Cool McCool's Garage

It was hot.  Probably still almost eighty degrees, and the Big Ben clock on the shelf over the foot of the double bed read two thirty-five.  In the morning.

The bottle of Four Roses still had two fingers left at the bottom, and sat on the vanity next to his right shoulder.  He’d liked to have reached for it, but the red-headed dame at his left shoulder snored softly, and moaned a little as he shifted his left arm from under her head.  In the moonlight he could see a wisp of her permed hair blowing in breeze every time the softly rattling oscillating fan on the kitchen counter stirred the hot, heavy air in the trailer.

He REALLY wanted to get out of there.

The night had started promisingly enough earlier at Jimmy’s, his favorite dive, when the redhead next to him at the bar dropped her lighter.

“I got it.”, he said, as he picked the lighter, a heavy stainless steel Zippo,  with “Mac” engraved on the side of the case, off the floor, flipped it open and lit the unfiltered Camel hanging from  her full, red lips.

“Thanks”, she said, in a throaty, half whispered, half sighing voice, and blew a cloud of smoke up and away, over the mahogany bar.

“What’s your name?, I haven’t seen you in here before.”

He looked at her over his drink (it was always the same, Seagrams, rocks).

“You ain’t been look’n very hard, because I’m in here almost every night”, he said, and motioned for Jimmy to pour him another, and one for her.

“I’m Mac”, he said, “and not just because I saw the name on your lighter”.

He thought maybe she hesitated just a bit too long before she took another drag on the Camel, and eyed him, maybe a little too long, too directly, over the top of her glass.

“You don’t look a guy that’d make up a line like that just to get a dame to jump in the sack”, she said, and her eyes narrowed a little, “I’m Delores Malone.  Tell me Mac, what do you do for living?  You a cop?”

“I used to be,”, he said, “but that was a long time ago.  I do a little freelance stuff now, private security, investigations, taking pictures of  cheating wives leaving hotels with their boyfriends, and tailing husbands going to swingers parties at the Masonic Lodge when they say they’re working late.  Rough stuff, but it’s a living.”

She leaned closer, and in that smokey half whispered voice said,  “Well Mac, you and I might have some business to talk about. I got place not far from here, a bottle of stuff almost this good, and something else I think you might like.”

She blew a puff of smoke in his ear, and slipped her hand from the bar to his thigh, and let it slide up just a little bit too far, which immediately sent a shiver and a throb through his crotch, and up his chest.

Now, that sounded much more interesting than his former plan of just getting hammered at Jimmy’s, then letting the Eldorado find its own way back to his place across town like it usually did on Tuesday nights.

“Alright Delores Malone, you’re on, but I got one rule.  We don’t ride together, and I get $500 up front, if it’s business.  If it’s just pleasure, then maybe I’ll pay you.”

Her lips, a scarlet wound, parted a bit, and a plume of smoke drifted lazily out and curled around her face.

“Well honey that’s two rules.  It’s business AND pleasure.  We’ll both get paid.”