“No. There’s all kinds of girls who do it. Girls who hope to break into showbiz,
go to L.A. to be movie stars but can’t make it, so they drift into places like
this in L.A. or they come north to San Francisco or they go to Vegas. Most are
decent enough kids. They see this as temporary. Very good money can be made
fast. It’s a way to build up a stake before taking another crack at Hollywood.
Then there are some, the self-haters, who do it to humiliate themselves. Others
are in rebellion from their parents, from their first husbands, from the whole
damn world. And some are hookers.”
“The hookers meet . . . johns here?” she asked.
“Maybe, maybe not. Some probably dance to have an explicable source of income
when the IRS knocks on their doors. They report their earnings as dancers, which
gives them a better chance of concealing what they make from turning tricks.”
“It’s sad,” she said.
“Yeah. In some cases . . . in a lot of cases, it’s damn sad.”
Fascinated, she said, “Will we get false IDs from this Van Dyne?”
“I believe so.”
She regarded him solemnly. “You really do know your way around, don’t you?”
“Does it bother you—that I know places like this?”
She thought a moment. Then: “No. In fact . . . if a woman’s going to take a
husband, I suppose he ought to be a man who knows what to do in any situation.
It gives me a lot of confidence.”
“In me?”
“In you, yes, and confidence that we’re going to get through this all right,
that we’re going to save Einstein and ourselves.”
“Confidence is good. But in Delta Force, one of the first things you learn is
that being overly confident can get you killed.”
The door opened, and the hulk returned with a round-faced man in a gray suit,
blue shirt, and black tie.
“Van Dyne,” the newcomer said, but he did not offer to shake hands. He went
around the desk and sat in a spring-backed chair. He had thinning blond hair and
baby-smooth cheeks. He looked like a stockbroker in a television commercial:
efficient, smart, as well-meaning as he was well-groomed. “I wanted to talk to
you because I want to know who’s spreading these falsehoods about me.”
Travis said, “We need new ID—driver’s licenses, social security cards, the whole
works. First-rate, with full backup, not junk.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Van Dyne said. He raised his eyebrows
quizzically. “Where on earth did you get the idea that I’m in that sort of
business? I’m afraid you’ve been misinformed.”
“We need first-rate paper with full backup,” Travis repeated.
Van Dyne stared at him, at Nora. “Let me see your wallet. And your purse, miss.”
Putting his wallet on the desk, Travis told Nora, “It’s okay.”
Reluctantly, she put her purse beside the wallet.
“Please stand and let Caesar search you,” Van Dyne said.
Travis stood and motioned for Nora to get up as well.
Caesar, the cement-faced hulk, searched Travis with embarrassing thoroughness,
found the .357 Magnum, put it on the desk. He was even more thorough with Nora,
unbuttoning her blouse and boldly feeling the cups of her bra for a miniature
microphone, battery, and recorder. She blushed and would not have permitted
these intimacies if Travis had not explained to her what Caesar was looking for,
Besides, Caesar remained expressionless throughout, as if he were a machine
without the potential for erotic response.
When Caesar was finished with them, they sat down while Van Dyne went through
Travis’s wallet and then through Nora’s purse. She was afraid he was going to
take their money without giving them anything in return, but he appeared to be
interested in only their ID and the butcher’s knife that Nora Still carried.
To Travis, Van Dyne said, “Okay. If you were a cop, you wouldn’t be allowed to
carry a Magnum”—he swung out the cylinder and looked at the
ammunition—loaded with magnums. The ACLU would have your ass.” He smiled at
Nora. “No policewoman carries a butcher’s knife.”
Suddenly she understood what Travis meant when he’d said he was carrying the