WATCHERS by Dean R. Koontz

“Even in summer, nights can be cool here,” he said. “Soon, the fog rolls in. The

stored-up heat of the day pulls it off the water.”

He would have worn his jacket even if the evening air had been mild, for he was

carrying his loaded revolver under his belt and needed the jacket to Conceal it.

“Is there really a chance you’ll need the gun?” she asked as they walked away

from the car.

“Not likely. I’m carrying it mainly for ID.”

“Huh?”

“You’ll see.”

She looked back at the car, where Einstein was staring out the rear window,

looking forlorn. She felt bad leaving him there. But she was quite certain that

even if these establishments would admit dogs such places were not good for

Einstein’s moral welfare.

Travis seemed interested solely in those bars whose signs were either in both

English and Spanish or in Spanish only. Some places were downright shabby and

did not conceal the peeling paint and the moldy carpeting, while others used

mirrors and glitzy lighting to try to hide their true roach-hole nature. A few

were actually clean and expensively decorated. In each, Travis spoke in Spanish

with the bartender, sometimes with musicians if there were any and if they were

on a break, and a few times he distributed folded twenty-dollar bills. Since she

spoke no Spanish, Nora did not know what he was asking about or why he was

paying these people.

On the street, searching for another sleazy lounge, he explained that the

biggest illegal migration was Mexican, Salvadoran, Nicaraguan—desperate people

escaping economic chaos and political repression. Therefore, more

Spanish-speaking illegals were in the market for phony papers than were

Vietnamese, Chinese, or those in all other language groups put together. “So the

quickest way to get a lead on a supplier of phony paper is through the Latino

underworld.”

“Have you got a lead?”

“Not yet. Just bits and pieces. And probably ninety-nine percent of what I’ve

paid for is nonsense, lies. But don’t worry—we’ll find what we need. That’s why

the Tenderloin doesn’t go out of business: people who come here always find what

they need.”

The people who came here surprised Nora. In the streets, in the topless bars,

all kinds could be found. Asians, Latinos, whites, blacks, and even Indians

mingled in an alcoholic haze, so it seemed as if racial harmony was a beneficial

side effect of the pursuit of sin. Guys swaggered around in leather jackets and

jeans, guys who looked like hoods, which she expected. But there were also men

in business suits, clean-cut college kids, others dressed like cowboys, and

wholesome surfer types who looked as if they had stepped out of an old Annette

Funicello movie. Bums sat on the pavement or stood on corners, grizzled old

winos in reeking clothes, and even some of the business-suit types had a weird

glint in their eyes that made you want to run from them, but it seemed as if

most of the people here were those who would pass for ordinary upstanding

citizens in any decent neighborhood. Nora was amazed.

Not many women were on the streets or in the company of the men in the bars. No,

correct that: there were women to be seen, but they looked more lascivious than

the nude dancers, and only a few of them seemed not to be for sale.

At a topless bar called Hot Tips, which had signs in both Spanish and English,

the recorded rock music was so loud Nora got a headache. Six

beautiful girls with exquisite bodies, wearing only spike heels and sequined

bikini panties, were dancing at the tables, wriggling, writhing, swinging their

breasts in the sweaty faces of men who were either mesmerized or hooting and

clapping. Other topless girls, equally pretty, were witnessing.

While Travis spoke in Spanish with the bartender, Nora noticed some of the

customers looking at her appraisingly. They gave her the creeps. She kept one

hand on Travis’s arm. She couldn’t have been torn away from him with a crowbar.

The stink of stale beer and whiskey, body odor, the layered scents of various

cheap perfumes, and cigarette smoke made the air as heavy as that in a

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