"Golf," I said. It seemed the most alien thing in the universe, hitting a ball with a stick. I couldn’t see the point of it.

"Don’t say it like that. You love golf. You’ve told me so a hundred times."

"I guess I have." I swung my purse up on the desk, slid my hand inside, and gently stroked the device. It was cool to the touch and vibrated ever so faintly under my fingers. I withdrew my hand. "Not today, though."

LaShana noticed. "What’s that you have in there?"

"Nothing." I whipped the purse away from her. "Nothing at all." Then, a little too loud, a little too blustery, "So how about that pencorder?"

"It’s yours." She got out the device, activated it, and let me pick it up. Now only I could operate the thing. Wonderful how fast we were picking up the technology. "How’d you lose your old one, anyway?"

"I stepped on it. By accident." I could see that LaShana wasn’t buying it. "Damn it, it was an accident! It could have happened to anyone."

I fled from LaShana’s alarmed, concerned face.

Not twenty minutes later, Gevorkian came sleazing into my office. She smiled, and leaned lazily back against the file cabinet when I said hi. Arms folded. Eyes sad and cynical. That big plain face of hers, tolerant and worldly-wise. Wearing her skirt just a smidge tighter, a touch shorter than was strictly correct for an office environment.

"Virginia," she said.

"Linda."

We did the waiting thing. Eventually, because I’d been here so long I honestly didn’t give a shit, Gevorkian spoke first. "I hear you’ve been experiencing a little disgruntlement."

"Eh?"

"Mind if I check your purse?"

Without taking her eyes off me for an instant, she hoisted my purse, slid a hand inside, and stirred up the contents. She did it so slowly and dreamily that, I swear to God, I half expected her to smell her fingers afterward. Then, when she didn’t find the expected gun, she said, "You’re not planning on going postal on us, are you?"