~6.7~

“Do you have a name?” the man asked. “One you can tell me?”

“Shesepankh,” the woman said.

“That’s a little… do you have a nickname?”

She thought about it.

“The Hellenes called me ‘Strangler’,” she said.

“That’s not really better,” the man said. “Do you know, is there a more modern version of your name?”

“Modern?” she repeated.

“Like, English?”

“Oh… in English, it would be ‘The Living Image’,” the woman said.

“How about I just call you ‘Liv’?”

“I have no objection to that,” she said.

“Great,” he said. “You can call me Ed.”

“I am very pleased to meet you, Ed,” she said. “Now you will take me to one of the guys?”

He looked up and down the dark street.

“You know, I kind of want to get out of sight for a while,” he said. “And then I’ll have to get a meeting set up anyway. How about we do this tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow night?”

“I was hoping during the day,” Ed said. “The streets aren’t as safe as they used to be, even for… people with connections.”

“To guys who know guys,” Liv said, nodding. “But I cannot be out during the day. If I could, it wouldn’t matter that the library hours changed. I would just go in when they opened in the morning, and stay until they closed…”

She trailed off as though in a pleasant reverie.

“Well, okay,” Ed said. “Is sundown too early to meet you?”

“It’s the earliest I can be met,” she said.

“Where would be the best place to find you at sundown?”

“The only place you could find me at sundown is the steps of the library,” she said.

“The downtown one? With the lion st… oh,” Ed said.

“Yes, that’s where I will be,” Liv said.

“Okay,” Ed said. “Well, I’ll be there. I can’t make any promises about results. Just so I’m clear: what’s more important, the library card or the ID?”

“The library card is all that matters.”