Dean peeked in to make sure I hadn't gone rabid. I tapped my mug. "More lunch." It looked like a long siege.

"I've made some important friends, Mr. Garrett. They like me because I know how to listen and I know how to keep my mouth shut."

I had a notion she was the kind of actress who gives the same service as a street girl but gets paid better because she smiles and sighs while she's working.

We do what we have to do. I know some good peo­ple in that line. Not many, but some. There aren't that many good people in any line.

Dean brought my beer and a whistle-wetter for my guest. He'd been eavesdropping and had begun to sus­pect he'd made a mistake. She turned on the heat when she thanked him. He went out glowing. I took a drink and said, "So what are we sneaking up on here?"

The glaciers reformed behind her eyes. "One of my friends left me with something for safekeeping. It was a small casket." She made hand gestures indicating a box a foot deep, as wide, and eighteen inches long. "I have no idea what's in it. I don't want to know. Now he's disappeared. And since I've had that casket there have been three attempts to break into my apart­ment." Bam. Like a candle snuffed, she stopped. She had said something she shouldn't have. She had to think before she went on.

I smelted a herd of rats. "Got any idea what you want?"

"Someone is watching me. I want it stopped. I don't have to put up with that kind of thing anymore.'' There was some passion there, some heat, but all for some other guy.

"Then you think it could happen again. You think somebody's after that casket? Or could they be after you?"

What she thought was that she shouldn't have men­tioned the casket. She ran it around inside her head before she said, "Either one."

"And you want me to stop it?"

She gave me a regal nod. The snow queen was back in charge. "Do you know what it's like to come home and find out that someone's been tearing through your stuff?"