a footwear convention coming up in Hartford this weekend, I wondered if there was some way she could be held there until I get back.”

“Sorry, ma’am. That’s out of our hands,” Buca said.

Annette sputtered as if this was in the top five of the most ruinous things ever to hit the human race. “Whose hands is it in then?”

“The government,” Y’or said; Harris gave him a sharp glance.

“Aren’t you the government, too? I know there used to be balancings and checkings and all those silly useless branches…”

“Why do you want to know, ma’am?” Buca slipped his feet off the desk and studied her more closely.

“I thought as a good sibling I should know these things. You do your duty, accuse and then you like to know what happened next.”

“No one does,” Buca said slowly.

“Yes. Exactly. Who needs to know? I certainly don’t, not with my business thriving. If only I sold men’s shoes.” She indicated gravely at their scuffed brown Oxfords.

Annette mumbled a few more disjointed thoughts about shoes and hurried out with a cheerful wave to the entire squad room. Buca stared a moment at the door.

“What was that about?”

“I thought it was weird, too,” Y’or chimed in.

“Then I must be on the right track,” Buca said dryly.

• • • •

SHOVING THROUGH THE crowd nearly knocking the hallway off its concrete blocks, Kenuda slid sideways into the dressing room at the spacious Chandler House Hall. Mooshie barely looked up as she methodically removed the makeup. The Third Cousin leaned against the closed door, exhausted.

“No one’s ever heard anything like that.”

She glanced smugly into the reflection in the triangular mirror and changed cleaning pads.

“Three hours,” he continued wonderingly.

“That used to be the norm. Back in the day I…” Mooshie caught herself. “Entertainers entertain. Sixty minutes is a stupid length. I’m just getting warmed up at that point.”

Elias kissed the top of her mass of red curls, hands stroking her shoulders. She shuddered; he smiled, pleased, and kissed the back of her neck.

“Kenuda.” She lit a ‘bacco, holding up the nearly empty pack. “I need more.”

He paced in a tight circle, energizing his thoughts. “When football season opens next month, I’d like you to sing at one of the stadiums. Perhaps Meadowlands in Jersey. I see it so clearly, an Augmented Reality universe with you at midfield…”

“Football’s disgusting.”

“Darling, it’s number one.”

“So am I.”

Kenuda laughed with delight, acknowledging Dara’s songs had claimed thirty-six percent airtime on the vidrad, a record since Mooshie Lopez died. His name ranked in the top three of Grandma’s daily Cousins Thank Yous for the past week. No one had a bottom line like his. Baseball revenue was soaring over a thousand percent. Two new sporting goods factories were opening in Louisville and Milwaukee. There were now baseball day camps planned in twenty-five cities; there were only football camps in twenty-eight.

He’d put in the suggestion to Cheng for one more baseball season. That’d give him time to sell through merchandising, too. The first adverts for baseball jerseys went up tomorrow. Players’ numbers, but no names along the top of the shoulder. Just FORGIVENESS.

No wonder baseball evoked such nostalgia. Its quaintness screamed gullibility. Just wait until he reshaped entertainment. Vidrads, vidmovies, vident. New new new ideas.

“That sounds amazing, but I’d like to start a little simpler. Like Yankee Stadium.”

He sat on the edge of the dressing table. “You hate baseball, too.”

“All sports are stupid. Sorry, I don’t mean to trash your world.”

“That’s why I’ve expanded into entertainment.”

“Seized is more like it.”

Elias smacked his lips. “I can certainly arrange for you to sing at the baseball park. What’s that ditty they like?”

Mooshie clamped her back teeth. “Take Me Out to the Ballgame?’”

“Yes, yes. Why not sing that?”

She turned like a kettle boiling. “I’m supposed to sing an old ditty?”

“Isn’t that what you wanted? You sing older songs now…”

Mooshie glared into the mirror, squirming as he touched her shoulder.

“What did I get wrong this time, Dara?”

“You’re supposed to be guiding me, Elias.”

“I just booked you on a live vidmus concert that went an hour and a half over.”

“Are people rioting across the country because some bullshit twiddle my geetar trio got bumped?”

“No, of course not.”

“But you want the first time anyone’s sung at Yankee Stadium since Mooshie Lopez to be like pulling your pecker? Yawn, buy me some peanuts and cracker jacks.” She shook her head at his dim stare. “Those are lyrics from the song.”

“That’s not my expertise.”

“Isn’t promotion? Look what you’ve done for me.”

“Yes,” he answered carefully, unsure if he was about to be praised or criticized.

“This must be historic. Dara Dinton at an historic moment. The lights come on.”

“What lights, darling?”

“The fucking lights at the stadium.”

“They have them?” he asked. She flung a brush. “Perhaps we start with a light show? We do that for Grandma’s birthday at the Arena in Chicago…”

“Grandma’s clit,” Mooshie snarled. “They have lights at Yankee Stadium because once upon a time they played night games.”

“I know that, Dara,” he snapped. “But they stopped evening games because it got families home too late…”

“That’s what I want,” she screamed.

“Okay, okay…”

“The first time the lights are turned on since 2065, I’m standing at home plate, singing.”

Kenuda was relieved that she wasn’t going to make one of her demands like the water onstage served at thirty-four degrees or the flowers in the dressing room painted orange. Lights, stadium, simple enough. “I can certainly set that in motion.”

“It already is.”

“Pardon?”

“In two days the lights go back on and I’m giving a concert.” Mooshie let the strap fall off her left shoulder. Kenuda tilted at the bare arm speckled with tiny freckles.

“Isn’t that a little soon? There are permits and arrangements…”

“You can handle it, darling,” Mooshie said huskily. “Now turn around while I undress.”

Kenuda swallowed very deeply.

• • • •

AT EVERY KLICK across the Atlantic, Mustafa expected their Cessna 32 to be blown out of the sky. Neither he nor Abdullah had slept during the ten hours of travel from the Crusader ‘copter to a tiny fishing boat, an

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