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"You always this nice?"
"Inside there? Yes."
Valentine accepted the glass and took a mouthful. He spat it into the alley, then drank the rest.
"Better," he said, handing it back to her.
"Is the air helping?"
"Yes. Sorry I'm not conversational. I need sleep."
He couldn't take his eyes from the shadowy vertical line between her breasts. Her chest was lovely, dark, and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go ...
She put a hand on his forearm and drew it from the Dumpster. "My room's just around the corner. We could go up the back stairs."
"Nice of you, but I just need to sleep." If anything, she was more desirable in the muted light of the alley, every turning curve of skin a promise.
"Fine with me, Colonel. If I'm with you, I don't have to make nice in there."
Valentine looked at her, wondering if this was yet another Kurian Zone test or trap. What the hell.
"Lead on," he said, holding out his hand.
She took him down the alley and around the corner to the back of the Blue Dome. They went up a wooden stairway, the timbers of which were bolted onto the building like an afterthought. She walked him down a long common balcony.
"Yes, oh man, oh baby, oh my, yes, do it!" A female voice drifted through one of the windows.
"I prefer 'yes, do it, oh my, oh baby, yes," myself," RC said, turning a knob on a windowless door.
"She gets good marks for volume," Valentine said.
"You wouldn't say that if you lived next to her."
It wasn't so much a room as it was a long closet. There was a double bed, with a single mounted above in such a way that it formed a half-canopy, a table, two closets ...
"And a John, for the Johns," she said, opening a narrow door. "There's even a shower. If we want a bath, there's a tub down the hall."
"You share the room?"
RC removed her shoes, frowning. "A dancer. Her name's Melanie. If the deadbolt's closed, she knows not to come in. There's a mattress in their dressing room, so she can sleep there tonight."
Valentine collapsed on the double bed, focusing on the ticking pattern on the mattress.
"Bedspins?" RC said, sitting down beside him.
"No. Just really, really, tired."
"Why's your gun off safety?" she asked, examining the gun he'd dropped beside him.
"Old habit, when I sleep in a strange place."
"Tricky with a .45. Don't worry, you're safe. The scuzzies might hit the boats, or the warehouses across the river. Never here."
"I see. You know your guns."
"Basic training starts at eleven for a girl in Dallas. The boys start at eight."
"Louisiana starts at fifteen."
