She laughed. "No. Not yet you don't. But I know you, Mr. Blacker. By reputation, at any rate. You see--" She sat next to him on the couch, and Tom was feeling well enough to tingle at her nearness. "We're in the same line of work, you and I." "Unemployment?" "No," she smiled. "Public relations. Only I'm on the client's side of the fence. I work for an organization called Homelovers, Incorporated. Ever hear of them?" Tom shook his head. "Maybe you should. It's a rather important company, and growing. And they're always on the lookout for superior talent." * * * * * He squinted at her. "What is this? A job offer?" "Maybe." She wriggled a little, and the slits in her dress widened just a fraction. "We've got the nucleus of a good PR department now. But with a really experienced man at the controls--it could grow enormously. Think you might be interested?" "Maybe I would," Tom said. But he wasn't thinking about PR right then. "Mr. Andrusco's had you in mind for a long time," Livia Cord continued. "I've mentioned your name to him several times as a possible candidate. If you hadn't been fired from Ostreich, we might have tried to tempt you away." Her fingers touched a stray lock of red hair. "Now--we don't have to be surreptitious about it. Do we?" "No," Tom said guardedly. "I guess not." "If you're free tomorrow, I could arrange a meeting with Mr. Andrusco. Would you like that?" "Well ..." "His office opens at nine. We could get there early." Tom looked at his watch. Livia said: "I know it's late. But we could get an early start in the morning, right after breakfast. Couldn't we?" "I dunno," Tom frowned. "By the time I get home ..." "Home?" The girl leaned back. "Who said anything about home?" Her bedroom was monochromed. Even the sheets were pink. At five o'clock, the false dawn glimmered through the window, and the light falling on his eyes awakened him. He looked over at the sleeping girl, feeling drugged and detached. She moaned slightly, and turned her face towards him. He blinked at the sight of it, and cried aloud. "What is it?" She sat up in bed and nicked on the table lamp. "What's the matter?" He looked at her carefully. She was beautiful. There wasn't even a smudge of lipstick on her face. "Nothing," he said dreamily, and turned away. By the time he was asleep again, his mind had already erased the strange image from his clouded brain--that Livia Cord had absolutely no mouth at all. * * * * * It was hard to keep track of the glass-and-steel structures that had been springing up daily along the Fifth-Madison Thruway. When Tom and Livia stepped out of the cab in front of 320, he wasn't surprised that the building--an odd, cylindrical affair with a pointed spire--was strange to him. But he was taken aback to realize that all sixty floors were the property of Homelovers, Incorporated. "Quite a place," he told the girl.