The man sitting at the table was close to eighty, but his eyes were glued to Veronica from the moment she entered."Ed Pilfor, Veronica Ames," indicate... Betty in introduction.Veronica extended her hand, but the moment he touched her, she looked into his eyes and saw he was nothing but an old lecher. His eyes roamed up and down her body and the handshake lasted entirely too long."My, my Betty, where have you been keeping this delicious little tidbit?" he said leering at the mulatto, undressing. She strained to hear. It was Steiner, the sound would have been harsher, more grating if the trees and hills of Alta Vista weren’t between her and the engines to mute them. It was a big fire. By her count, at least three engines had already responded. She listened again. San Francisco is a city obsessed with fire. It has good reason. It’s a town made of wood. Building after building of frame crowd close to each other. Up and down steep hills they jostle for space. When one of them burns it’s. You'd think beaches everywhere would cease to exist after this Spring Break, to hear your sister tell it." I need to ask Mickey, when he gets back from class, but then I'll call you."When Mickey returned from class that evening, I laid out the proposal that my father had offered."What are you, nuts? Your sister is, what, all of fourteen? I'm supposed to be responsible for keeping her safe? God damn, Erik, she's got a better body on her than half the girls in this university, and you want to. I wasn't terribly hungry. Even though she looked like a teenage girl, the Duchess always made me nervous, even more than Ellicent did. Christian seemed totally comfortable, but he'd known her as Kelly before the aliens had arrived and Talis had joined with her. He made me a little nervous too just because he looked so handsome sitting there. I really wanted him to like me and I wished he wasn't married, or a least not quite so faithful to his wife. Of course, the idea of having an affair with.