“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