"I know I'm sure, and I'll make sure you're sure," Greg Cutler
assured his comrade. "Trust me, it's well worth the money." He
smiled and shook his head at a pair of young Thai women offering
their bodies in broken English and an old man offering tourist
trinkets with silent hand gestures.
"Money's not the issue," Bettmann informed the other as they
rounded a comer into an even narrower and filthier side street. "How
old are these girls?"
"Old enough to know what they're doin', Bud." Cutler rapped on a
steel-banded wooden door. "In here."
A steel eyehole opened and shut very briefly, and then the two
Americans were out of the filth of the street and in the magnificent
opulence of an upscale "massage parlor." A stooped porter with a
long, gray beard closed the door behind the two new arrivals with
speed surprising for a man his age, then relocked the door and
reseated himself on a stool beside it. The madam of the
establishment entered the foyer from the adjacent parlor and
greeted Cutler by a false surname in thickly-accented English, then
welcomed Bettmann by his own false name after he was introduced
by it.
"Would you gentlemen like a drink beforehand? If not, I
believe both of your girls are ready and waiting."
Cutler and Bettmann glanced at one another, before Cutler
replied with, "I think we're ready."
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