'What's that mean?

'Anybody sleeping, you make them move. Friendly way. Hooker working there, you say hello, tell joke, make her move.

'I'm scared of those old girls, Rydell said, deadpan. 'Christmastime, they dress up like Santa's elves.

'No hooker in front of Lucky Dragon.

''Sensitive to local culture'?

'Tell joke. Hooker like joke.

'Maybe in Singapore, Durius had said, when Rydell had recounted Park's instructions.

'He's not from Singapore, Rydell had said. 'He's from Korea.

'So basically they want us to show ourselves, clear the sidewalk back a few yards, be friendly and sensitive?

'And tell joke.

Durius squinted. 'You know what kinda people hang in front of a convenience store on Sunset, four in the morning? Kids on dancer, tweaked off their dimes, hallucinating monster movies. Guess who gets to be the monster? Plus there's your more mature sociopaths: older, more complicated, polypharmic.

'Say what?

'Mix their shit, Durius said. 'Get lateral.

'Gotta be done. Man says.

Durius looked at Rydell. 'You first. He was from Compton, and the only person Rydell knew who had actually been born in Los Angeles.

'You're bigger.

'Size ain't everything.

'Sure, Rydell had said.

* * *

ALL that summer Rydell and Durius had been night security at the Lucky Dragon, a purpose-built module that had been coptered into this former car-rental lot on the Strip. Before that, Rydell had been night security at the Chateau, just up the Street, and before that he'd driven a wagon for IntenSecure. Still farther back, briefly and he tried not to think about it too often, he'd been a police officer in Knoxville, Tennessee. Somewhere in there, twice, he'd almost made the cut for Cons in Trouble, a show he'd grown up on but now managed never to watch.