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They sat in the smoky room. Cigar smoke filled the air. It was raining outside. He looked over at her. The light flickered above the table they were sitting at. He took a puff of his cigar and asked her, So what do you think it means? I don’t know what it means, honestly. It could mean a lot of things. My take, he said as he looked at her and then looked away, is that they’re after you. It’s a signal that they don’t respect you or me. She looked at his green military cap and his green military jacket. He wasn’t in the military, but he wore them. It wasn’t like Halloween, though. It was more like camouflage. Both were a solid green, like a tank. He looked like one of Che Guevara’s guerrillas. How’s that cigar, she asked. It’s pretty good. It’s a TB, whatever that is. Brocaw or Brady, she asked with a smile. Maybe a bit of both, he said. I guess I’m kind of like a reporter, the way I tell these stories. I needed a fresh start, though. I was getting tired of all the talk about dragons and other mystical, mystical, mythical beasts. She looked at him with her chin slightly tilted upward. He was gonna make it, wasn’t he? He really was. He wasn’t scared of anything. She knew it now. Nothing could stop him. Nothing would keep him from her. They were together already. She was a ghost viper to him, and he was a ghost viper to her. He wondered if it was raining in Miami. Miami rain is always the nicest, he thought. And then he said, She agreed. She nodded in agreement. Mm-hmm. I love it when it’s hot and raining. It’s only 61 degrees Fahrenheit here, he said. What is that in centigrade, she asked. Don’t you mean Celsius? He laughed. It’s not a laughing matter, she said. Most of the world uses centigrade or Celsius. It makes more sense, don’t you think? 100 degrees is the boiling point of water instead of 212 degrees, which makes no sense whatsoever. I guess that’s true. It probably has something to do with area code 213, though. He sometimes wondered about area codes and what they meant, besides the obvious of what area code it is. Why did they pick certain numbers for certain places? He often saw connections between the area code of a place and what he found there. Some people thought it was hocus pocus mumbo jumbo, but those who knew knew. It had to do with all that dragon stuff. I thought we left dragons behind, she said. I never leave my dragon behind, he laughed, looking at her. She was there in ghost viper with no shimmer. I can’t wait till we don’t have to do this anymore, she said. Me neither, he replied. He didn’t like repeating what she said, it sounded too much like the Hawaiian echo. It was always better just to take it out loud, whatever they were saying, and then transcribe it. He was pretty sure someone else was transcribing everything he said. He wondered what it was like on her end. Did she even bother to transcribe it herself, or did someone else do it for her? Must be nice, must be nice, he said.