"Please! Don't speak to me any more. Not about that. Not about anything."

"Just reminiscing. Doesn't hurt to remember the good times," Phil said.

"That's a convenient memory you've got. What about the bad times? Did you forget all the lying, and cheating you did?"

"Man, you sure have gotten to be one bitter little bitch. What's wrong with you? Oh, I know. You ain't had a real man since I left ya, huh?"

"You left me?" she said. "Interesting revision of history."

"Come on up here with old Phil. I'll take the kinks out for you."

Glenn clenched both fists. "What do I have to do to make you shut up? Say I forgive you? No. I don't forgive you. You're a despicable human being, and I'll hate you as long as you live."

She kicked the back of his seat. He threw her a kiss, and readjusted the mirror so she was out of his line of sight. But, he kept laughing, and she had no choice but to put up with it for the next sixty minutes. All she could do was wriggle down in her seat, chew on her lip, and listen to Phil Bleetz's evil insane cackle.

4.

Shane Singleton's townhouse never looked more inviting. Even before the cab came to a full stop, Glenn was out and running.

"Hey," Phil yelled. "Wait for me."

Glenn clutched her camera bag, and overnight case, and took the front steps two at a time. The doorbell shone shell pink. She crooked her arm, and jabbed it with her elbow. Then, she kicked the bottom of the aluminum storm door with her toe. It swung open, and she slipped inside. Phil tried to follow, but Shane blocked his way.

"No way," Phil said. "I'm sticking to her until I get the photos."

"This is my house," Shane said. "I say who's welcome, and who's not. Glenny is always welcome." Shane beamed at her, then his eyes grew cold. "You are not."

Phil tried to wedge his shoulder inside the door. "I have to make sure she does it right."

"Glenn Prentiss doesn't need your help. Never did, never will," Shane said.

"How do I know she won't try to hold back on me?" Phil asked.

Shane looked at Glenn. "How many exposures on that roll?"

"Huh? Thirty-six, of course."

"Thirty-six," Shane said to Phil. "She'll surrender 36 exposures, okay? You'll count them. You can count, can't you? Now go sit on the curb with the rest of the trash."

Shane's hand sprawled across Phil's chest. A vein in Phil's neck bulged, and his face reddened. Then, he was on the other side of the door.

Shane shook his head. "Some guys are really pushy." He put his arm around Glenn's shoulder. "I was afraid something awful had happened to you."

"Something worse than Bleetz? No, I'm fine. I'll be even better when this is over." She put her bags down on the blue brocade sofa, and let Shane help her out of her coat.

"Still," Shane said. "I would've loved to see your face when you saw Phil."

"Oh, yeah, it was a real riot."

"What did you do, scream and faint? No, I know, you punched him in the nose."

"I wish. No, I skulked off to the back seat." She glanced at him. "Not before he bit me, though."

"You're kidding? Really?"

"As I was crawling over the seat, he bit me on the butt."

"What is it about you that brings out the animal in that guy? Nope, don't answer that, I don't want to know. Lizbeth is sleeping. Said to give you a kiss." He put a hand on each shoulder, and put his cheeks against hers, European style. "Ready to get to work?"

Glenn picked up her camera. She cradled it on her forearm, and removed the film from the back. Shane lifted the overnight case, and looked at it.

"Is this yours?" he asked.

"The government's. Isn't it ugly?"

"So, you're done? The Duncan family is wired for sound?"

"They get any more bugs, they're gonna need an exterminator." Glenn yawned, and rubbed her eyes. "I'd love some coffee... Irish. Coffee to stay awake, and Irish..."

"Irish for your nerves, I know. Is instant okay?"

"The instanter the better," she said.

Glenn went into the closet-sized darkroom. A small developing tank sat on the counter. She pried off the lid, and removed the stainless steel take-up reel. With the cartridge of film in her left hand, she switched out the light with her little finger, then rapped the bottom spindle on the counter's surface, forcing the exposed film through the top of the cassette. She hooked the film to the clip in the center of the reel, and bowed the film between her thumb and index finger. Slick as a whistle. She could do it with her eyes closed. She rotated the spool, wound the film out, and fed it onto the reel. When it was finished, she lowered the spool into it, pressed the lid in place, and turned on the light.

Shane arrived with a see-through, glass mug filled with a dark liquid. The white etching on the side saidPhillips Crab House, Harbourplace . The coffee was lukewarm, and she swallowed half of it before handing the cup to Shane.

"You only had the developer at 68 degrees," she said. "I could've shaved a couple minutes if you'd raise the temperature."

"Two minutes one way or the other never hurt anybody."

"Tell that to the bomb squad." She smiled at him.

"So, I suppose you'll be wanting a hair dryer? You young people, always in a hurry. Your chemistry is mixed, and prepared."

"I noticed. Thanks." She leaned against Shane's broad shoulder. "Better cook me up another coffee. I'm dead."

"Poor baby." He kissed the top of her head.

"Man, I don't want to be doing this tonight."

Shane squeezed her shoulder. "Come on, suck it up. I'll put the kettle on for when you're ready for a refill, 'kay?"

"'Kay. Don't forget the hair dryer."

Shane returned in ten minutes. The film had been in the stop bath, the fixer, the hypo clear, and was rinsing when he tapped on the door. Glenn grunted, "Uh-huh," and added a few drops of wetting agent to the tank.

"Any way you'd consider letting these air dry, and get back to it in the morning?" he asked.

"Don't I wish," Glenn said.

"Just do a contact sheet."

"If I do that I've got to give them the negatives."

"They're getting them anyway," he said.

"Only the shots of the house. The others are mine."

"You have to give them 36 negatives."

"That's right, 36." Glenn looked at him out of the corner of her eyes.

He studied her. "I see. You're still bulk-loading your film."

"You know me, I never change."

He pursed his lips. "So you got 40 exposures in the film cartridge?"

"Actually," she said, taking the coffee cup, and draining it. "I squeezed in 41. Like bullets in a beretta-40 in the clip, and one in the pipe." She made a gun with her finger and thumb. The hammer dropped, and she said, "Pew, pew."

"And, Phil doesn't know this about you, as intimate as you were?"

"He never cared to find out. To him, there's no such thing as real career women, just sluts with day jobs."

"His loss." Shane hitched his arm around Glenn's neck, and she put the cup in his hand. "Isn't this cozy?"

"Cozy as a coffin. Everybody move back, they're done." She freed an inch of film from the reel, and attached it to a clip. She attached another clip to the bottom, and suspended the film on a wire. "Now, for the dryer."

"Come out, and have your coffee. We have to plan before you print."

"There isn't time," she said.

"This will save time, you know that. Come on, let's think this through before we go any further."

"How about, the second I finish the contact sheet, I bring it out, and we study it."

He made an OK sign with his fingers, and left. She sliced the first five shots off the roll, and printed the rest, in six rows of six. These, she brought to Shane, who studied each of the 1 inch by 1 and 1/2 inch squares with a magnifying glass, and jotted notations on a pad.

Glenn closed her eyes, sipped the hot beverage, and listened to Shane cluck, and grumble, and hum. If there was anyone who loved the job more than Glenn, it was Shane. He was always warning her, "Don't make the same mistakes I did. If it weren't for my dear wife I'd still be rinsing my socks out on the wet bench. What kind of life is that?"

What kind of life? My life, my life . Glenn felt herself slipping away. Her neck went limp, and her cheek came to rest on the tablecloth. A crumb of food nestled into her skin near the corner of her eye. She wondered what kind of food it was? Toast, from a meal hours ago? Breakfast? Toast and jam, bacon and eggs. English muffins with squares of butter . How long since she'd eaten? Just a little nap, and she'd be ready to set the world on fire. Fire, fire... ready, aim, FIRE!

A sound detonated her head off the table. Her focus zeroed in on a belt buckle. Raising her sights, she saw Shane's sympathetic eyes. She looked at the vacant chair on the other side of the table, and realized that was what she'd heard. The simple sliding of chair legs on linoleum. Why did it sound like thunder? Why does everything sound like thunder? Why did she always explode out of sleep counting one Mississippi, two Mississippi, waiting for lightning to strike?

Shane picked the crumb off her face. "I'll handle the enlarging while you run them through the soup. Once we get on a roll, I figure we can keep 5 prints afloat at any given moment."

"A man with a plan," Glenn said.

"Your shots are all sharp and clear, with the same basic brightness, I trust?"

"Naturally."

"Assuming you can manage to keep your eyes open another thirty minutes. Okay, here we go. Eight-by-ten glossies?"

"After you." Glenn followed him to the darkroom.

The first photo came to life, awash in the glow of the orange safelight. Glenn's fatigue and anxiety began to vanish. I did this. It started as a thought in my head and here it is for the entire world to see, concrete proof that I exist, that I have talent. I'm good; I'm really good. Glenn poked a photo under water with plastic tongs, swished, then lifted it out of the pan. Forty-five minutes later, she was humming, and hanging 8x10 glossies up by the corners like a Lithuanian laundress. Water ran off the RC paper in beads. Soon, all the photographs had accumulated on the end of the dry bench. Shane shuffled through them, nodding his approval of her curly-edged offspring. Then, he slipped them into a brown envelope with the negatives, and delivered them to Phil outside.

Fifteen minutes later, Philip Bleetz was on the threshold of the sixth-floor apartment as per his instructions. It was all very spy-vs-spy-which made Phil feel very important and dangerous. He knocked on the door twice, paused, then rapped twice again. He had to fight hard to contain his giddiness when the door opened.

Eric Pippin was a slender man with fine blond hair. He let Phil step only a few feet into the foyer, where he took the envelope.

"So how are things at Club Fed?" Phil asked, then looked past Pippin. "Where's your partner?"

Pippin peered into the envelope. "Wait here."

Half a minute later, Phil watched fifteen 100-dollar bills being counted into his hand. He folded them in half. "Not a bad day's work, huh?"

"About as much as a good call girl makes a night," Pippin said.

"Hey, you're the one pimping for Uncle Sam." Phil looked at his watch. "Actually, it's tomorrow. Couldn't you at least cough up a little O.T.? No? Hey, can't blame a guy for trying."

"You have your government's gratitude."

"I'd rather have a cushy job like yours. Have you talked to your superiors about me? I could be a real asset to your undercover operations."

"They're taking it under advisement." Pippin reached for the doorknob.

"Okay, well. Give your partner my love." Phil looked over his shoulder, and then was on the other side of a door for the second time that night.

Eric 'Pip' Pippin was a genuinewunderkind -24 years old, a unique combination of nerve and insight, and the best agent Sadie Cozzoli had ever partnered with. Only one week into it Pip had justified her faith in him by profiling Singleton and Prentiss perfectly. Sadie studied him through the slats of the coat closet. Even now, nothing about his demeanor gave her away. It was almost as if he forgot she was there. His eyes flickered to the envelope, and a fine line formed across his porcelain brow.

Sadie asked, "Are you going to open the door?"

"I thought you'd rather shoot your way out."

Sadie pointed the snub barrel of her Colt 380 Mustang at the closet ceiling, and thumbed the safety back on. "That's the last time I cover your back."

"Come on out," he said, and opened the louvered door of the closet.

Sadie was an attractive brunette, medium height, medium build, and clear brown eyes. She had her hair pulled into a tight ponytail, accentuating her heart-shaped face. She returned the weapon to the black leather triangle sitting on her left hip.