Ruth, a very tall black woman, looked at our driver’s licenses and Social Security cards without much interest, as though she expected them to be phony. I noticed that Lupe’s full name was Guadalupe Virginia Ramos. Then Ruth led us to the throbbing beast. The dance floor looked like a Mexican wedding. Men on one side of the room, women on the other. In the center of the floor a half-dozen couples were going through the motions to a loud, bass-amplified boogie. The men did awkward two-steps, trying to fit their natural rhythms and exuberant Latin forms to the disco beat. The women gyrated wildly, arms flung above their heads, legs apart, pelvises swinging. Occasionally they would look in the direction of the man they were dancing with to give large, toothy smiles.

“I know that one,” said Lupe, indicating a tall, undulating redhead with a mass of shoulder-length curls and a formfitting blue-sequined minidress. “I think her name’s Linda Campos.”

“You stick with her then, and I’ll see if I can find someone to talk with.”

None of the women wanted to talk. They were all busy licking their lips and running silent account books in their heads, but at last I found a pudgy black woman seated alone near the corner of the room. I took the chair next to her and pulled it a little closer.

“How you doing? This is my first night. I’m so nervous. To the max. Have you worked here long?” I noticed I sounded like the shoplifter from the Valley I represented in Van Nuys a couple of months ago, but I kept chattering on.

Eventually she turned to me, her eyes half closed, obscured by a row of golden beads that tied her hair off in braids, and said, “Chill out, girl. You want to start slow, finish big.” She had a throaty growl for a laugh and the kind of bad breath associated with PCP usage.

“How are the tips here? The woman who told me about this place said that she was making some good money. Twenty-five dollars a night,” I guessed.

“Who told you that?” sneered my companion. “Twenty-five dollars is nothing. Twenty-five dollars is when you let them suck on your neck like vampires. The real money is in the television room, if you can stand it. Let them get their hands up under the dress close enough to your pussy so they can feel the heat coming off it. Another good one is you get them to take you out to breakfast, then you can tell them about your sick mother or whatever your trip is. Course, whether you go to bed with ‘em is up to you.” She smiled broadly, apparently happy in the contemplation of her own financial security.

I pulled the chair a bit closer.