The dressing room was small and spartan. Besides the vanity and the stool before it, there was only a loveseat and a coat rack.

Aggie smoothed her makeup on with practiced strokes, easily enhancing all her best features. "I don't have time for a lot of jaw." She made a moue of her lips and applied fiery red lipstick that held a neon glazed afterglow.

"Larisa," Skater prompted. The sounds coming from the main room had quieted.

"If she wanted contact with you, she'd have called."

"Aggie, this is serious."

She ignored him, quickly slashing on a pair of very arched brows. "Have you tried calling her?"

"I need to see her."

"Oh?" Aggie raised one of her new eyebrows. "You mean Larisa didn't give you her new number?" She closed her make-up case and dropped it into the slim purse silting on the vanity. "What a surprise."

"You know they're looking for me," Skater said. "Maybe for Larisa, too."

Aggie's eyes trapped Skater's in the vanity mirror. "You mean somebody other than you?"

Skater let irritation sound in his voice. There'd been a little residual animosity between them after he'd started seeing Larisa, but no big drama. "I don't have time for games," he growled.

Spinning to face him, face darkened by anger. Aggie snapped, "Don't you? Everything's a game to you. Jack. You play hard, and you're one of the best, but it's all a game. Including Larisa. Get the hint, chummer: she doesn't want to see you. You didn't lose. Exactly. She's just not going to play anymore." Her voice softened. "Can't say I blame her. There's no use in hanging onto something that's not yours to have. She learned, just not soon enough."

"She set me up," Skater said in a low voice.

Aggie gave him a hard, doubtful look.

'Tonight," he went on. forcing her to hear. "A piece of action turned dirty and got one of my people killed." It was as much as he'd ever admitted to someone outside his own circle that he was involved in any kind of shadow biz. With one exception. "Larisa fed me the scan, cut herself in for a piece. I agreed because it sounded doable. Somewhere in there, the yakuza got double-crossed, either by Larisa or someone she knows. I want to know the score."