"Not yet. I was born on the ninth day of the ninth month of the ninth year of the ninth decade. Can you handle it?"
"Woo woo! What a terrific combo! I can try... and if I can't, I won't sell you anything." She dug through her piles and strings of paper, humming to herself. She ducked her head under the counter, stayed awhile.
She reappeared, red-faced and triumphant, clutching a lottery ticket. "Got it! Look at it, mister! Give a respectful gander."
We looked: 8109999
"I'm impressed," Georges said.
"Impressed? You're rich. There's your four nines. Now add the odd digits. Nine again. Divide that into the odd digits. Another nine. Add the last four-thirty-six. That's nine squared, for two more nines, making another four nines. Add all up at once and it's five nines. Take away the sum and you have four nines again. No matter what you do, you always keep getting your own birthday. What do you want, mister? Dancing girls?"
"How much do I owe you?"
"That's a pretty special number. You can have any other number on the rack for twenty bruins. But that one- Why don't you just keep piling money in front of me until I smile?"
"That seems fair. Then if you don't smile when I think you should, I'll pick up the money and walk away. No?"
"I may call you back."
"No. If you won't offer me a fixed price, I won't let you spar around about it after I've made a fair offer."
"You're a tough customer, sport. I-"
Speakers on all sides of us suddenly started blasting "Hail to the Chief," followed by "The Golden Bear Forever." The young woman shouted, "Wait! Over soon!" A crowd of people came in from outside, walked straight through the rotunda, and on down the main corridor. I spotted the eagle-feather headdress sticking up in the middle of the clump but this time the Chief Confederate was so tightly surrounded by his parasites that an assassin would have a hard time hitting him.
As it became possible to hear again the lottery saleswoman said, "That was a short one. Less than fifteen minutes ago he went through here heading out. If he was just going down to the corner for a pack of tokes, whyn't he send somebody instead of going hisself? Bad for business, all that noise. Well, sport, have you figured out how much you'll pay to get rich?"
"But yes." Georges took out a three-dollar bill, laid it on the counter. He looked at the woman.
They locked gazes for about twenty seconds, then she said glumly, "I'm smiling. I guess I am." She picked up the money with one hand, handed Georges the lottery ticket with the other. "I bet I could have sweated you out of another dollar."
"We'll never know, will we?" "Cut for double or nothing?"
"With your cards?" Georges asked gently.
"Sport, you'll make an old woman out of me. Be elsewhere before I change my mind."
"Rest room?"
"Down the corridor on my left." She added, "Don't miss the drawing."
As we walked toward the rest room Georges told me quietly in French that gendarmes had passed behind us while we were dickering, had gone into the rest room, come out, back into the rotunda, and down the main corridor.
I cut him off, speaking also in French-telling him that I knew but this place must be filled with Eyes, Ears-talk later.
I was not snubbing him. Two uniformed guards-not the two with stomach problems-had come in almost on our heels, hurried past us, checked the rest room first-reasonable; an amateur often tries to hide in a public rest room-had come out and hurried past us, then deep into the Palace. Georges had quietly shopped for lottery tickets while guards looking for us had brushed past him, twice. Admirable. Quite professional.
But I had to wait to tell him so. There was a person of indeterminate sex selling tickets to the rest room. I asked her(him) where the powder room was. She (I decided on "she" when closer observation showed that her T-shirt covered either falsies or small milk glands)-she answered scornfully, "You some kind of a nut? Trying to discriminate, huh? I ought to send for a cop." Then she looked at me more closely. "You're a foreigner."
I admitted it.
"Okay. Just don't talk that way; people don't like it. We're democratic here, see?-setters and pointers use the same fireplug. So buy a ticket or quit blocking the turnstyle."
Georges bought us two tickets. We went in.
On our right was a row of open stalls. Above them floated a holo:
THESE FACILITIES ARE PROVIDED FREE FOR YOUR HEALTH AND COMFORT BY THE CALIFORNIA CONFEDERACY-JOHN "WARWHOOP" TUMBRIL, CHIEF CONFEDERATE.
A life-size holo of the Chief floated above it.
Beyond the open stalls were pay stalls with doors; beyond these were doorways fully closed with drapes. On our left was a news-and-notions stand presided over by a person of very determined sex, bull dyke. Georges paused there and surprised me by buying several cosmetics and a flacon of cheap perfume. Then he asked for a ticket to one of the dressing rooms at the far end.
"One ticket?" She looked at him sharply. Georges nodded agreement. She pursed her lips. "Naughty, naughty. No hanky-panky, stud."
Georges did not answer. A BnitCan dollar passed from his hand to hers, vanished. She said very softly, "Don't take too long. If I buzz the buzzer, get decent fast. Number seven, far right."
We went to number seven, the farthest dressing room, and entered. Georges closed the drapes, zipped them tight, flushed the water closet, then turned on the cold water and left it running. Speaking again in French, he told me that we were about to change our appearance without using disguises, so, please, my dear, get out of the clothes you are weaning and put on that suit you have in your jumpbag.
He explained in more detail, mixing French and English and continuing to flush the commode from time to time. I was to wear that scandalous Superskin job, more makeup than I usually do, and was to attempt to look like the famous Whore of Babylon or equivalent. "I know that's not your métier, dear girl, but try."
"I will attempt to be 'adequate.'
"Ouch!"
"And you plan to wear Janet's clothes? I don't think they'll fit."
"No, no, I shan't drag. Just swish."
"Excuse me?"
"I won't dress in women's clothes; I will simply endeavour to appear effeminate."
"I don't believe it. All night, let's try."
We didn't do much to me-just that one-piece job with the wet look that had hooked Ian, plus more makeup than I am used to, applied by Georges (he seemed to feel that he knew more about it than I did-he felt that way because he did), plus-once we were outside-that here-it-is-come-and-get-it walk.
Georges used on himself rather more makeup than he had put on me, plus that vile perfume (which he did not ask me to wear), plus at his neck a shocking-orange scarf I had been using-as a belt. He had me fluff his hair and spray it so that it stayed bouffant. That was all... plus a change in manner. He still looked like Georges-but he did not seem like the virile buck who had so wonderfully worn me out the night before.
I repacked my jumpbag and we left. The old moose at the newsstand widened her eyes and caught her breath when she saw me. But she said nothing as a man who had been leaning against the stand straightened up, pointed a finger at Georges, and said, "You. The Chief wants you." Then he added, almost to himself, "I don't believe it."
Georges stopped and gestured helplessly with both hands. "Oh, dean me! Surely there has been some mistake?"
The flunky bit a toothpick he had been sucking and answered, "I think so, too, citizen-but I ain't going to say so and neither are you. Come along. Not you, sister."
Georges said, "I positively am not going anywhere without my dean sister! So there!"
That cow said, "Morrie, she can wait here. Sweetie, come around behind here with me and sit down."