I was in my office trying to work off the night I had with my two best friends Melkoir and vodka. Y’see I’m a private eye it’s a tough unforgiving job that you have to be hard to survive in. I don’t have a life outside here; there aren’t many people I can be around. I always have a .38 snub nose pistol and nine bullets with me, eight in the chamber and one in my chest; it’s a memento of an old case. The guns always kind of cold but then death was never something to get all warm and fuzzy about especially if you’re the one deliverin' it.

It was an ordinary Monday in the office. I hate Mondays, usually they mean I have a hell of a hangover because I was up drinking all Sunday night. I needed something to drink, it had recently started raining the heavy, humid city rain, the kind that made you feel like you were being pressed into the sidewalk, into the dirty hell that's L.A's underground. It was to hot for a coat, and umbrellas stick out like a sober man on Saint Patrick's day, in this city its good to be in the shadows. I decided to compromise and walked outside with a newspaper over my head useless thing, same old city of angels; same robberies, same murders, same city official getting to close to a blond.

* * *

The rain fell hard outside and the blinking pink sign was blurred above me, I needed a drink. The neon spelled "BAR", I was lucky. I walked inside and the leg of the girl dancing spelled something else. I bought a beer, it was lukewarm, damn this city. A beautiful brunette with a worried expression walked in, I shuddered. beautiful with worried expression always seems to create trouble for me. She slunk over in black pumps and sat next to me, me and my luck.

I stood up to leave but my shoes made a soggy squeak as I took my first step past her, she turned around quick, as if my shoes were a gun instead of the grey-black once shiny oxfords they were. A long southern drawl, suffocating as molasses poured over me as she spoke, "the name's Loretta Bellamy" four words, four words that were the most enticing words in the English Language I had ever heard. I sighed, tipped my hat to her and attempted to leave. "hey buddy" this time like a brick being smashed against my head, shit, I'd forgotten to pay. Me and my luck. I could see her as I payed, she was wearing a red dress the held each piece off her body as delicately as a tightrope walker on his rope. the rain hadn't touched her but for the very tip of her dress, it had turned it as deep of a crimson as blood could ever hope to be, a bad sign. She still looking worried just now she was slightly amused. As I walked past her for the final time I slipped my card in her purse, i was to drunk and tired to talk.