“Si, Senor Lee.” The waiter picked at his teeth with a toothpick.

Mr. Lee ordered for both of them, and the waiter departed.

“You know,” Joan said, “when you’ve been around a telepath as much as I have, you become conscious of intensive scanning going on… I could always tell when Ray was trying to dig at something in me. You’re a telepath. And you’re very intensively scanning me right now.”

Smiling, Mr. Lee said, “I wish I was, Miss Hiashi.”

“I have nothing to hide,” Joan said. “But I wonder why you are so interested in what I’m thinking. You know I’m an employee of the United States Department of State; there’s nothing secret about that. Are you afraid I’ve come to Cuba as a spy? To study military installations? Is it something like that?” She felt depressed. “This is not a good beginning,” she said. “You haven’t been honest with me.”

“You are a very attractive woman, Miss Hiashi,” Mr. Lee said, losing none of his poise. “I was merely curious to see—shall I be blunt? Your attitude toward sex.”

“You’re lying,” Joan said quietly.

Now the bland smile departed; he stared at her.

“Bird’s nest soup, senor.” The waiter had returned; he set the hot steaming bowl in the center of the table. “Tea.” He laid out a teapot and two small white handleless cups. “Senorita, you want chopsticks?”

“No,” she said absently.

From outside the booth came a cry of anguish. Both Joan and Mr. Lee leaped up. Mr. Lee pulled the curtain aside; the waiter was staring, too, and laughing.

At a table in the opposite corner of the restaurant sat an elderly Cuban gentleman with his hands gripping the handles of an empathy box.

“Here, too,” Joan said.

“They are pests,” Mr. Lee said. “Disturbing our meal.”

The waiter said, “Loco.” He shook his head, still chuckling.

“Yes,” Joan said. “Mr. Lee, I will continue here, trying to do my job, despite what’s occurred between us. I don’t know why they deliberately sent a telepath to meet me—possibly it’s Communist paranoid suspicions of outsiders—but in any case I have a job to do here and I mean to do it. So shall we discuss the dismembered kitten?”