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room number.
    For one night anyway, money had taken second place to something bigger, and none of the girls put much effort into getting bar fined. That was okay by me.
    Near midnight, I noticed Isabel sitting alone in a booth near the back. I had Cathy make me two glasses of rum and Coke, then carried them across to where Isabel sat. I stood in front of the booth for several seconds before she looked up and noticed me.
    “You okay?” I asked.
    She smiled, but there wasn’t a lot behind it. I held up one of the glasses, and shook it a little so the ice jingled against the sides, then sat down beside her.
    “For you,” I said as I handed the glass to her. “Cheers.” We clinked glasses, and took sips. Well, I took a sip. I don’t think Isabel did more than brush the rim with her lips.
    “Back home, I don’t think I could ever afford a drink like this,” she said as she set the full glass on the small table in front of us.
    “You miss home?” I asked. I guess I was trying to get her to replace one kind of grief with another. So much for my reputation as the psychiatrist of Fields Avenue.
    “Sure,” she said. “Of course.”
    “Tell me about it. Your home, I mean.”
    She scoffed. “Too boring.”
    “I want to know.”
    She stared at me for several seconds, trying to determine if I was being serious. “Okay,” she finally said. “My parents have a little snack shop. It’s along a pretty busy highway. Some days we do okay, some days not.”
    “What about your house?”
    She laughed and gave me a look like I was not as smart as she thought I was. “We lived in the two rooms behind the shop.”
    “Just you and your parents?”
    Another laugh. “And my four brothers and two sisters and grandmother.”
    “It sounds kind of crowded.”
    “It is.”
    “Did Mariella live near you?”
    “No,” she said. “Her family moved closer to Manila when I was still a baby, I think.”
    “You don’t know?”
    She shook her head. “I didn’t meet her until I came here.”
    “You’re kidding me.”
    She shook her head, and we fell into silence. After several moments, Isabel said, “Do they know who she was yet?”
    “I’m sorry?”
    “The girl who died today. Do they know who she was?”
    I unconsciously ran my hand across the stubble on my chin. “I haven’t heard anything yet. Do you think it might be someone you know?”
    “No.” She looked around the room. “These are the only girls I know, and everyone’s here tonight.” She paused, then added, “Well, there’s Mariella. But I’m sure it’s not her.”
    Mariella had moved on from The Lounge months earlier, but I didn’t think it was her, either.
    “Do you think he killed her? The man she was with?” she asked.
    “I don’t know.”
    “How can she go home with someone who would kill her?”
    “We don’t know he killed her. It could have been almost anything.”
    “I know, but if he did?”
    “Okay. If he did, maybe he doesn’t look like a killer.”
    “I think I could tell.” She wasn’t really telling me so much as making a statement.
    “Really?” I asked.
    “Sure,” she said. “In his eyes.”
    “What if he loved her? A crime of passion.”
    “If someone really loved me, they would never kill me.”
    I was about to tell her there were many other ways to die from love that had nothing to do with breathing, but that wasn’t what she was really looking for. Once more our conversation ebbed, and we contented ourselves with sipping our drinks.
    “Are you going to be okay?” I asked once my glass was empty. There were other girls who needed attention, and I had already spent more time with Isabel than I should have. Of course, I always spent more time with Isabel than I should. I guess like with a favorite child, sometimes you couldn’t help yourself.
    “I can’t help thinking how that girl has a family like mine somewhere,” she said. “And this week, instead of getting money from her, they’ll get her body.”
    I