Jane Sullivan - Tall, Dark And Texan

They left the police station. A few minutes later, Wolfe pulled into the parking lot of the Trinity River Thrift Store. He parked the Malibu in a space near the front door, giving Wendy a nice view of the establishment’s dirty sign, dirty windows and dirty neighbors, squashed as it was between an adult video store and a condom shop.

They went inside. The place smelled like a hundred-year-old attic. Shelves were filled with various garage-sale items—lamps, glassware, dishes, bookshelves. Lining the back of the store were minor to major appliances that were not-so-gently used, along with a genuine antique walnut-veneer bedroom suite complete with missing hardware and beer bottle rings. And the clothes. It looked as if every woman in every sleazy trailer park in Texas had cleaned out her closets and donated them to an even bigger charity than herself.

The clerk, a twenty-something woman dressed in a pair of jeans and a too-tight sweater, came out of the back room. She had naturally frizzy but unnaturally blond hair and had clearly been the victim of a recent cosmetics counter explosion.

The woman took one look at Wolfe and stopped short, her mascara-laden eyes slowly widening as her gaze panned upward. Then she glanced at the cash register, as if she was expecting him to haul out a gun and demand all her money. Wendy didn’t blame her. Her first look at Wolfe had been equally overwhelming.

“She needs clothes,” Wolfe told the clerk, nodding toward Wendy. “Something flashy and trashy. You got anything like that?”

The clerk swallowed hard, as if trying to dislodge a boulder from her throat. Finally she pointed to a rack a few feet behind them that was filled with sparkles and spangles. Wolfe strode over, flipped through the clothes and pulled out an animal-print micro-miniskirt. Wendy took it from him, staring at it in disbelief.

“Sorry,” she said. “I can’t wear this. Synthetic leopards are an endangered species.”

“You’re playing a streetwalker, not a high-dollar call girl.”

She held it up, twisting it one direction, then another. “I don’t think this will even cover my rear end.”

“Exactly.”

Wolfe grabbed a minuscule black top with gold sparkles and handed it to her. She stretched it a couple of times. “Well, this’ll fit my left pinkie. What else do you have?”

“Just put it on. What size shoes do you wear?”

“Five.”

He dug through a nearby bin, tossing shoes left and right before coming up with a pair of monstrous black platforms. If this job included surveillance through third-story windows, she was going to be all set.

The clerk pointed her toward a short hallway leading to a dressing room, where Wendy wiggled out of her jeans and into the skirt. Then she tossed her shirt and bra aside and pulled the stretchy top over her head and into place. She turned, looked into the mirror and froze.

Yes, the skirt was short. The shirt was tight. The shoes were stratospheric. But the clothes had caused a definite transformation toward the indecent.

This was so cool.

Dressing for a performance was always such an upper. It made her feel the character. Be the character. She blinked lazily into the mirror, then drooped her eyelids in a come-hither stare, visions of hot, mindless, well-compensated sex flowing through her mind. She ran her hands up her hips to her waist, then threw her arms back over her head and tousled her hair into a sexy mess, feeling a buzz of exhilaration at the sight of Wendy the Good Girl morphing into a hot, sexy lady of the evening. Wolfe was right. When in Rome, you had to dress like Roman hookers, or whatever that saying was.

But then she realized that part of the equation was missing, something no self-respecting prostitute would ever go without. She stuck her head out of the curtained dressing room and motioned to the clerk. The woman came down the hall.

“Got any makeup I can borrow?” Wendy asked.

“Uh…sure. Just a minute.”

Wendy wasn’t too keen on wearing another woman’s makeup, but then she wasn’t too thrilled about wearing another woman’s clothes, either. Unfortunately, she was stuck with both.

The clerk returned with a cosmetics bag the size of a kangaroo pouch. Wendy thanked her and hefted it into the dressing room. A few minutes later, she’d put the painted in painted lady. After a final look in the mirror, she swept the curtain aside. With a pout on her lips and a swivel in her hips, she headed back down the short hall.

Stopping at the doorway that led into the main part of the store, she slid her hand slowly up the door frame and cocked her hip, planting her other hand against it. Wolfe turned and caught sight of her. He looked down her body to her legs and back up again, a slow, lingering appraisal that told her she’d definitely gotten his attention. Yes. She could feel it. She was every man’s dream in one gold-spangled, animal-spotted, high-heeled package, and he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

Then he zeroed in on her breasts. His usual frown deepened into an even more pronounced one, and he shook his head with disapproval. Her elation fizzled like a lit match hitting a puddle of water.

She dropped her hands to her sides. “What?”

Wolfe strode over to a table piled with various undergarments. He grabbed a bra and lobbed it to her. She stared down at it, unable to recall the last time she’d seen so much lace and Lycra all in one place. Anna Nicole Smith would have had trouble filling up this one.

He turned to the clerk. “Got a box of tissue?”

“Uh…no,” she said. “No tissue.”

“Toilet paper?”

She nodded obediently and scurried to the bathroom, as if Godzilla himself had threatened to eat Tokyo if she didn’t hurry. She returned a moment later with a roll of pink toilet paper and handed it to him. He tossed it to Wendy. She stared down at the half-empty roll.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Do I look like I’m kidding?”

She searched his deadpan expression, looking for a little sparkle in his eyes, a little turn-up of his mouth. No such luck. The stone-faced presidents on Mount Rushmore were more likely to crack a smile.

She went back to the dressing room and put on the bra, trying to ignore the fact that it was a preworn garment, then started stuffing. Then she stuffed some more. It took most of the roll to fill up the cups, and when she finished she pulled the stretchy top down over them. She turned left and right, checking out her new profile in the mirror.

Boobs. She had boobs.

Hmm. So this was what it felt like.

She walked out of the dressing room. Wolfe stood waiting, his sharp focus zeroing in on her newly augmented bustline. She gave him a big smile and thrust her chest out for his inspection.

“So whatcha think? This is about as big as I can go before I’m a walking fire-code violation.”

He turned away. “It’ll do.”

Yeah, he was trying to play it down, but still she could see it in his eyes. Like all men, it was pretty clear that Wolfe deemed excessive cleavage to be a major improvement, like adding a family room onto a tiny house. More recreational possibilities.

As they headed for the cash register, Wendy suddenly realized that with this skimpy outfit, the moment she stepped outside she was going to have goose bumps on her goose bumps.

“Hey, wait a minute,” she said. “I’m not wearing much in the way of clothes here. It’s cold outside.”

“So buy a coat.”

“A coat?” the clerk said, suddenly coming to life. “Oh! I’ve got the perfect one to go with that outfit! Wait till you see this!”

She trotted down an aisle and returned with a waist-length garment that looked like a patchwork of purple raccoon pelts. And the raccoon had clearly had a disfiguring skin condition.