James Conway: In Cold Blonde

She was hot.

A California girl, with long blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, emerald green eyes and lips bathed in Revlon’s Raspberry Mousse. The dress was by Calvin Klein, bright red, notice me red. It clung to her skin, served up the swell of her breasts, stopped at the top of her muscled thighs. Too short for most women, it looked perfect on her. Her long tanned legs curved down to a pair of Manolo Blahnik fuck-me pumps, her toes were painted to match her lips. And she had something else, attitude. She walked in long, confident strides, almost a swagger. She was on the prowl and tonight, this bar was her jungle.

If you’d glanced at your watch when she walked into Havoc, L.A.’s hottest body exchange, the little hand would have been on the one and the big hand just past the six; 1:32 a.m. to be exact.

Late, so the herd was cut by now, most everyone paired off and flirting. I say most everyone because one of the universe’s absolute truths is that there are always more single guys in a bar than single girls. And tonight’s loser was Colin Wood. He’d gotten to Havoc late, about 1:15, after all the available nubiles were taken. Frustrated, he’d ordered a Jack on the rocks, figuring he’d down it quickly and head home. He’d been working late, stuck on location in Redondo Beach, shooting in an abandoned power plant. Colin was an actor. Not a star, but a working actor; tall, handsome in a John Cusack sort of way, getting eight to ten jobs a year. Enough to pull down about 150 G’s, including residuals. Enough to get recognized every so often, though no one could ever place his name. Enough to usually get him laid when he went clubbing. But not tonight; tonight he was too late. Frustrated, he finished his drink, dropped some money on the bar and turned to the door. And that’s when she walked in.

Heads swiveled as she crossed the room, some drawn by her beauty, others just sensing her, well, sex. Colin could almost feel the regret as a lot of the now occupied guys reconsidered their hastily chosen partners. And to Colin’s delight, she moved down the bar and took the stool next to him. “London or Paris?” he asked.

“Excuse me?” Daisy, Gatsby’s wet dream, might have had a voice that was full of money; this babe’s smoky timber sizzled sex.

“For our honeymoon. London or Paris?”

She actually smiled. “Does that line ever work?”

“No. But there’s a first time for everything.”

She appraised him slowly. Her green eyes drinking in his tousled brown hair, hazel eyes, freckled nose, dimpled chin. “Too hunky for a real job,” she said. “Model or actor?”

“Brain surgeon.”

An appreciative smile. “Too quick for a model. That means actor.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“For breeding, probably not, but most actors are shallow, self-absorbed egomaniacs who think an intelligent conversation starts and ends with me, me, me.”

“Then, let’s focus on the breeding part.”

She laughed, and then she cocked her head to the side, tucked her chin into the palm of her right hand and said, “Okay.”

“Okay, what?”

“Let’s focus on the breeding part.”

Yikes, Colin thought. Does she mean what I think she means? “Do you mean what I think you mean?” he asked.

She leaned forward and kissed him. Her tongue darted into his mouth, did a quick, tantalizing tango with his tongue, then slipped out again. “You got a car?”

“In the lot out back.”

“Let me guess, Porsche?”

“Guilty.”

She put her hand on his crotch and squeezed gently. She felt him stiffen through his jeans. “Stick shift?” she whispered.

“Yes,” he answered thickly.

“Vroom. Vroom…”

They walked out of the club hand in hand. The Lady in Red leaned against him, her hip touching his hip, her thigh brushing against his thigh. He could smell flowers in her hair and Chanel on her skin. “I live nearby,” Colin said. “A couple of miles up on Crescent.”

“Perfect,” she purred as he opened the door for her. She got in, sighed happily, her fingers relishing the hand-stitched leather. As Colin got in she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him again. Nothing playful this time; the kiss was pure lust. Her hand was back in his lap, rubbing his cock. His right hand went to her breasts, rubbing them through her dress. Real tits, he thought, thrilled. She even has real tits!

She moaned, took his left hand, put it under her dress, on her panties. He rubbed her mound, his finger searching, finding her clitoris. That brought a grateful groan and her right hand went to work on his belt, unfastening it. Colin lifted up and she slipped down his jeans.

Jesus Christ, Colin thought. This babe is unbelievable. She wants to do it right here, in this tiny fucking car. He pulled away from her voracious kiss. “Unless you work for Cirque du Soleil,” he said, “we should wait ’til we get to my house.”

“Don’t want to wait,” she said, her hand freeing his erect penis from his boxer shorts. “I want you now.” She bent down, taking him in her mouth.

Okay, Colin thought. I can live with that. Now it was his turn to groan with pleasure as he laid his head back on the headrest and closed his eyes.

That’s why he didn’t see the last twenty seconds of his life.

He didn’t see her hand slip into her purse and pull out the Colt Vest Pocket .25 automatic. He did feel the gun as she placed the muzzle under his balls, but he thought it was her finger and she was just kinky. He didn’t see her pull the trigger.

POP. POP. POP.

The first bullet ripped through the sigmoid colon, shredded the small intestine, tore through the stomach and left lobe of the liver, finally severing the esophagus. Bullet two veered a little left, taking out the bladder, the ascending colon and the right lobe of the liver before imbedding itself in the spinal cord. Bullet three soared through the small intestine, took out the gallbladder, pulverized more liver, punched a hole in the diaphragm and did a victory dance in the right ventricle of the heart.

The lady in red leaned back in her seat, watching the little jerks and spasms his body made even though he was already dead. There was much more blood than she expected, and she was surprised to see he still had his hard-on, though it suddenly started to shrink, like a balloon losing air.

She put the Colt back in her purse, took out a pair of surgical gloves, put them on, and then pulled out a scalpel. She had work to do…

The phone woke Ryan, never a good sign. He opened one eye and looked out the window. Dark. Middle of the night dark. Shit.

He picked up the phone. “Hello.”

“Duty calls, Ryan.” He recognized the voice, his boss, Lieutenant Hanrahan. “Got a very dead body in a very bloody car on the always exciting Sunset Strip.”

Ryan glanced at the clock, three-thirty. Fuck, he thought. Not because of the dead body, he was a homicide cop and it was hard to do his job without the occasional body or two. The fuck was for the hour. He liked his sleep.

Hanrahan coughed, a phlegm-filled hack from someone who gave up smoking twenty years too late. “Parking lot on the corner of Sunset and Martel. Oh, and call Syd, will you?”

Syd was Ryan’s partner. “No problem,” he said and hung up.

The sheets rustled then as a head popped out from under the pillow. Red hair cascaded past green eyes and a million adorable freckles. Syd. “That the bat signal?”

“Shining bright in the evening sky.”

“Cool.” Syd bounced naked from bed and bounded into the bathroom. She looked too young and innocent to be a cop, but Syd’s combination of enthusiasm, street smarts and second- degree black belt more than made up for nature’s disguise. “We’re going to have to stop by my place for a minute so I can change. I can’t very well show up at the crime scene in yesterday’s Donna Karen… unless you’re ready to go public with our relationship.”