“The first option?”

              “Part of the scam. He gives them a first option, he confesses the boss makes him, it’s not a good option, he shows them why, he gives them a second option, probably even worse. The smarter they are the faster they buy. It takes, this is a quote, the words he lives by, ‘It takes more brains to believe than to lie.’”

              Candy sighs and drinks, puts down the drink and thinks. “I’d try it but,” She opens wide for me to see. “Can’t be sophisticated with my mouth.”

              Some group I can’t remember the name of sings, “Bang Bang! She Shot Me Down!” Strawberry staggers, falls back as if dead, handstands, wraps her heels around the top of the pole, hang-dances spread-armed upside down, skin all flawless sheen, like that luminous Italian Renaissance painting of St. Peter crucified in my college Art History textbook (Caravaggio? I remember it’s the bottom right hand side of the page not the painter). The Beatles sing, “You say goodbye! But I say hello!”

              “You know what he said one morning?” Candy says. “It’s early, nobody’s in but me, he’s letting the neon warm up to not blink so bad, and says ‘Americans hate money. Look what they spend it on.’”

              “You doing him?” I say.

              “Sure.” She looks surprised I’d ask. “The way he pays?”

              Strawberry flexes left breastwork, right breastwork, they swing back and forth like eyes staring warily side to side.

24

  

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