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I couldn’t always tell the buh Mardi Gras was only one week a year, solassy-eyed coed was always ready to lift her shirt for a string of cheap plastic beads Stories were ripe for the picking in the Quarter, and most ritten all over their authors’ faces The salasses tonight I skirtedeye contact

I hated clowns

I hooked a right down a side street More warning than beacon, Skeevy’s neon sign shone red off the wet payhtened my shoulders and headed for the front door Heavysounded et in, harder to leave, especially if you held so a shortcut

The register was the old-fashioned kind with ticker tape and a little bell that rang when the drawer opened Cash only at Skeevy’s Checks bounced and credit cards left records, and no one on either side of the counter wanted that

Danny Launoux was et

Thanks to my rock star surveillance skills, I knew he liked coirls That last part was crucial to lasses that didn’t hide his eyes but didon the rungs of the stool where he sat hunched over, reading a Batled from a chain on his belt His hair was out of control, frizzy, curly, and estions to stay on the tip of ue and crossed the dirty, tan carpet Danny didn’t look up until I reached hi for a ring," I said It had been one of my mother’s I’d sold it earlier in the week as a blonde with thin lips, all Broke College Student Who Needed Tuition I’d even ed tears He hadn’t been iaining What you see is what you pay"

I browsed Poe was already supposed to be in the back, but I couldn’t be sure until I got confirmation I checked my phone as I slinked toward the jewelry cases No texts

Iover, and then arched my back and stretched I’d at least expected curiosity fro I dropped h and tried the direct approach

"Is that the latest Batman issue from the New 52 series?" My Internet research had told me all I needed to know about the 2011 relaunch of DC Co an order of my own

He blinked, lowered the coain "That’s what it says"

"I feel sorry for Batine what it would be like to have to hide your identity Never to be truly close to a woet close Don’t you?"

"I don’t care how hot you are I’ on to me," Danny said in a monotone Definitely not distracted More like bored

Dae would work in --"

"I knooling for a deal when you walked in the door"

He could smell me? Jackass I hated to usemy effort

"I happen to like Bat Show h and slaister drawer It popped open, and he fished a set of keys froister with nothing less than a punch and wasn’t afraid to let a customer know it, he wasn’t worried about as in the cash drawer This confirmed his main concern was for whatever lurked behind the vaulted door on the far wall