<div align="center"><em>Ethereal Rose</em></div><br/>Rose smiled. Couldn't help herself. At least the snowglobe hid most of it, up close to examine in both hands. The coffee cup would just have to take care of balancing itself on her leg for a while, a job at which it appeared to be doing rather admirably. "Thumbs," she said. "Should I be worried or flattered you've been keeping track of my doings?" The answer, of course, was flattered. If she needed to be worried it wouldn't be because this guy was doing research on her business practices; anyone operating in the hardhold would want to keep track of its headliners, so to speak, and while she didn't often think of herself that way - she didn't control the guns, the bikes, or even the metalworks - that was a list on which her name might be found any given day of the week. It's just the way things were, one of those things you had to get used to after a while. You live through enough shit, people take notice.<br/><br/>Therefore, that he bothered to keep taking notice had to be a good thing. Right?<br/><br/>Okay maybe logic's not her best thing.<br/><br/>"Yeah, there's something from Thumbs. Nothing too particular, though, and with the way things played out, I dunno that it'll mean much." She paused mid-thought, turned the snowglobe over a couple of times as if using it for a brain surrogate. "...could be a way to get him spread thin, though," she muttered, "maybe give somebody room to move in on what little he can claim is his." She mulled this over a few moments more, shook her head, set the globe down on her other thigh to take the cup up again. "Mostly he just wanted to know how the two of you were connected. Knowing Thumbs' narrow range of interests, probably wanted to know where the dearly departed found his spiffy toys, maybe thought you had some insight on that I could coax out of you.<br/><br/>"Personally, my thinkin' on the matter is 'fuck Thumbs,' so I'm not too inclined to pry info from you on his behalf for that kinda shit. Easy to just tell him you wouldn't talk about it. Could be, though, that if I hint at you and yours lookin' for somethin' your buddy might've told you is hid out in the dust somewhere, well...could be Thumbs'd try and sneak out that 'somethin'' from under you."<br/><br/>She shrugged, finished her coffee. "Then again, he's a pretty cowardly fuck. Probably wishful thinking that he'd have the balls to try that kind of thing. More likely he'd just have your guys tailed and go looking for scraps after they left. Forget I brought it up. This thing, on the other hand," she lifted the globe again, upending it to resume the snowstorm, "this is about the nicest delicate I've had hold of around here in I dunno how long. How'd you manage to hang onto something like this without so much as a crack in it? I'm not even sure I should take it just for bearin' bad news."