Dante did not speak when she got in the car.
He pulled away from the benefit drive and into the city traffic and said nothing. He did this sometimes when he had observed something and had decided to wait. She had known him long enough to recognize the quality of his silence. This was the particular silence of a man who had a clear view of something and was giving her the first option to address it.
She looked out the window.
The city moved past. Late on a Thursday, the streets thinning out, the lights of other cars and the lit windows of buildings that were still working or still awake. Ordinary city business, indifferent and continuous.
He said, Thank you. She said it was strategic.
Both things were true.
The second one was not the whole truth, and she had known it while she was say
