Brendel could not believe she was not going to fight. "You, kid! You're acting like a kid."
Ferren took Brendel's arm. "Don't stoop to conventional pettiness, Brendel."
Brendel flushed. "I'm coming back. You're not rooking me out of my collections." He turned abruptly and stepped on the grid. Giving a three-passenger order, he disappeared. Lukia followed. Ferren stepped on, tossed bills to the collectors, and disappeared.
Pollony closed the door. She leaned against it, breathing the silence.
Then she hurried through the live, setting it in order. She straightened the books Ferren had been examining and found two missing.
Even as Lukia was punching dinner and saying all the things designed to make Brendel want Pollony back only briefly, as a point of pride, Pollony was whisking into a brisk trousersuit and wondering how much had piled up in the account where she kept her parents' gifts.
Even as Brendel was feeling Lukia's face with his eyes, letting her excitement speak to his own, Pollony was at the bank having her balance marked into her deposit clip.
Even as Ferren was smiling and wondering how much the two books would bring, Pollony was rapping at the door of the apartment house in centercity and being told that, yes, Mr. Smith still lived there.
Presently Latsker Smith roared around the corner and braked his car. He unfolded from the cockpit. He nodded.
"Have you got money to go to Boston yet?" She held herself very straight.