“If I’d wanted your money, I would have taken your shit while you were gone,” Velvet said, and straightened the hang of her black leather jacket. “Snazzy. So, you get this as a gift or what?”

“A friend talked me into it. God knows I would never wear it, so you might as well. You’re going to meet this man at three? No matter what I say?” Robby looked sick in the white fluorescent light, green around the eyes.

“Yep. You might find this hard to believe, but I don’t want to fuck you up any more than I already have. Look, I know all this is my fault—if I’d kept my mouth shut the way everybody wanted, none of this would have happened, Jim wouldn’t have got beaten up, people would still be—anyway, the best thing I can do is get the hell out of here, now, to-night. I spend the night with Mr. Prick and pick up enough cash to travel, and tomorrow I see a new sky-line. It’s no big deal. I did it before.”

More than once, new towns and new Mings and bruises that never quite healed. But with a little money in her pocket—

Who was she kidding? A little money in her pocket would be gone in a week, and she’d be moaning in the backseat of a car, only the cars would get cheaper and the guys would get meaner, and pretty soon—

What was it the fake Agent James had said? Ten buck a fuck whore?

Robby was mopping up little smears on the countertop with a neatly folded rag. She looked ready to drop.

“It’s the only way they won’t come after you,” Velvet finished, and walked over to watch out the window for somebody bringing clothes to the building across the street.

Chapter Thirty-six

Martin

Martin had never worn a bulletproof vest before, and he didn’t like it much. It felt like wearing one of his Aunt Martha’s hand-knitted sweaters, lumpy and suffocating and ugly as hell. He picked at the Velcro fasteners until Mrs. Womack slapped his hand.

“I don’t like bringing you into this at all,” she said, and stepped back to admire the fit. “Still, I suppose we have to make do. Agent Mendoza simply must stay with Carling in case anyone tries to get to her, which leaves me without a driver. I assume you can drive.”