WATCHERS by Dean R. Koontz

checks and his Gold Card, they acquired the maximum allowable five hundred

dollars in cash and forty-five hundred in traveler’s checks. Combined with the

twenty-one hundred in cash and traveler’s checks left over from their honeymoon,

they had eighty-five hundred in liquid assets.

During the rest of the afternoon and early evening, they went shopping. With

credit cards, they bought a complete set of luggage and purchased enough clothes

to fill the bags. They got toiletries for both of them and an electric razor for

Travis.

Travis also bought a Scrabble game, and Nora said, “You don’t really feel in the

mood for games, do you?”

“No,” he replied cryptically, enjoying her puzzlement. “I’ll explain later.”

Half an hour before sunset, with their purchases packed tightly in the spacious

trunk of the Mercedes, Travis drove into the heart of San Francisco’s

Tenderloin, which was the area of the city that lay below O’Farrell Street,

wedged between Market Street and Van Ness Avenue. It was a district of sleazy

bars featuring topless dancers, go-go joints where the girls wore nothing at

all, rap parlors where men paid by the minute to sit with nude young women and

talk about sex and where more than talk was usually accomplished.

This degeneracy was a shocking revelation to Nora, who had begun to think of

herself as experienced and sophisticated. She was not prepared for the cesspool

of the Tenderloin. She gaped at the gaudy neon signs that advertised peep shows,

female mud wrestling, female impersonators, gay baths, and massage parlors. The

meaning of some of the billboard come-ons at the worst bars baffled her, and she

said, “What do they mean when the marquee says ‘Get a Wink at the Pink’?”

Looking for a parking place, Travis said, “It means their girls dance entirely

nude and that, during the dance, they spread their labia to show themselves more

completely.”

“No!”

“Yes.”

“My God. I don’t believe it. I mean, I do believe it—but I don’t believe it.

What’s it mean—’Extreme Close-Up’?”

“The girls dance right at the customers’ tables. The law doesn’t allow touching,

but the girls dance close, swinging their bare breasts in the customers’ faces.

You could insert one, maybe two, but not three sheets of paper between their

nipples and the men’s lips.”

In the back seat, Einstein snorted as if with disgust.

“I agree, fella,” Travis told him.

They passed a cancerous-looking place with flashing red and yellow bulbs and

rippling bands of blue and purple neon, where the sign promised LIVE

SEX SHOW.

Appalled, Nora said, “My God, are there other shows where they have sex with the

dead?”

Travis laughed so hard he almost back-ended a carload of gawking college boys.

“No, no, no. Even the Tenderloin has some limits. They mean ‘live’ as opposed to

‘on film.’ You can see plenty of sex on film, theaters that show only

pornography, but that place promises live sex, on stage. I don’t know if they

deliver on the promise.”

“And I don’t care to find out!” Nora said, sounding as if she were Dorothy from

Kansas and had just wandered into an unspeakable new neighborhood of Oz.

“What’re we doing here?”

“This is the place you come to when you’re trying to find things they don’t sell

on Nob Hill—like young boys or really large amounts of dope. Or phony driver’s

licenses and other counterfeit ID.”

“Oh,” she said. “Oh, yes, I see. This area is controlled by the underworld, by

people like the Corleones in The Godfather.”

“I’m sure the mob owns more of these places than not,” he said as he maneuvered

the Mercedes into a parking space at the curb. “But don’t ever make the mistake

of thinking-the real mob is a bunch of honorable cuties like the Corleones.”

Einstein was agreeable to remaining with the Mercedes.

“Tell you what, fur face. If we’re real lucky,” Travis joked, “we’ll get you a

new identity, too. We’ll make you into a poodle.”

Nora was surprised to discover that, as twilight settled over the city, the

breeze off the bay was chilly enough for them to need the nylon, quilt-lined

Jackets they had bought earlier in the day.

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