"But he thinks she's a schoolgirl—"

"I know, but she's had a few drinks, so Danyl is a dickhead—"

"You're a dickhead too. I'm a dickhead myself for going along with this." Two older British women look at her as they enter. Look away.

"Let's save the metaphysics for later. The problem is, Judy feels sorry for the guy, she's pissed at Darryl, and by extension with us, and she wants to write him back. She wants to send him more pictures, attachments this time, and make him happy. That's what she says she wants, and if Darryl doesn't want to go along with it, she says she'll go to this journalist from the Chronicle she was dating, before, and tell him about this pervy hacker in the Mission who's working this scam on this guy in Tokyo—because the guy in Tokyo knows something big about that footage in the Net."

"She knows it's about that?"

"It's evident from the translations of Taki's e-mails. She got them away from Darryl and read them herself."

"So what do you want from me?"

"How do we make her go away? Tell me."

"You don't. You can't. Let her write to Taki."

"You serious?"

"Of course I am. Try to keep her in character, if you want to keep it going. Remember, Taki's in love with who you've told him she is."

"I was afraid of that. Actually I'd pretty much come to the same conclusion. It's just I hate the loss of control, you know?"

"It was probably an illusion that you were ever in control in the first place."

"With a dickhead of Darryl's caliber around, no fucking kidding. What's happening on your end with that T-thing?"

"It's being looked at."

"Who by?"

"Friends of a friend. I don't really know."

"You okay, there? You sound tired."

"I am, but I'm okay."

"Keep in touch. Bye."

She looks at the phone and wonders who Parkaboy is. Other, that is, than Parkaboy, ascerbic obsessive theorist of the footage. What does he do when he's not doing this? She has no idea, and no idea what he looks like or, really, how he came to be as devoted as she knows he is to pursuing any further understanding of the footage. But now, in some way she can't quite grasp, the universe of F:F:F is everting. Manifesting physically in the world. Darryl Musashi's pissed-off Japanese-Texan barmaid seems to be an aspect of this.

But she's glad that someone else dislikes what they've done to Taki.

THE phone rings again when she's nearing Blue Ant,

"Where are you?"

"Almost there. Two minutes."

He hangs up.

She walks on, past the window of a gallery where the central blue shape in a large abstract canvas reminds her of Taki's T-bone. What is that? Why bury it in that flare of light? What else might be hidden in other segments?

As she's reaching out to push the button on the Blue Ant intercom, the door is opened by a dark-haired man in sunglasses, his nose elaborately braced with flesh-colored fabric tape. He freezes for an instant, does an odd little duck-and-weave, then pushes suddenly past her out-stretched arm and sprints off down the street, in the direction she's just come.

"Hey," Cayce says, catching the door before it can close, the back of her neck prickling.

She steps inside.

"They're waiting for you upstairs," says the young receptionist, smiling, a stud glinting on the side of her nose.

"Dickheads," Cayce says, and looks back at the door. "Who was that who just left?"

The girl looks puzzled. *

"Tape on his nose."

The girl brightens. "Franco. He drives Dorotea, from Heinzi and Pfaff. Been in an accident."

"She's here?"

"Waiting for you." The girl smiles, "Third floor."

- /

Bernard Stonestreet, uncharacteristically sour and distracted, is passing the head of the stairs as she reaches the third floor, his upthrust thatch and immaculately disheveled black suit reminding her all too clearly of her previous visit.

"Hullo," he says, with an instant's confusion. "I'd wondered where you were. Meeting Hubertus and Dorotea?"

"Looks like it."

"Is everything all right?" Seeming concerned at her tone.

"Dandy," she says, biting it off between her front teeth.

"It's a bit of a surprise, isn't it?" Lowering his voice slightly, though there's no one to hear. "Dorotea, I mean."

"What about her?"

"He's bringing her in as client liaison for graphics. Entirely counter to the way he structured it in the first place. Always insisted on the designers working directly with the client." Bernard's mouth has gone a bit narrow, telling her this. "Though of course she's experienced." He shrugs, the beautiful black shoulders of his suit jacket moving expressively. "She gave Heinzi notice—this morning."

"When was she hired?"

Stonestreet looks surprised. "This morning. I've only just been told."

"Where are they?"

"The room where we met. There." Indicating a door.

She steps past him.

Opens that door.

"Good morning!" Bigend is seated where Stonestreet had sat, before, at the head of the long table. Dorotea is seated to his left, down the table's side, toward the door, closer to Cayce. Boone opposite her.

Neither Boone nor Dorotea say anything.

Cayce closes the door behind her, hard.

"Cayce—" Bigend begins.

"Shut up." It isn't a voice Cayce has often heard, but she knows when she hears it that it's her own.

"Cayce—" Boone, this time.

"What the fuck is going on here?"

Hubertus starts to open his mouth.

"Did you just hire her?" Pointing at Dorotea.

"It would be too much to expect you not to be angry," Dorotea says, with the utmost calm. She's wearing something soft-looking, in a very dark gray, but her hair is straining back as tightly as ever.

"The man," Cayce says, turning to Bigend in mid-sentence, "who tried to mug me in Tokyo—"

"Franco," Dorotea interrupts, quietly.

"Shut up!"

"Dorotea's driver," Bigend says, as though that explains everything. He looks, Cayce thinks, even more self-satisfied than usual.

"Mugger," Cayce says.

"And what did poor Franco do, when he encountered you?" Dorotea asks.

"He ran."

"Terrified," Dorotea says. "The doctors in Tokyo told him that if you had been an inch shorter, you might have killed him. The cartilage in his nose might have been driven into his forebrain, is that the word? He's concussed, has two black eyes, has to breathe through his mouth, and will probably require surgery."

The lightness of Dorotea's delivery stops Cayce, as much as the content.

"He isn't driving, now," Dorotea concludes, "certainly not for me."

"Is he mugging, then?" But it's not the same voice. Something is back in its accustomed box, now. She misses it.

"I'm sorry about that," Dorotea says. "If I had been there, it wouldn't have happened. Franco is not so heavy-handed, but someone was demanding results." She doesn't shrug, exactly, but somehow conveys the impression of having done so.

"Cayce," Hubertus says, "I know you're upset, but would you sit down, please? We've just been having an extraordinarily fruitful meeting. Putting our cards on the table. Dorotea knows a great deal about what's going on, and all of it, it seems, concerns you directly. Very directly, as her business with you predates the Heinzi and Pfaff project—or, at least, our meetings here. Do. Sit."

Boone, Cayce notes, to her considerable resentment, looks attentive but absolutely neutral, sitting there in his old black coat; some kind of major Chinese-guy poker face going on. He looks as though he should be whistling, but isn't.

Cayce feels herself make a decision, though she couldn't say what exactly it is, pulls out the chair at the end of the table and sits, but without putting her legs under the table. If she needs to stand and walk out, it's one less movement.