IVIV: Chapter five—Welcome Relief

[Robin Landseadel]

	"Thank you, Mrs. Wolfmann, tequila's just fine-and what a
	welcome relief not to be offered any 'pot'! I'll never understand
	what these hippies see in the stuff! Do you mind if I smoke a
	normal cigarette, by the way?"

Doc does his best to attempt to maintain a "straight" face, replacing  
his prison Kools for some Benson & Hedges menthols, but all this noir  
lighting & suggestive talk  ain't helpin' one little bit. The drinks  
arrive as Doc does his level best to get one of Wolfmann's bank  
account numbers. That "another facility, in Ojai" has to be the  
Chryskylodon.  Sloane whips out the photo to prove it. Like Dolores &  
Mavis, an awful lot of seduction is goin' on here.

	She had stepped over to a small antique desk in the corner,
	bent so as to present to Doc's gaze an unquestionably alluring
	ass, and took some time rummaging through different
	pigeonholes before coming up with another publicity shot of
	herself.

Like Dolores & Mavis,, drinks enter and change the scene.

	. . . Luz came back in with a tray holding a gigantic pitcherful of
	margaritas and some chilled glasses of an exotic shape whose
	only purpose was to make it impossible for the servants to wash
	them without the help of some high-ticket custom dishmop.

Doc sees Riggs reflected in a mammoth TV screen. I love the little  
Frank Sinatra "Strangers in the Night" reference. Doc turns down an  
offer for a drink:
	"Thanks, got to be back in the office. Maybe you can tell us
	where to send this refund, and what form you'd like it in?"

	"Small bills!" boomed Riggs amiably, "with nonconsecutive
	serial numbers!"

	"Riggs, Riggs," Sloane not as grimly as might be expected
	given the possibility, still open, that her husband had been
	kidnapped, "always making with the tasteless jokes ... Perhaps
	if one of your company officers simply endorsed Michael's
	check back to one of his bank accounts?"

	"Of course. Let us know the account number and it's as good as
	in the mail."

	''I'll just go pop in the office for a moment, then?"

The thought of folks giving up their credit card numbers online leaps  
to mind, for some reason . . .