with you, that way it was a date and he paid. This movie was a good one, with fighting and kissing and loud music. It was called Raiders of the Lost Ark. Her current date had his hand under her skirt, high up on her bare thigh, but that was all right; a hand wasn’t a prick. She had met him in a bar. She met most of the men she went on dates with in bars. He bought her a drink, but a free drink wasn’t a date; it was just a pickup.
What’s this about? he’d asked her, running the tip of his finger over her upper left arm. She was wearing a sleeveless blouse, so the tattoo showed. She liked the tattoo to show when she was out looking for a date. She wanted men to see it. They thought it was kinky. She had gotten it in San Diego the year after she killed her father.
It’s a snake, she said. A rattler. Don’t you see the fangs?
Of course he did. They were big fangs, out of all proportion to the head. A drop of poison hung from one.
He was a businessman type in an expensive suit, with lots of combed-back presidential hair and the afternoon off from whatever paper-pushing crap he did for work. His hair was mostly white instead of black and he looked about sixty. Close to twice her age. But that didn’t matter to men. He wouldn’t have cared if she was sixteen instead of thirty-two. Or eight. She remembered something her father had said once: If they’re old enough to pee, they’re old enough for me.
Of course I see them, the man who was now sitting beside her had said, but what does it mean?
Maybe you’ll find out, Andi replied. She touched her upper lip with her tongue. I have another tattoo. Somewhere else.
Can I see it?
Maybe. Do you like movies?
He had frowned. What do you mean?
You want to date me, don’t you?
He knew what that meant—or what it was supposed to mean. There were other girls in this place, and when they spoke of dates, they meant one thing. But it was not what Andi meant.
Sure. You’re cute.
Then take me on a date. A real date. Raiders of the Lost Ark is playing at the Rialto.
I was thinking more of that little hotel two blocks down, darlin. A room with a wetbar and a balcony, how does that sound?
She had put her lips close to his ear and let her breasts press against his arm. Maybe later. Take me to the movies first. Pay my way and buy me popcorn. The dark makes me amorous.
And here they were, with Harrison Ford on the screen, big as a skyscraper and snapping a bullwhip in the desert dust. The old guy with the presidential hair had his hand under her skirt but she had a tub of popcorn placed firmly on her lap, making sure he could get most of the way down the third base line but not quite to home plate. He was trying to go higher, which was annoying because she wanted to see the end of the movie and find out what was in the Lost Ark. So . . .
2
At 2 p.m. on a weekday, the movie theater was almost deserted, but three people sat two rows back from Andi Steiner and her date. Two men, one quite old and one appearing on the edge of middle age (but appearances could be deceiving), flanked a woman of startling beauty. Her cheekbones were high, her eyes were gray, her complexion creamy. Her masses of black hair were tied back with a broad velvet ribbon. Usually she wore a hat—an old and battered tophat—but she had left it in her motorhome this day. You didn’t wear a tall topper in a movie theater. Her name was Rose O’Hara, but the nomadic family she traveled with called her Rose the Hat.
The man edging into middle age was Barry Smith. Although one hundred percent Caucasian, he was known in this same family as Barry the Chink, because of his slightly upturned eyes.
“Now watch this,” he said. “It’s interesting.”
“The movie’s interesting,” the old man—Grampa Flick—grunted. But that was just his usual contrariness. He was also watching the couple two rows down.
“It better be interesting,” Rose said, “because the woman’s not all that steamy. A little, but—”
“There she goes, there she goes,” Barry said as Andi leaned over and put her lips to her date’s