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reopened.”
    He slammed the door behind him. I didn’t move for a long time. I couldn’t have been more stunned if he’d said, “Frankly, Scarlet, I don’t give a damn.” And in a way, that’s exactly what he did say.

Chapter 4
    Black Coffee, Blue Dragon
    A s soon as Marco left, I called the private eye whom I’d hired to watch the abuse shelter where Drummond’s wife and kid were staying. Some retributionists who make good money have a whole staff of private investigators who do everything from watching over victims to tracking the whereabouts of ex-cons. I kept my operation simple by using a freelance P.I. when needed.
    My guy was an old pro from Skokie. I told him about my fight with Drummond and told him to call the cops and me, in that order, if my threats failed to cower Drummond and he showed up at the shelter. The police could legally shoot the sonofabitchif he attacked his family. I could only do it with a bogus Gibson Warrant and wind up in jail for fraud.
    I had just hung up when someone knocked on the door again.
    “Now what?” I muttered as I flung it open. And there, standing before me with a rakish smirk and a tilted fedora, was none other than Humphrey Bogart.
    “Bogie,” I said on a long sigh of relief. “I forgot you were coming. Man, am I glad you’re here.”
    He passed me with a wink and a whiff of tobacco trailed behind him. There was something so simply and confidently masculine about him that just watching him climb the stairs and saunter into my flat made my wire-tight shoulders unfurl. Okay, fine. I’d given in to Chicago’s uniquely primal summer heat. I was here. He was here. My libido was definitely here.
    Though Bogie wore a trench coat, he wasn’t sweating. I was. He shrugged out of the coat and tossed it onto my couch, then poured himself a glass of Vivante. Bourbon. You never had to ask with a man like Bogie. He took a long sip, then looked at me long and hard. His upper lip twitched once—one of his rare signs of emotion.
    “You look tired, Angel.”
    I nodded. “More than you could ever know.” Between Drummond and Detective Marco, I felt as if the whole world was against me. I needed someone who would accept me as I was, ask no questions and leave no doubts that I was a woman. Lucky for me, that someone was standing in arm’s reach.
    When Bogie put down his glass on the serving bar and came my way, hands tucked into his suitpocket, my skin tingled all over. He kissed me lightly. I smelled tobacco on his breath, and it was so real I melted in his arms.
    “Make love to me, Bogie.”
    “Is that an order?”
    I nodded. He took me to my bedroom and undressed me. His jaded eyes lit with hunger.
    “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.”
    And I knew from experience he would do much more than that.
     
    The next morning I arose, as usual, to the soft sound of Mike’s Chinese gong and the smell of incense. Both were di rigeur for his meditations. Sound and scent floated up from the garden through the open French windows in my bedroom. I flopped my arm across my double bed, not expecting to find Bogie there. And I didn’t.
    I’d only contracted with AutoMates to have Humphrey Bogart until 3:00 a.m. With his internal clock fully engaged, quite literally, Bogie always rose promptly, no matter how deliciously exhausting our lovemaking was. He’d light a cigarette, which AutoMates were permitted to do. After all, tar and nicotine can’t hurt a robot. Granted, second-hand smoke was still a problem, but the stinking rich AutoMates corporation lobbyists had convinced Congress that a few smoking movie star robots couldn’t produce all that much smoke.
    After lighting up, Bogie would dress in darkness, his rugged features illuminated only by the red glow of his cigarette, and depart.
    His zombielike obedience to time always reminded me a little of those blond people in The Time Machine who went off in a trance whenever the Morlocks called. The 1960s movie, starring Rod Taylor and