The Enemy

Alabama, probably.
    “You new in town?” she asked, loud, because of the music.
    I smiled. I had been in more whorehouses than I cared to count. All MPs have. Every single one is the same, and every single one is different. They all have different protocols. But the
Are you new in town?
question was a standard opening gambit. It invited me to start the negotiations. It insulated her from a solicitation charge.
    “What’s the deal here?” I asked her.
    She smiled shyly, like she had never been asked such a thing before. Then she told me I could watch her onstage in exchange for dollar tips, or I could spend ten to get a private show in a back room. She explained the private show could involve touching, and to make sure I was paying attention she ran her hand up the inside of my thigh.
    I could see how a guy could be tempted. She was cute. She looked to be about twenty. Except for her eyes. Her eyes looked like a fifty-year-old’s.
    “What about something more?” I said. “Someplace else we could go?”
    “We can talk about that during the private show.”
    She took me by the hand and led me past their dressing room door and through a velvet curtain into a dim room behind the stage. It wasn’t small. It was maybe thirty feet by twenty. It had an upholstered bench running around the whole perimeter. It wasn’t especially private either. There were about six guys in there, each of them with a naked woman on his lap. The blonde girl led me to a space on the bench and sat me down. She waited until I came out with my wallet and paid her ten bucks. Then she draped herself over me and snuggled in tight. The way she sat made it impossible for me not to put my hand on her thigh. Her skin was warm and smooth.
    “So where can we go?” I asked.
    “You’re in a hurry,” she said. She moved around and eased the hem of her dress up over her hips. She wasn’t wearing anything under it.
    “Where are you from?” I asked her.
    “Atlanta,” she said.
    “What’s your name?”
    “Sin,” she said. “Spelled
S, i, n.
”
    I was fairly certain that was a professional alias.
    “What’s yours?” she said.
    “Reacher,” I said. There was no point adopting an alias of my own. I was fresh from the widow visit, still in Class As, with my nameplate big and obvious on my right jacket pocket.
    “That’s a nice name,” she said, automatically. I was fairly certain she said it to everybody.
Quasimodo, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, that’s a nice name.
She moved her hand. Started with the top button of my jacket and undid it all the way down. Smoothed her fingers inside across my chest, under my tie, on top of my shirt.
    “There’s a motel across the street,” I said.
    She nodded against my shoulder.
    “I know there is,” she said.
    “I’m looking for whoever went over there last night with a soldier.”
    “Are you kidding?”
    “No.”
    She pushed against my chest. “Are you here to have fun, or ask questions?”
    “Questions,” I said.
    She stopped moving. Said nothing.
    “I’m looking for whoever went over to the motel last night with a soldier.”
    “Get real,” she said. “We all go over to the motel with soldiers. There’s practically a groove worn in the pavement. Look carefully, and you can see it.”
    “I’m looking for someone who came back a little sooner than normal, maybe.”
    She said nothing.
    “Maybe she was a little spooked.”
    She said nothing.
    “Maybe she met the guy there,” I said. “Maybe she got a call earlier in the day.”
    She eased her butt up off my knee and pulled her dress down as far as it would go, which wasn’t very far. Then she traced her fingertips across my lapel badge.
    “We don’t answer questions,” she said.
    “Why not?”
    I saw her glance at the velvet curtain. Like she was looking through it and all the way across the big square room to the register by the door.
    “Him?” I said. “I’ll make sure he isn’t a problem.”
    “He doesn’t like us to talk to cops.”
    “It’s important,” I said. “The guy was an important soldier.”
    “You all think you’re important.”
    “Any of the girls here from California?”
    “Five or six, maybe.”
    “Any of them used to work Fort Irwin?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “So here’s the deal,” I said. “I’m going to the bar. I’m going to get another beer. I’m going to spend ten minutes drinking it. You bring me the girl who had the problem last night. Or you show me where I can find her.