“Won’t you at least share your vast experience with me and tell me what this place is like?” Even I didn’t like the tone of my voice.

She didn’t snap back at me but instead, as if there was something important on her mind, replied rather absently, “I worked there a week and a half maybe six, eight months ago. It’s full of part-time hookers and women who are looking for husbands. Women who are hard up and don’t know where else to go. Lots of the men are mojados, wetbacks, but the owners try to make sure all the women are legal. They have enough hassles with vice poking around they don’t want la migra coming down, too. It was run by a guy named Jimmy Olvidado. They call him the Pirate because he’s got a big moustache and a bad leg.”

As I slowed the car near our destination, Lupe pulled out her cosmetic bag from her purse. “You should put on some makeup.”

I glanced sideways, watching her redo her mouth and add several layers of eye shadow to her already black eyes. My idea of makeup is mascara. Maybe some cherry-flavored lip gloss for a big date. She patted the blond wig carefully into place before snapping the compact shut. But now, here we were parked outside a dark box with a flashing sign that said Club Tropical.

“Let me have some of that stuff.” I put four shades of purple around my eyes, bright pink on my cheeks, and rubbed some luminescent crimson across my mouth. I took off my suit jacket, hung it carefully behind me, unbuttoned my white silk blouse to where my bra began to show and ratted my hair up with my fingers. Lupe was looking at me with interest, or maybe it was just amusement; I thought she was about to make some crack, but all she did was mumble, “I gotta make a call,” and head for a phone booth outside a little market further down the block.

I hastened after her.

“Don’t you get scared walking around at night?” I asked, looking up and down the street as I stood near the phone. This was another one of those phone booths with the door ripped off.

“No. I got more things to worry about,” she said as she dialed. “Anyone can get killed on her way home. Your car can go off the road. Freeway shooters. Anyone can get killed by some weirdo who gets off on that stuff. There’s all kinds of creeps. No, I just got to worry about incurable diseases and assholes who try to put out cigarettes on my tits.”