Her pale foreign eyes dropped to the foil package between them.

“You eat this?” she asked.

“Wha-- No, not right now,” Dave answered.

“I thanking you.” Her sparrow hands snatched his egg sandwich and she took gulping bites, leaving a red crescent around the ghost of white teeth in the bread. Dave felt he had been bitten, by proxy, by sandwich.

“I go tomorrow,” she said through an egg-mayonnaise mouthful.

“What? Where?” asked Dave, his mind still stumbling over her directness.

“I say I go tomorrow.” She exhaled through her nostrils, noisily.

He raised his voice a little. “And last night where did you sleep?” He enunciated every syllable, left large pauses in between the words.

“Houstel, Peckham,” she replied, looking at the ceiling.

...

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