"I bet I said it a hundred times," said Betty the Crush. "Someone ask me, girlfriend, what's more fun than stickin' your tits in a fan? I say, what it is, you sit in a car in a alley somewhere? Want to make sure it's a hundred an' ten, want to be sure you got the A/C off. Gotta make sure you got some gnats. Don't get a date goin' to take you out to dinner somewhere. Get some fucker won't let you do nothin', won't even let you smoke. Fucker don't want to be touching your parts, sure don't want you touching his. Man, that is what I call fun."
"Will you hush?" Asher said. "We're not going to be here long, just try and hold it down."
"That's what you saying last night."
"All right."
"Night before that..."
"Well I am saying it again, all right? You gotta understand this here is official business, hon. Business isn't fun. Most of the time, business is stuff like this."
"Maybe your business isn't. Mine is."
Betty crossed her legs, a motion that sounded like satin and silk, like a whisper, like a sigh. Avery Asher felt a chill. She could do that to him, shake him up at will. Anytime she moved, anytime she caught his eye, Avery felt he was eighty years old, either that or twenty-one.
He was truly smitten, taken with her charms. Betty was the fever in his soul; Betty was his passion and desire. And, if he died, if he croaked, in the fury of her love sometime, that was just fine, that was how he'd like to go.
The only thing he wished she wouldn't do, something that she did without meaning any harm, was remind him that she did enjoy the business she was in. Even though Asher wasn't paying anymore—they'd gotten past that—she still had a horde, a throng, a multitude, of clients eager to test their mettle against the legend of Betty the Crush.
"What the hell the matter with you?" Betty said, the one time he'd dared to bring it up. "Business is business. My social life is somethin' else."
Asher knew he could never see it like that, not the way he loved her, not the way he cared. Still, he never brought it up again, and kept his misery to himself.
"You could tell me what we're doing here, hon. Long as we got to do it, don't see the harm in that."
"I told you," Asher said, "If I knew, then I would. I don't know if it's anything at all."
"Uhuh. We're sweatin' like pigs, you don't know why."
"That's right."
"Can't even have a cigarette, keep the bugs off."
"I'd like to have one too."
"You got any problem with a mint?"
"With a what?"
"Can I eat a Lifesaver, hon? I got half a pack here. Isn't any New York Strip comes out on a iron plate, sizzlin' with butter on top. Boy comes around says 'you care for fresh ground pepper, ma'am? You want some hot bread?' Know I'm not about to get that, sittin' out here in your fuckin' sweat lodge, so I'm thinking mint. I'm partial to the cherry and the orange. I'd save the limes for you. If that isn't breakin' any rules, babe."
"Thanks," Asher said, "that helps, that really helps a lot."
Betty sighed. "I'm sorry, love, I keep forgetting myself. I'm not a law enforcement officer, I haven't had all the training like you. I can't sit around do nothin' all the time."
"Just try. I promise we'll go in a while, just try."
Betty tried. She was still for a minute and a half. "You want me to do something, babe? Something maybe ease your tension, take off the strain? At the same time keepin' real quiet, you don't have to get up or do a thing..."
"Jesus, Betty!"
He slapped at his leg like a bug was in his pants. His pulse shot up to one-twenty-two.
"You know I can't do that and do something else too. Two things at once, that doesn't work for me."
"Works for me, hon."
"Well I'm not you. I'm just a plain of—" Asher stopped, squeezed her hand and let it go. "Goddamn, what's that?"
Something moved by the big pecan tree, the one at the side of the house. Moved, slid out of sight. In spite of the bright lights Dreamer had ringed around the house, whoever was there managed to stay under cover somehow. Whoever was there was damn good. Avery Asher had only caught a piece of him twice.
"Stay here," Asher said, "stay cool and don't get out."
Betty stared, nodded 'okay.' She didn't have anything to say this time.
Asher got his Sig-Sauer from under the seat and slipped out of the car. The door lights were permanently taped, he never had to think about that.
He squatted low and started through the trees. It was times like this when he knew he was truly getting old. This, and other combat situations, like a nooner with Betty, or the special at Juan's.
Asher waited, Asher didn't move. Whoever was there was good at waiting too. The intruder had the advantage. Somehow, he'd managed to get very close to the house without being spotted, slipping through the harsh cone of lights. Asher had to stay where he was, hidden in the dark at the back of the yard. If he stood up now, the prowler would spot him. A goddamn overweight deer, standing in the middle of the road. And half a second after that—
"Shit! " Asher gave a start, like the man had somehow looked inside his head, listened to his thoughts. Something went phhhht! phhhht! phhhht! quick as that, and Asher knew at once what it was. He had a suppressor just like it himself. The soft sound of glass followed that. Then all three lights at the back of the house went out, leaving Asher, and whoever else was there, in the tree-shrouded dark...