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where they ate toads, rats, insects, and buffalo placenta. She had grown up living from the land, and now she had entered adulthood selling what the land had given her.
    “Have I seen you before?” she asked.
    “No, I would have remembered,” he replied in the local tongue.
    “You speak well,” she said , not needing to add, “for a foreigner.”  She was beautiful an exotic animal and she was flirting with him. He wanted to stop the game but he couldn’t, so he just sat there and let it evolve. It was the cigarette. The train. He knew she played the same routine with all the Johns and each one thought it was especially for him. The suspension of disbelief, the luring in of the monkey, the game. Softly, softly, slowly, slowly, like a spider on a web.
    “One for me, okay?” She said sitting down on the Detective’s lap. “My name is Kelly. Whiskey coke, please.”
    “Sure,” the Detective nodded toward the bar. “Help yourself.”
    She stood up and returned moments later with a drink in her hand. “You not drink too?” Her accent was adorable.
    “No , I gave up,” The Detective replied in the local language.
    “Really?” she said. She stood up. She tipped her glass upside down and poured the contents onto the floor. “Okay, I give up too.” She smiled. The teeth were almost perfect. Dimples appeared on her cheeks. The volume on the stereo rose. Johnny Cash. Folsom Prison Blues. Kelly stood and began her show. She raised her hands above her head and began to grind her hips in time with the music. The Detective sat and watched. She was dancing in front of him, wanting to be liked, to be loved, to be cured. There was something about this town. He began to understand what it was. He paid the bar a fee to release her. He took her back to his room. He knew it was a mistake, but mistakes were his business. Usually other’s mistakes, but she was different, she was fine, she was twenty- something and she was dancing in front of him.
    She was the most dangerous animal in Fun City.
    She undressed with slow animal movements once the lights were low. She sat on the bed in the lotus position, her arms and legs crossed. The Detective could feel the slight junk withdrawal encouraging him to participate in the oldest game of all. He made a slight movement towards her and she rolled across the bed and stood naked before him. Her body was lean, healthy firm breasts, long slender legs. She turned around and showed the Detective the most incredible artwork he had seen on a human body. From the small of her back, up to her shoulder blades, a delicate yet extravagant piece created, no doubt, by one of the monks at one of the temples. These images were supposed to warn away evil spirits, and he thought for a moment, that perhaps she considered him potentially evil. Tigers danced, dragons spun, spirits half human, half demon climbed across her reaching up to the palace where a wizard with four arms and long cascades of hair stood before a castle atop a mountain, smoke rose from crematoriums inside the castle. An imagined lost city, an astonishing universe, a world designed for the enjoyment of those that sailed her. She turned and sat on the bed without saying a word. He undressed and sat opposite her on the bed. He ran a finger along her cheek. She smiled and dimples appeared on her cheeks. He put one hand behind her head and the other on her thigh. She leaned back and lay on the bed, her legs widened. He began kissing her breasts and then worked his way down to her center. He aroused her young body. She gripped his hair tightly and drove him to her. She turned over and he explored the universe painted on her body.
    It was like cheating death.
    Almost.     
     
     
     
    NINE
     
    “WHERE YOU GOING?” Kelly said.
    The Detective sat up in the bed, realizing that he wasn’t sure where he was going, or if indeed, he had anywhere to go. The question was vague, yet complex. It might have been the single most important