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She looked around and found nothing special about the room she was in. A single bed, a table, a chair, and a stack of old newspapers and magazines piled high in a corner. It all looked a little shabby. There was dust on the hardwood floor, and the curtains were a drab olive green. Yuck. Whoever the interior decorator had been clearly had no taste.

She got up from the bed, then plunked down again, as a wave of nausea immediately washed over her.“Darn hangover,” she said. After her head had settled a little, she gave sitting up another shot. She finally managed to get up without falling over, and went to the window to look out. Someone had boarded the window shut, but she could still look through a crack. It looked pretty green out there. So where the heck was she?

She proceeded to the door, but when she tried to open it, found that it was locked. She frowned to herself, and suddenly bits and pieces of last night’s revels drifted back into her memory. Partying hard with the girls, then she’d set off along the road home, and then what? Try as she might, she simply couldn’t recall. But clearly she must have arrived here at some point. But how? And why? Suddenly a key turned in the lock, and the door swung open. Much to her surprise, a very large man stood before her, clad in black jeans and a black turtleneck sweater. His face was obscured by a mask, and he carried a tray, which he proceeded to plunk down on the table, then grunted, “Eat up before it gets cold, princess.”

And before she had a chance to respond, he was already returning to the door.

“Hey, wait,” she said as he made to close the door. “What’s going on? Where am I?”

He chuckled lightly.“Don’t worry your pretty little head about that. Just sit tight, and eat your food.” He slammed the door shut again, and turned the key in the lock.

She sank back down on the bed, and realized how this looked.

Had she been… abducted?

15

When Tex arrived at the senior center, he fully expected to find a bunch of tables set up where old folks were playing cards, but instead he found the main room devoid of local inhabitants. With a frown, he walked on through, in search of the two men he wanted to have speech with. And he finally found them in a backroom of the center, where they were teaching a class of tango to a dozen or so eager learners—all of them women!

Dick Bernstein and Rock Horowitz could have been brothers: both were handsome men in their seventies. But what set them apart from the other members of their age group were their perfectly preserved full heads of hair. Granted, those hairs had turned a vivid white, as Tex’s own hair had done, but at least they still had all of it.

Tex took a seat at the edge of the dance floor, and watched how first Rock, then Dick glided across that floor, a lucky dame in their arms, and tangoed as if they were born Argentinians. Amazing was one of the words that came to mind as he watched the spectacle. The other word was one he wouldn’t have said out loud, and probably stemmed from a deep-seated jealousy that suddenly manifested itself. Why was it that some men seemed to have it all? As far as he knew, neither Dick nor Rock had lived a healthy lifestyle. Instead they’d drunk, gambled, taken illegal substances, and had flitted from girlfriend to girlfriend like butterflies from flower to flower, sampling all the nectar they could find.

Finally Dick noticed the doctor’s addition to the audience, and graciously thanked his dance partner for the dance, then came over to take a seat next to Tex. The man wasn’t sweating, Tex saw to his consternation—he wasn’t even panting from the exertion!

“Hey, Doc,” said Dick as he reached for his back pocket and took out the pack of cigarettes he kept there, then placed it on the next chair for later consumption. He settled himself in for the long haul, immediately assuming that manspreading posture your regular subway traveler abhors so much.“So you’re interested to learn to tango, huh?”

“No, thanks,” said Tex. “I am actually here to ask you something, Dick.”

“Sure—shoot.”

“This may sound a little weird, but…”

The other man cocked a quizzical eyebrow.“Yes?”

“Well… I was just wondering how, in spite of your age, you manage to—”

“Viagra,” said Dick immediately. “Though I should probably take it easy on the little blue pills. Not good for the old blood pressure. But then I don’t have to tell you, Doc.”

“I wasn’t referring to Viagra, Dick,” said Tex, with perhaps less warmth than a doctor is supposed to award a loyal patient. “I was actually referring to your hair.”

“My hair?”

“The thing is that I think I’m going bald, and so I was wondering if perhaps you’d like to share the secret of that amazing crop of hair of yours.”

Dick burst into loud laughter at this, causing the unreasonable resentment Tex experienced toward the other man to spike.

“Oh, for crying out loud, just tell me how you do it, Dick. You and Rock, both.”