Rune wrinkled her nose. "Tastes like Duz."
"Hey, I'm talking single-malt, aged twenty-one years."
"Old soap isn't any better than new soap."
"Well, just name your poison. Bourbon? Beer?"
Rune stared at the woman's hair. "A martini." It was the first thing that came into her mind.
Traub said, "Two martinis. Chop-chop."
The blonde wrinkled her tiny nose. "I'm not, like, a waitress."
"That's true," Traub said to Rune, who had apparently joined his audience. "She's not like a waitress at all. Waitresses are smart and efficient and they don't sleep until noon." He turned back to the woman. "What you're like is a lazy slut."
She stiffened. "Hey--"
He barked, "Just get the fucking drinks."
Rune shifted. "That's okay. I don't--"
Traub gave her a cool smile, the creases cut deep into his face. "You're a guest. It's no problem."
The blonde twisted her face in anemic protest and shuffled off to the kitchen. She muttered a few words Rune couldn't hear.
Traub's smile fell. He called, "You say something?"
But the woman was gone.
He turned back to Rune. "You buy them dinner, you buy them presents, you bring them home. They still don't behave."
Rune said coldly, "People just don't read Emily Post anymore."
He missed the dig completely. "You mean like the flier? Wasn't she the one tried to fly around the world? I did a movie about an airplane once. We called it Love Plane. Sort of a takeoff on The Love Boat--I loved that show, you ever see it? No? We rented a charter 737 for the day. Fucking expensive and a pain in the ass to shoot in. I mean, we're in this hangar in March, everybody's turning blue. You don't realize how small a plane is until you try to get three, four couples spread out on the seats. I'm talking wide-angle lenses. I mean, almost fish-eyes. Didn't work out too good. It looked like all the guys had dicks about an inch long and three inches wide."
The blonde returned. Rune said to Traub, "My film. Will you help me out? Please. Just a few minutes about Shelly."
He was hesitating. The blonde handed out the drinks and put an unopened jar of olives on the thick glass coffee table. Traub started to grimace. She turned to him and looked like she was going to cry. "I couldn't get it open!"
Traub's face softened. He rolled his eyes. "Hey, hey, honey, come here. Gimme a hug. Come on."
She hesitated and then bent down. He kissed her cheek.
"You got any?" she whined.
"Say please."
"Come on, Danny."
"Please," he prompted.
She said, "Please."
He fished into his pants pocket, then handed her the saltshaker--filled with coke, Rune assumed. She took it, then walked sullenly off.
She hadn't said one word to Rune, who asked Traub, "She's an actress?"
"Uh-huh. She wants to be a model. So does everyone else in this city. She'll make some movies for us. Get married, get divorced, have a breakdown, get married again and it'll take and she'll be out in Jersey in ten years, working for AT&T or Ciba-Geigy."