Oh, boy. I hoped she didn't get started.

She was still married but didn't let legal trivia encumber her. "Don't go misty on me, Winger."

"Misty? You shitting me? After that, Hell is gonna look good."

Winger is a tad unusual, case you haven't noticed. She is twenty-six, as tall as I am, and built like the proverbial masonry privy—on an epic scale. Also, she has what some guys think is an attitude problem. Just can't figure out how to stay in her place.

"You want my help," I reminded. Just a poke. My keg wasn't bottomless. I smirked. Maybe she was desperate enough to take the Goddamn Parrot off my hands.

"Uhm." She would get to the point only after she had mooched her fill. That quantity would clue me as to the state of her fortunes.

"You're looking good, Winger." Even Winger likes to hear that."Must be doing all right."

She assumed I meant her outfit. That was new and, as always, remarkable. "Where I work, they want you should dress snappy."

I kept a straight face. "Unusual" is only the most cautious, gentlest way to characterize Winger's taste. Let's say you couldn't lose her in a crowd. If she went around with the Goddamn Parrot on her shoulder, nobody would notice the bird. "That outfit is pretty timid. When you worked for that fat freak Lubbock... "

"It's the territory. These guys want you should blend in."

Again I kept my face straight. Being amused by Winger when Winger isn't amused can be hazardous to your health—especially if you're dim enough to, say, crack wise about her blending in.

"Old-timer's gone, eh? What about the ugly thing?" She meant my partner, the Dead Man, so-called because he hasn't run any footraces since somebody stuck a knife in him four hundred years ago. "Ugly thing" is apt. He isn't human. He's a Loghyr, which explains why he's still hanging around so long after he was murdered. Loghyr are slow and stubborn, especially when it comes to sloughing off the old mortal clay. They're deliberate, he would say.