Somebody tapped Pete on the shoulder. Distracted, he half turned. There stood a buddy of his, a Marine named Puccinelli. Grinning, the dago said, "Why don't you make an honest woman out of that broad, man? You looked like you were gonna lay her right here on the dance floor."

"Why don't you get lost, Pooch?" McGill suggested sweetly. If he'd thought Vera would go for it… She might have been pouring down phony drinks, but Pete hadn't. He'd guzzled enough real whiskey to make it seem like fun, not craziness.

Vera tugged at his arm. "A little champagne?" she said. "Dancing makes you thirsty, yes?"

Dancing made Pete horny. "How's about you and me go off somewhere quiet, just the two of us?" he asked.

Even half in the bag, he watched the cash registers chinging behind the White Russian girl's big baby blues. He gave his own mental shrug. It wasn't as if he thought she was with him because of the charm of his own blunt, ruddy features. If you were looking for love, or even for a facsimile that seemed reasonable while it was going on, in places like this, you needed to keep your wallet in your hand.

"Sixty dollars Mex," Vera said.

That was four times the going rate for a Chinese girl in a Shanghai brothel. It was also fifteen bucks American, or a goodly part of a month's pay. But when John Henry started yelling… you really wished that asshole on the train hadn't had four of a kind. "Ouch," Pete said.

Vera considered. She wasn't like a whorehouse whore-she had some discretion about clients and prices. Her features softened a little. "All right, Yankee. For you, fifty Mex," she said.

She does like me-some, anyway, Pete thought. He also knew damn well she wouldn't come down twice. "Where can we go?" he asked.

She took his arm. "Follow me," she said. Right then, he would have followed her through ice or fire or a minefield. He didn't have to go that far: only to a little room over the dance hall.