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“Why would anyone give us trouble?” Paul said “As a matter of fact, I just saw Mindy Gooch In the lobby She told h-the-wall air conditioners in the apartment”

“That’s just crap,” Annalisa said “Was she at least nice about it?”

“What do you mean by ‘nice’?”

Annalisa picked up the paper plates “Don’t fight with her, is all Enid said Mindy can be tricky Apparently, the way to get to her is through her son, Sam He’s a co I could e-mail him”

“No,” Paul said “I can’t have so with my computer Do you knohat’s on my hard drive? Billions of dollars’ worth of financial information I could destroy a small country if I felt like it”

Annalisa turned and bent over to kiss Paul on the forehead “I kno you boys love to play spy,” she said “But I wasn’t thinking about your co about mine”

As she turned to go into the kitchen, Paul called after her, “Can’t we do this the old-fashioned way? Isn’t there so we can bribe?”

“No, Paul,” Annalisa said “We’re not going to do that Just because we have et special treatment Let me try it Enid’s way We’re in a new place, and we have to respect the culture”

Down below, in the kitchen of the Gooches’ stifling apartetables “Paul Rice basically told me to shove it,” she said to James

“Did he use those exact words, ‘Shove it’?” James asked

“No But you should have seen the expression on his face when I said no to the through-the-wall air conditioners His expression said, ‘Shove it’”

“You’re being paranoid,” James said

“I’m not,” Mindy said Her new puppy, Skippy, ju Mindy fed him a bit of carrot

“You shouldn’t feed the dog people food,” James said

“It’s health food No one ever got sick fro and cuddled it in her arms