"I'll make love if you want to."
"Boy, you really sound enthusiastic," Tobin said. "Maybe it would help me."
They were in his cabin in the darkness and in his bed.
"Medicinal purposes, eh?" Tobin said. "You don't have to be sarcastic."
"Maybe it isn't such a good idea."
"Don't you like me anymore?"
"It isn't that."
"Then what is it?"
"It's just all so goddamned confusing. The killings, and you not sleeping with me because you respect me too much, and why the 'Celebrity' people won't help Captain Hackett find out what's going on."
She nuzzled him and he responded but something kept him back.
"Maybe we'd both feel better," she said.
"I thought you respected me so much."
"I just feel so lost and so lonely. I wish I were back in Kansas City and Aberdeen and I were going shopping."
"All right," he said. "I'll do it."
She sort of thumped him. "Gee, you sound like you're doing me some kind of favor or something. Nobody's ever sounded like that with me before."
Tobin said, "We're both doing each other a favor. That's how you've got to look at it.”
Just before they went to sleep, half an hour later, Cindy said, "You know, two weeks ago I would have paid money to just hang around real celebrities. But now I don't know."
Tobin sort of muttered a response. Then he heard the echoes of what she said and he thought of what the woman he'd danced with earlier that night-the Wicked Witch of the West-had said about paying money just to be a part of "Celebrity Circle."
Tobin said, "I've got it."
"What?"
"'Payday.' "
"What?"
"'Payday.' I think I figured it out."
"Well, I'm real happy for you."
"What're you so mad about?"
"We get done and you roll over and you don't say anything."
"Like what?"
"Like how much you enjoyed it?"
"I did enjoy it. Did you?"
Apparently she was in a mood to pay him back. All she said was, "Sort of, I guess."
Then she turned over and in two minutes was snoring softly.
Or maybe was faking snoring softly. With Cindy you couldn't be sure.
But all Tobin could really concentrate on anyway was "payday."
In the morning he planned to confront one of the remaining celebrities with what he'd figured out.
The $10,000 Snoop was going to pay him glowed a vivid green in his dreams.