The Marrow Room turned out to be a lavish nightclub full of what looked to him like little kids. There was music blasting, strobes and lasers flashing. Wonderful little bubblegum girls kept dancing up to him and waving their mermaid locks. He smiled and nodded, forcing himself not to so much as glance down. It wouldn’t have mattered, anyway—the whole damn place was full of jailbait.

He went to the bar. “Stoli on the rocks,” he said.

The bartender looked at him. “Parents room in the back, mister. But it’s BYOB.”

He didn’t really know what the hell kind of place he’d blundered into, but there was no damn point in finding out, that was for sure. When had rock clubs for children come in?

He left. A clutch of what looked like eight-year-olds clustered under a nearby stoop smoking and muttering together. This was different from Asia? How?

Then he saw a storefront with a black cat discreetly painted in one corner as the only indication that it wasn’t altogether abandoned. A black cat was promising. He pushed the door open.

There were skulls. His stomach gave a turn. He never wanted to be in an ossuary again. But the skulls contained candles. There was music, very bad rock of some indeterminate kind, and here and there a few people in vaguely gothic costume sitting at tables. A couple danced mechanically under purple light on a small dance floor. The place smelled like cigarettes and sour beer. The bar had a rack on it with bags of potato chips.

“Stoli on the rocks,” Paul said.

The bartender, a listless woman of about sixty wearing a black dress, poured something clear out of a bottle with no label into a glass with a whole lot of ice. She brought it over. Her face was painted white, her lips dark, dark red. She was wearing plastic teeth.

“I’m looking for Ellen Wunderling,” Paul said.

“You a cop?”

“Not.”

“Wanna bj? Fifteen bucks.”

Paul was beginning to think of a whole lot of reasons to throw up. He was homesick. He wanted to go to one of those Bangkok barbershops where a cloud of comely maidens massaged you, cut your hair, did your nails, and gave you a blow job for fifteen damn bucks.

“I’m doing research on Ellen Wunderling.”

“Never came in here.” She turned away, busied herself pulling a beer—for whom it wasn’t clear.

“Any other place I could go? I’m new here, and I don’t know the scene.”

“Well, the first thing to do is not dress like a bus driver trying to pawn himself off as another bus driver. That horror show isn’t gonna get you in anywhere.”

“These are new clothes.”