“No,” Louise said. “It’s the reason Eve never has sex. She keeps thinking she doesn’t really know this guy, and then there’s Nadine, what will she think, and of course Andrew will hate him, and it just doesn’t seem worth it to her.”

“Eve has sex,” Tilda said flatly. “She just has it when she’s you.”

“I have sex whenever I want,” Louise corrected her. “Eve never does. I don’t think she’d even know what to do, it’s been so long.” She cocked her head at Tilda. “You know, you should really think about getting a Louise.”

“I tried,” Tilda said, annoyed. “That’s how I got into this mess. But I couldn’t make it work. I kept thinking, What if I come and scream out ‘I’m an art forger’? We’d all be dead.”

“Stop thinking.” Louise stretched out on the couch, put her sequined high-heeled feet in Tilda’s lap, and surveyed her red ankle straps with pleasure. “So it was hot at first, huh? Where did he screw up?”

“Well, there was the lag time,” Tilda said bitterly. “I kissed him in a closet, and he said wait a minute and sent me home and stole a painting and then came back here and had a drink and talked to Clea Lewis and-”

“The guy’s a moron,” Louise said. “Why didn’t he jump you in the closet while you were hot?”

“Because we would have ended up in prison,” Tilda said, guiltily remembering the guy she’d knocked unconscious. “I actually do get that part.”

“Okay, so you cooled off, and he came home. Why didn’t you say, ‘Not tonight, Dempsey’?”

“Because it felt so good to be held,” Tilda said, feeling pathetic even as she said it. “And because I wanted to be Louise. He was out there flirting with Clea Lewis instead of me, and then he came in and he looks really good, you know-”

“I know,” Louise said with enthusiasm.

“And he kissed me and I thought, Oh, what the hell, and then it turned out to be hell.” She wiggled her toes. “And now I’m mad!”

Louise shrugged. “Take care of it and get back to business. Where’s your vibrator?”

“That’s not it,” Tilda said. “I’m mad at him for the painting, not for not coming.”

“I don’t think so. You’ll feel much better if you finish yourself up. Or go bang on Davy’s door and make him finish what he started.”

“He did,” Tilda said. “We are completely finished. You can have him.” She clenched her jaw. “He’s all yours.”

“Not a chance.” Louise swung her feet off Tilda and pushed herself up from the couch. “He’s yours. I do not poach.”

Someone hammered on the street door and they both turned to look through the window in the office door. “Don’t answer it,” Tilda said, “it’s late,” but Louise was already on her way, so Tilda followed.

“Hel-lo,” Louise said when she opened the door, and Tilda peered past her and thought, She has a point.

He was dark and tall, he had one of those classically beautiful faces with cheekbones, and his clothes were impeccable. Tilda had a brief moment when she thought that getting mugged by this guy would be a step up from sex with Davy.

“Would you like to buy a nice seascape?” Louise said, channeling Mae West as she stood back to let him in.

He looked at the nearest Finster as Steve sniffed his shoes. “No, thank you.”

“Wise move,” Tilda said.

He smiled at her, a lovely matinee-idol smile, and said, “I’m really here to bail out my friend Davy Dempsey. He is staying here, right?”

“You’re Davy’s friend,” Tilda said.

“And he owes you this,” the lovely man said and handed her an envelope.

When she opened it, there were fifteen crisp hundred-dollar bills in it. “Oh. Yes, he does,” she said, thinking, I had to sleep with the wrong guy, I couldn’t wait until the right one showed up.

“Is he here?” Davy’s friend said. “The name’s Simon, by the way.”

“Davy didn’t mention you.” Louise moved closer.

“He never does, love,” Simon said, looking deeply into her eyes and smiling. “He never does.”

Tilda sighed, and Simon transferred his smile to her.

“Two brunettes. Which one of you did Davy meet first?”

“Tilda.” Louise linked her arm through his. “I’m Louise. I’ll take you up to his room.”

“Thoughtful of you,” he said, smiling down at her with intent.

Tilda thought about intervening, and then decided there was no point. She was here and Davy was up in his room, so unless Louise raped him on the staircase, Simon was safe. And they had fifteen hundred dollars. She put it in the cash box in the office after Louise had started up the stairs with Simon, and then she caught sight of the flower painting again.

Just hell.

Sooner or later, Mason was going to notice he was leaking paintings, and he probably wasn’t going to buy the explanation that Davy was dumb as a rock. The thought of Davy made her clench her jaw, which was ridiculous. It wasn’t his fault.

It was just that at the end, there’d been that possibility. The thought alone was making her warm all over again. She tapped her feet on the floor faster.

Really, just hell.

She took the flower painting down into the basement and stuck it under the quilt with the cows, and then she went up the stairs with Steve on her heels one more time and paused at Davy’s door. Maybe Louise was right, maybe if she said, “You know, I was close,” he’d be interested in giving it another shot. Maybe-

Inside, Louise giggled, and Tilda froze. When Louise giggled like that-

Davy must have gone out. Not even Louise would do a three-way. Probably. Oh, hell. Tilda went upstairs and opened her dresser drawer and found Eve’s Christmas present from ten years before. Thank God Louise picked it out, she thought as she plugged it in. At least somebody around here knows what she’s doing.

BEATING ANOTHER sucker at pool had partially restored Davy’s good humor, so when he went into his apartment and saw Louise and Simon in bed, all he said was, “Of course, that’s perfect,” before he went back out and stood, bedless, in the hall. Somebody was going to pay for his lousy night. After a moment’s reflection, he climbed the stairs to Tilda’s attic, knocked on the door, and went in.

“Jesus,” he said when he’d stopped inside the door.

The room ran the length of the building and the whole place was white -ceiling, walls, floor, the heavy old four-poster bed in the center of the space- and Tilda sat in the middle of it all, looking tired but relaxed in the soft glow from the skylights, wearing what looked like a white T-shirt, her hair the only dark thing in the place. It was the coldest room he’d ever seen. Which figured.

“It looks like a meat locker in here,” he told her.

“Come in,” Tilda said, frowning at him. “Don’t bother to knock. It’s only my room.” Steve poked his head out from under the white quilt as she spoke and looked at him with deep suspicion.

Davy shook his head at Tilda. “A white T-shirt. You are what you sleep in.” He closed the door behind him and looked at Steve again. “And what you sleep with.”

“Thank you,” Tilda said. “I feel Steve is a big step up from the last guy I slept with. Why are you here?”

“Because Louise is showing Simon more than my room,” he said. “I thought about sleeping in the hall, but she’s loud. Which made me think of you.”

“I know.” Tilda sighed. “I should have stayed with them, but I didn’t think she’d jump a complete stranger.”

“What makes you think she’s the one who jumped?” Davy moved to the side of the bed, unzipped his jeans and shoved them off. “Simon has moves. Which side of the bed do you want?”

“We’ll take the left,” Tilda said, sliding over and taking Steve with her. “And Louise has moves, too.”

Davy crawled in beside her. The sheets were warm where she’d been. Or where Steve had been, it was hard to tell. “If Louise has moves, why didn’t she move on me?”