saw you disappear.” She took a pack of Salems out of her purse. “I was just about to start screaming.”

“I saw you talking to the Redmonds,” Anderson said. “Do any good?”

“Not much. I’m working on the wife,” the redhead said. A match flared, the woman inhaled, and exhaling, said, “I’ll get five thousand a year if I’m lucky.”

“I’d take that,” Anderson said. “We could get a new TV for the employee lounge.”

“Well, I’ll take it. It’s just that…” She waved her hand, a gesture of futility.

“I know,” Anderson said. “I was pitching Carrie Sue Thorson. She had her DNA analyzed. She’s ninety percent pure Nazi. The other ten percent is some Russian who must’ve snuck in the back door. I was over there going, ‘It’s so fascinating to know that our ancestors reach back to the European Ice Age.’ Like, ‘Thank Christ they didn’t come from Africa in the last hundred generations or so.’”

“Get anything?” the redhead asked.

“Not unless you count a pat on the ass from her husband,” Anderson said.

“You might work that into something.”

“Yeah. A whole-life policy,” Anderson said.

The redhead laughed, blew smoke and screeched, “Run away, run away.”

ANDERSON WOUND UP staying for almost two hours and failed to raise a single penny—but she scored in one way. An hour and forty-five minutes into the reception, she took a cell-phone call from her supervisor, who “just wanted to check how things were going.”

“I’ve eaten too much cheese,” Anderson said, sweetly. She understood her dedication was being tested and she’d aced the test. “But the art’s okay. Carrie Sue is right over here, isn’t she a friend of yours?”

“No, no, not really,” her supervisor said hastily. “I’d hate to bother her. Good going, Amity. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Five minutes later, she was out of there. She drove a Mazda, cut southwest across town, down toward Edina. Time for a gutsy move. She knew the truth, and now was the time to use it.

AND SHE didn’t want much.

A couple of years in France, or maybe a year in France and another Italy. She could rent her own house, bank the money, come back in a couple of years with the right languages, she could talk about Florence and Venice and Aix and Arles. With a little polish, with the background, she could move up in the foundation world. She could get an executive spot, she could take a shortcut up the ladder, she wouldn’t have to go to any more Arctic Circle Red receptions.

Worth the risk. Of course, she needed to be prepared. As she turned the corner at the top of the last block, she reached under the car seat, found the switchblade, and slipped it into the pocket of her velvet pants.

THE WIDDLER HOUSE was an older two-story, with cedar shingles and casement windows, built on a grassy lot, with the creek behind. She glanced at her watch: ten-fifteen. There was a light in an upstairs bedroom and another in the back of the house. An early night for the Widdlers, she thought.

She parked in the drive, went to the front door, and rang the bell. Nothing. She rang it again, and then felt the inaudible vibrations of a heavy man coming down a flight of steps. Leslie Widdler turned on a light in the hallway, then the porch light, squinted at her through the triple-paned, armed-response-alarmed front door. Widdler was wearing a paisley-patterned silk robe. As fucked up and crazy as the Widdlers might be, there was nothing inhibited about their sex life, Anderson thought.

Widdler opened the inner door, unlocked and pushed open the screen door, and said, “Well, well. Look what washed up on our doorstep. Nice to see you.”

Anderson walked past him and Widdler looked outside, as though he might see somebody else sneaking along behind. Nobody. He shut the door and locked it, turned to Anderson, pushed her against the wall, slipped one big hand up under her blouse, pulled her brassiere down, and squeezed her breast until the pain flared through her chest. “How have you been?” he asked, his face so close that she could smell the cinnamon toothpaste.

Her own hand was inside his robe, clutching at him. “Ah, Leslie. Where’s Jane?”

“Upstairs,” Leslie said.

“Let’s go up and fuck her.”

“What a good idea,” Widdler said.

AND THAT’S WHAT they did, the three of them, on the Widdlers’ king-sized bed, with scented candles burning all around.

Then, when the sweat had dried, Anderson rolled off the bed, found her purse, dug out a cigarette.

“Please don’t