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“Even almost getting eaten by ghosts?”

She smiles.

“Even that.”

I don’t look at her when I speak.

“Are you saying ‘see you later’ or is this ‘goodbye and never going to happen again’?”

She comes over and hugs me.

“Never goodbye. And tonight will happen again. But not for a while. Okay? Alessa and I are still working some things out.”

It’s not exactly the answer I was hoping for, but it’s not bad.

“Sure. I’m glad she was willing to go along with it at all.”

“It took a lot of talking. A lot of convincing that I wasn’t running off to be some guy’s straight wife, popping out babies and doing the dishes.”

I frown.

“Is that what she thinks I want from you?”

Candy shrugs.

“I don’t know. You’re a guy and a dangerous one. She doesn’t have the highest opinion of men in the first place.”

I hold my hand out to her.

“I’ll wait. As long as it takes.”

Candy smiles as I pull her into a shadow.

We come out in the alley next to Max Overdrive. She kisses me on the cheek before heading inside.

“I’ll call you,” she says.

“Great, but can I ask you for a favor? Some of Chris Stein’s movies? Especially Murdering Mouth? That was his last A-list role.”

“Give me a minute.”

Candy is in the shop for a while. Stein was never big enough that he’d have his own section inside, so she’ll have to paw through Westerns, noir, and a few other genres. I’m tempted to light a Malediction, but after I take the pack out, I shove it back in my pocket. I don’t have too many left and I don’t want to have to go Downtown and scrounge more in the middle of a war zone.

Last night was great, but no matter how much I wanted things to be different, I knew that Candy would leave in the morning. I just wish we’d had a chance for a cup of coffee or something. A moment of calm together before she took off. But beggars can’t be choosers, and sometimes, they’re lucky they even get to be beggars. For now, I’ll go along with the rules and timetables that whatever it is we’re doing requires.

Instead of a cigarette, I take out one of the pills Allegra gave me and dry-swallow it. Candy comes out of the shop and hands me a plastic bag.

“Did you take a pill just then?”

“A Tic Tac,” I say.

She sniffs.

“Doesn’t smell like one.”

I look in the bag.

“These my movies?”