- My apartment is just there. Do you want to go up and rape my girlfriend? I'll drug her first.
- Some other time.
- You're not interested?
- Am I supposed to believe you?
- We control this whole street. Tourists think they are in civilization...
- And they go to the strip bar with you and find out how wrong they are.
- How do you know?
- I've been here a long time.
- You have. I remember you. What do you do here?
- Had a wife once from this part of the world.
- What happened to her?
- She's off on her adventures.
- What kind of adventures?
- Something like yours. Except men don't drug her, she drugs them.
- What drug does she use?
- Her beauty.
- Got a picture of her?
- At the hotel.
- Which hotel do you stay at?
- Give the Budapest mafia my address?
- There are many mafias here. Are you sure you're not a criminal?
- Like you?
- I'm a criminal. I admit it. Where are you coming from now? It's after midnight.
- The opera house.
- You go to the opera?
- I have been going all this week. A singer friend gets me in back stage.
- Why?
- Why what?
- Does he let you see the operas for free.
- At home I'm considered a criminal, here I'm considered, I don't know, romantic.
- I thought so! You are a criminal.
- A romantic.
- You don't want to meet my girlfriend?
- No.
- Do you have a girlfriend?
- I did, for a couple of weeks after I arrived.
- How old?
- Nineteen.
- And you are, twenty-five years older?
- Something like that.
- Did you take her to the hotel? Where is it?
- I'm not telling you.
- I like young girls too. Did you pay her?
- No.
- What was the attraction then?
- I'm a romantic character who goes backstage at the opera.
- You're lucky. What happened with the girl?
- She lost interest.
- You should have paid her.
from Beatrix & Rex (a novel)
