Under fire."

"From your mouth to Control's ear," Lily said.

"I bet I know somebody who can arrange that," Mickey smirked.

"He won't go for it. He's afraid she'll get me killed."

"Lemon ice! Lemon ice here! "

They exchanged a look, then let the vendor pass. For the moment.

Mickey sipped the last of his beer down. "If you can't actually take her to the field ..."

". ..then I need some kind of king-hell training exercise," Lily completed.

"That she doesn't know is an exercise," Mickey confirmed. "If she doesn't think it's real, you won't get real results."

Lily looked around. "Good a training ground as any."

"Big Apple?" Mickey laughed. "Bet your ass. If she can make it here, she'll make it anywhere …."

"You're not going to sing now, are you?"

"Beer here! Ice cold beer!"

"Right here!" Lily yelled.

Nancy Campbell's phone rang at precisely nine a.m. She staggered out of her bedroom and crossed the five steps of her living room to answer it. "'lo?"

"Good morning, sunshine," Lily Romanov said, much too brightly. "Want to run out to the firing range?"

Nancy squinted against the sunlight that filtered into the room. "Only if you promise to shoot me."

"Yeah, I thought so. Next time go with the top-shelf booze, okay?"

"You coulda' told me that last night."

"Live and learn, sweetie. The shrink wants you at eleven. At the office. Fourth floor."

"Do I have to?" Nancy groaned.

"Absolutely."

"Urgh."

"I made them give you to Lichtenwald. She's pretty good."

"Pretty good shrink. Great."

"But she's a stickler for punctuality, so don't be late."

Nancy sighed. "Yes, Mother."

Lily laughed and hung up. Nancy closed her eyes and rested for one more minute, then staggered towards her shower.

Morning rush was over; the subway train was only a third full.

Nancy found an empty seat and scooted across to the window, leaving the aisle seat vacant. The shower and the aspirin had pretty much cleared her mild hangover. Now she could concentrate on being miserable about Vince Norris again.

She didn't want to talk to the Company shrink. She just wanted to bury it all and go on. But that wasn't an option, as both Simms and Romanov had made clear.

The train stopped at a station, started again. A man came up the aisle behind Nancy and plopped into the seat next to her. Instinctively, she squeezed towards the window, giving him an extra inch on the seat.

He scooted, too, so that his hip and thigh were touching hers. "Hey."

He had already broken one rule of the subway: No conversation with strangers. Nancy broke another and made eye contact.

Observe, observe, observe, she heard Vince say. Caucasian, early thirties. Average height, slender build. Medium brown hair, a little shaggy, curling at his collar. Hazel eyes, a little narrow and currently bright with interest. Average features, a nice strong jaw. Clean-shaven, two days ago. Jeans and a black leather jacket, maybe a t-shirt underneath.

He wasn't bad looking, Nancy thought. "Hey," she said back, in a tone that did not invite further conversation.

"Nice morning, huh?"

It had been cloudy and windy when Nancy entered her subway station. "Little gray for my taste."

"Well, yeah, but a good day to be alive."

Nancy squashed herself against the window, re-establishing space between their bodies. "I guess any day is."

The man moved closer again, his hip and leg against hers even more tightly. He leaned towards her and sniffed deeply. "You smell good."

"Get away from me." She thought quickly. Gun? She had one, but waving it on a subway car seemed like a bad idea. "I'll scream," she threatened.

He grinned and gestured without looking to the mostly empty car. "So what?"

What would Vince do? Nancy thought. No. Vince was dead. What would Lily do? She sat up straighter and tried to shove the man away from her. "Get away from me or I'll kill you."

The man laughed. Her efforts had not moved him an inch, but now they were face to face. His eyes were amused, but there was something dark and hard beneath the surface. "I don't think so, pretty girl." He brought both hands up and took hold of her shoulders, hard. "What's your name?"

Nancy reached under her jacket and drew her gun, keeping it low and between their bodies. "My name," she said firmly, "is Get the Fuck Away from Me."

He looked slowly down at the gun, then back at her face, and grinned. "Feisty one. I like that in a girl."

"Go."

He backed off the seat and stood up. He was clearly not very concerned about the gun. "Temper like that, you ought to be a redhead." He walked away from her, then turned back. "See you around, Pretty Girl."

He sauntered up the aisle, opened the door and walked into the next car.

Trembling, Nancy put her gun away. "I fucking hate this city."