“Twenty-two dollars plus tax,” she said, taking a yellow paper card out of a plastic drawer.

“Cash only after ten o’clock.”

I took my vinyl purse out of my coat, counted out twenty-two single bills, and laid them flat on the glass counter, leaving two dollars in my coat pocket.

The clerk looked at the damp stack of bills, then reached under the desk and brought out a brass key attached to a heavy red plastic diamond.

“Room four, around back,” she said, sliding the key across the counter.