Her eyes grew larger. “You aren’t foreign, are you?”

“New York,” Milgrim admitted, assuming that might all too easily qualify.

“I don’t want him getting in any trouble,” she said, at once softly and fiercely.

“None of us does,” he instantly assured her. “No need. At all.” His attempted smile felt like something forced from a flexible squeezetoy. “And you are…?

“Seven or eight months,” she said, in awe at her own gravidity. “He’s not here. He didn’t like this, here.”

“None of us does,” he said, then wondered if that was the right thing to say.

“You got GPS?”

“Yes,” said Milgrim. Actually, according to Sleight, their Neos had two kinds, American and Russian, the American being notoriously political, and prone to unreliability in the vicinity of sensitive sites.

“He’ll be there in an hour,” she said, passing Milgrim a faintly damp slip of folded paper. “You better get started. And you better be alone.”

Milgrim took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but if it means driving, I won’t be able to go alone. I don’t have a license. My friend will have to drive me. It’s a white Ford Taurus X.”

She stared at him. Blinked. “Didn’t they just fuck Ford up, when they went to giving them f-names?”

He swallowed.

“My mother had a Freestyle. Transmission’s a total piece of shit. Get that computer wet, car won’t move at all. Gotta disconnect it first. Brakes wore out about two weeks off the lot. They always made that squealing noise anyway.” But she seemed comforted, in this, as if by the recollection of something maternal, familiar.

“Right as rain,” he said, surprising himself with an expression he might never have used before. He pocketed the slip of paper without looking at it. “Could you do something for me, please?” he asked her belly. “Could you call him, now, and let him know my friend will be driving?”