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said. But I was already, by mutual assumption, sort of on staff, and so I merely grunted, "Uh-huh."
    She opened a cupboard. It was spiritually bare; instant coffee, a box of White Rose teabags, Fig Newtons. No one lived there. "You take anything?" she asked. "Honey?"
    She opened the fridge. It was bottom-heavy. An almost empty top few shelves: a jar of honey, a pint of milk. Down below, maybe fifty Cokes and Diet Cokes, a few stray sixpacks of V-8, ginger ale. The depressing sterility of it made Stanton's pique seem almost visionary. This was a place to work, not sleep.
    Susan Stanton didn't seem to notice. She snagged the honey, poured the tea and sat down across from me. She kicked off her shoes, low-heeled pumps. And then, once again, abruptly: "So why did you quit Larkin?"
    There was no way to fudge this, not with her. But there were layers of reasons. "It wasn't him," I said.
    "He's good--good instincts, usually right, I think," she said. "But too cool, maybe. Does he ever blink? I mean, literally?" She was laughing. It was a nice deep chuckle. "I've never seen him blink. He's got that steady gaze."
    "Like a rock."
    "Like a lizard," she whooped.
    "Yeah," I agreed. "After a while it was all the same. He taught me a lot, but he never surprised me. Not much inspiration there. And it got old, roping the strays."
    "Without hope of winning."
    "No, it was worse. We always won. It was winning and then not winning. We'd win--and, you know, it was always a hundred tiny deals, things we'd give, and I was always looking for that one vote, the guy who wasn't one of the professional heroes--you know, the smug brothers, the ones who get elected, always from elite districts, because they're 'courageous'--but I was always hoping that one of the sheep would step up and do it for history. Without asking for a lulu--" "Lulu?"
    "New York for artificial sweetener," I said. "And sometimes you'd get one or two. Someone would wake up feeling honorable. Or guilty. Most of the time, there was no percentage in it for them. Why ask for trouble? It was all pretty predictable in any case. We'd win. Then we'd be gutted in the Senate; we'd settle for their version. You know, I got to see Donny O'Brien with his palms raised more times than I'd ever need to. I could wad his palms by the time it was over. We'd walk through the rotunda to his office, past all the tourists lit up with history--and I'd always be thinking about the chasm between politics and history. But the Lark would just be out there, making himself available to the civilians, into his cybernetic 'Good to see you' maneuvers." Susan laughed. "Yeah, I've seen him do that," she said. "It's like Stanton's mom, working the slot machines in Vegas. Automatic. Once you see something like that, it's tough to get past it. You know what? First time I saw Larkin doing that, governors' conference or something, I had this . . . wicked feeling"--she was giggling now--"that he made a conscious decision to emphasize the 'you' rather tha n t he 'see' because he wanted to seem more . . . what? Natural?" She slapped herself on the forehead. "God. Poor guy."
    "Not so poor," I said. "He is the majority leader."
    "But he wants more, and he'll never understand why he won't get there," she said. "Tell me if I'm wrong, but I'd guess Donny O'Brien is the exact opposite--surprised he got as far as he did, black Irish to the Senate, and then leader? Jeez. Had to be just thrilled to be there, right?"
    "Sweet man," I agreed. "And clever. We'd go the office and he'd offer the Lark a Harp. Lark would ask for mineral water. He wouldn't want to say Perrier in front of Donny. And, of course, Donny would use that. The tip-off was, we must have gone there a dozen times over the course of a few years, and Donny always offered the Harp--just to start him off on the defensive."
    "And your guy never took the beer, to see if he'd get a better deal?" Susan asked.
    "Amazing," I said. "I always wondered about that. He didn't even have