Her jaunty, elbow-length chinchilla cape lay on the wet table. Her exquisitely simple strapless dinner dress of silver lamé exposed arms and shoulders that were literally out of this world. The naked effect was relieved only by a diamond, platinum, and emerald choker. Jerry knew, though the racetrack tout probably didn't, that the priceless bauble was Repositor—synthesized, with an Earth museum piece as a model.
It was a tossup whether the race track tout was more interested in the diamonds or the tempting flesh they adorned. The girl made no attempt to fight him off. The reason for her acquiescence was not far to seek. The glass before her contained the remains of a "Pink Lady," which tastes like an ice-cream soda and kicks like four Kentucky mules.
She moved her left hand to pick up the glass, and Jerry caught the flash of a circlet of channel-set baguette diamonds on the third finger. He concluded that she was the wife of the whiskey baritone. That worthy seemed utterly unconcerned about the whole thing, so why should Jerry interfere?
The racetrack tout left his conquest momentarily, walked over to the bar, handed the bartender a five-spot. Without comment, the bartender took down a key tagged 13 from a hook, and the turf expert pocketed it. There was a dingy sign reading "Hotel" outside; Jerry had always supposed the floors above contained equally dingy furnished rooms.
The beautiful tourist's silver heels mounted the back stairs unsteadily. The tout was half steering her, half supporting her. The man was sober enough to know exactly what he was doing. When she came back down those stairs, she would be minus not only her virtue, but her diamond necklace as well.
"Oh, he knew the world was round-o, that sailors could be found-o," the whiskey baritone sang lustily.
Jerry left the saloon with a bad taste in his mouth. As he passed through the electric-eye doorway of his office suite, he had the impression that the too perfect inhabitants of all the color advertising pages he had turned out in past years had suddenly come to life. Handsome tourists were moving, in chattering groups, from one display case to another.