Was he one of them or not? Had a straight arrow mistakenly wandered into their midst? That happened occasionally, often with disastrous results.
The roomful of men gauged everything about Johnny Rivkin, from the quality of his expensive but casual clothing and his seasoned California tan to the several gold chains peeking coyly out from under an artfully unbuttoned collar.
Johnny had dressed carefully for the occasion, calculating exactly the kind of impression he wanted to make, but he loathed the unabashed scrutiny of strangers. Unfortunately, in places like the Reardon, that was always the real price of admission.
Eventually, with a collective shrug, the regulars looked away. The inspection was over, and Johnny Rivkin had passed. He belonged.
Relieved, Johnny made his way down the crowded bar.
The only unoccupied stool was halfway down the room next to the only woman in the place. That was too bad. It might give people the wrong idea, drive away some of the most likely prospects. The pickup process was painful enough without people jumping to erroneous conclusions.
He settled onto the bar stool and ordered a Chivas on the rocks, which he paid for out of a good-sized roll of bills.
He didn't like showing that kind of money. Some people said it was dangerous, but at his age, money-lots of it was often the only insurance against ending up alone.
Next to him, the blonde bestirred herself and ordered a whiskey sour.
As soon as she spoke, Johnny realized she was a he in drag, a man almost as old as Johnny himself.
Doing a quick professional evaluation of the blonde's clothing, the costumer almost choked on his drink. The outfit was appalling. The shoes and purse were worse. Rivkin didn't know where or when he'd seen such cheap, ugly stuff. If you're going to go to the trouble of dressing up, he thought, why not put on something decent?
The bartender brought the whiskey sour, and the blonde paid for it, pocketing every penny of change. Johnny Rivkin felt a faint tweak of sympathy. He still hadn't forgotten his own impoverished early days.
The blonde was someone for whom money, or the lack of it, was a major issue. You had to feel Pretty damned poor to stiff the bartender out of his tip.
Maybe abject poverty explained the awful clothing as well.
Sipping his drink, the blonde stared straight ahead toward the ranked bottles standing at attention behind the bar. There was an almost palpable sadness about the drag queen, a loneliness and despair that matched Rivkin's own and touched a chord of sympathy in him.
Johnny had never been a particularly good conversationalist where strangers were concerned. He didn't mind being in groups of people he knew, -but with strangers, instead of talking, he froze up and contented himself with making Up imaginary scenarios about the people around him.
Now, he found himself wondering if the blonde, like him, hadn't been recently thrown out of a long-term relationship with nothing more than the clothes on his/her back. Johnny knew how that felt. It wasn't any picnic.
'Mind if I smoke?' Rivkin asked.
The blonde looked up, seemingly noticing Johnny for the first time.
'No. Go right ahead.'
Johnny opened his gold cigarette case, took out a cigarette, and offered one to the blonde. 'Thanks,' she said, taking it. 'Am you new to town?'
'Just passing through, really,' Johnny answered. 'I'm working on that new Hal Wilson film. We've been on location in Sonoita all week. That place is a hellhole.'
Dropping Hal Wilson's name didn't seem to have any visible effect.
Maybe the blonde wasn't into films.
Johnny polished off his drink, probably sooner than he should have, but being in a dump like the Reardon made him nervous. He wanted to make a connection and get the hell out of there.
'May I buy you a drink?' he asked, when the bartender responded to his signal.
'Sure,' the blonde said without enthusiasm. 'That would be nice.'
Johnny believed in his intuition, in his ability to read other people.
He decided in this instance to put it to the test.
'If you don't mind my saying so, you look like you just lost your best friend.'
The blonde met Johnny's gaze with a rueful shake of blonde mane. 'It shows that much, does it?'
Johnny raised his glass. 'It takes one to know one.'
'Really. You, too?'
Rivkin nodded. 'After a mere fifteen years.'
'I guess I got off lucky,' the blonde said. 'For me, it was only six.'
'Cleaned you out?'
For the first time, the blonde smiled and then laughed aloud. 'You could say that. I got away clean but broke.'
. Mentally, Johnny patted himself on the back. He had been right all along. He returned the smile over his
