Mitchell glanced over at the girls, not wanting to stare at them. "How long she worked here?"

"About a week is all. Her and Mary Lou just started."

"What about the other one there?" Mitchell said.

"Peggy? Yeah, Peggy's been here maybe a couple of months."

"I'll take her."

"Nice goodies," Leo Frank said. "Peggy might have a little extra going, if you know what I mean."

Mitchell paid the fifteen dollars and walked over to the girl, not looking at the other two. All three of them were watching him now. He said, "Peggy?" The girl took her time getting up. Mitchell waited. She walked past him toward the hallway. Mitchell followed, feeling his age and the two girls watching him.

Leo Frank swiveled around in his chair, putting his back to the two girls across the room. He picked up the telephone and dialed a number. When a voice answered, Leo Frank said, "He's here… Who the fuck do you think I mean? The guy. He's here."

The girl stared directly at Mitchell as she unbuttoned her shirt and took it off. For several moments she stood there, bare to the waist, before she said, "You don't happen to be a cop, do you?"

Mitchell said, "I thought it was legal."

"It is," the girl said. "I was just wondering."

"Do I look like a cop?" He was thinking that probably he did. On the force twenty years. The vice squad.

She said, "You can't tell anymore," unzipping her slacks now and stepping out of them. She wore bikini panties. "Some of them, vice and narcos, they got long hair, mustaches, even beards. There ought to be a law they have to wear their uniforms at all times."

"I'm not a cop," Mitchell said. "I just like to look at bare-naked ladies."

"That's all you do, just look?"

"That's what the sign says."

"Would you be interested in something else?" She hooked her thumbs in the panties, like a cowboy, giving him a hip-cocked pose. "Well, would you? I'm not going to come out and say it, that's called soliciting. But I imagine you get the general idea."