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at NULL.”
    “And now I know. The book is pervert currency.”
    “‘Pervert’ is a real pejorative, you know, Mike.”
    “Hey, I’m from Chicago. In Chicago, perverts are people who don’t finish their whiskey and actually sleep with their wives at night.”
    She gave me a look. “Don’t be too sure.”
    I laughed and polished off my vodka. “What, you want to be my guide to America’s deviant underworld?”
    Trix looked at me deadpan. “What’s the pay?”
    “You’re serious.”
    “Sure I’m serious. You need education in the ways of the modern world or else you are frankly doomed. And I can expand my thesis into something killer. I mean, if you just follow the cold trail in here, you’re going to be traveling coast-to-coast.”
    I studied the bottom of my glass.
    “I am totally serious, Mike.”
    “You don’t even know me, Trix.”
    “Mike, you’ve had five drinks and you haven’t even hinted at trying to jump me. If even half of what you’ve told me about yourself is true, you should’ve turned into the world’s biggest asshole years ago. But you’re sweet and you’re funny and you don’t give up. You know how hard it is, finding someone in this town who’s still determined ?
    “And on top of that, life gets interesting around you, I need to write a killer thesis so I can get out of here and do amazing things, and you really, really need some help here.”
    “This whole ‘you’re doomed, Mike’ thing isn’t doing wonders for me, you know…”
    “Come on, Mike. Let me be your guide to the underworld. Virgil to your Dante.”
    I really, really did not need to hear that line again.
    The bottom of my glass wasn’t getting any less empty.
    She kept looking at me.
    No one had looked at me like I was a ticket to adventure before.
    “A hundred dollars a day, and I’ll cover travel and accommodation.”
    Trix’s mouth fell open.
    “You’re kidding me.”
    “Now I’m the one who’s serious.”
    “Fuck.”
    “A hundred bucks a day, seven days a week until we’re done. Could be a week, could be a month, could be two. Separate rooms, and we’re staying in good places. I’ve got a big expense account, and this is better than me just drinking it all.”
    She leaned back in her chair. “Wow. That is not exactly what I was expecting.”
    I felt like a prick for not giving her more than a hundred a day, to be honest. But then I also felt like a prick for buying the company of a smart pretty girl for a few weeks, so it all evened out.
    This was, in case you were wondering, literally the only smart move I made during this whole thing.

Chapter 6

    I wish I still had that photo.

Chapter 7

    I spent Monday and Tuesday buying clothes and luggage and deciding what to do about the gun. I was damned if I was going to drive across America, and besides, that’d mean I’d have to buy a car. But I knew that just wrapping my gun in the gun license and dropping it in a suitcase wasn’t going to play. So I ended up packing the license and putting the gun in my office safe.
    I considered the gun a professional tool. I’d fired it in anger twice in five years, but if I was honest, I’d have to tell you that I’d threatened people with it more than that.
    Plus, I pistol-whipped a tailor once to gain the trust of a disturbed white boy who believed he contained the soul of Huey P. Newton.
    So it didn’t feel good to lock up the gun. I knew there was no chance I was going to use it, but it took one option out of the toolbox.
    I also had the suspicion, based on nothing at all, that it might freak Trix out a bit.
    She met me outside the hotel around noon on Wednesday. The downtown ninjas were doing their level best to chat her up. Trix was showing them her arm tattoos. The cropped top she was wearing showed that they plainly continued on to her chest, and she was teasing them ruthlessly. Most of the ninja swords showed a 45-degree angle.
    I came out with my one bag, having decided to travel as lightly