"No, she's out."

     "Okay, maybe we'll get a burger and coffee at Buffalo's. I just got paid, so it's on me."

     "Sounds good."

     "Ever hear of the Paris sisters?"

     "Yeah, everybody has. You know them?"

     "I'm makin' the delivery to their house. I been tryin' to get up the nerve to ask Turquoise Paris to go out with me for two years."

     "Are they really so good looking?"

     "I'd give anything to spend one day with Turquoise, to have one day's worth of her beauty."

     "What about the other one?"

     "Princessa? She's almost eighteen, four years younger than Turquoise. I only saw her once, at the Granada on a Saturday. She's a knockout, too."

     Gus cranked up the blower in the Dodge. The sky was clear black but the temperature was almost zero. The radiator in my room didn't work very well; I knew I would have to sleep with a couple of sweaters on to stay warm. Argo parked in front of the Paris house and got out.

     "Come in with me," he said. "You can carry one of the boxes."

     Princessa opened the front door. She was almost my height, slender and small-breasted. Her lustrous chestnut hair hung practically to her waist. Once I was inside, in the light, I took a good look at her face. She reminded me of Hedy Lamarr in Algiers, wearing an expression that warned a man: If you don't take care of me, someone else certainly will. Princessa's complexion was porcelain smooth; I'd never before seen skin that looked so clean.