"Augh!" I screamed like a girl. It was KS, back with her crossbow. She laughed at me; it was pleasant, and not at all a cackle. Plus, she looked damn good in her trench coat, not hippy like some women would be.

Anyway--

I pushed the damsel aside, using her head for traction as I made a beeline for the stairs. At the top, I took a left, then a right, tumbling out the window. Luckily, there was a fire escape to break my fall. I trekked down, down, down, taking the steps two at a time. By the time my head caught up with my feet, I was in a dark alley.

A noise came behind me, a cat. I adjusted Elvis and the boys, making sure the kitty knew who was boss. By the time I looked back up at her, there was nothing but ass as she strolled down the alley. I've been known to get into trouble chasing pussy before, but I decided to follow her. She led me to a small row house, far from Meen Street but just as nasty looking. Only crack addicted electrician would consider this an empowerment zone.

The cat was gone, but I walked into the building, keeping my hand in my pocket. I stuck out my index finger and cocked back my thumb, hoping somebody would fall for the old gun in the pocket trick. Even if they didn't it felt good against my-

"Can I help you?" a woman asked. She was sitting behind a tall counter made of old mystery magazines and tapes. A cigarette dangled from one hand, a martini glass in the other. Her bathrobe reminded me of the way my tongue felt that time I drank six liters of malt liquor and woke up next to a bowlegged airedale.

"Yee-ow," I said, taking in the sparkling diamond and platinum ring on her finger. She must have been fifty, but she didn't look a day over 29. She was the kind of gal who deserved a nickname like "Hot Mama" or "Handles for Ears."

She set the martini glass down on a coaster made out of an old mystery cassette tape. "Are you looking for the bad guys?"

I took the safety off my gun, ready to use it if I had to. I gave her a tight nod, gripping the barrel.

"Oh." She glanced down. "You're looking for Ruth?"

"Uh, no."

"You could talk to her about her position on gun control," she said. "She faversit."

I uncocked the gun, showing her my palms. "No, the bad guys," I said. "I'm here for the bad guys."

"Bigiron won't be back tilde morning."

"No!" I screamed, slamming my fist on the counter. "I mean the real bad guys."

The look she gave me would've cut a roast that had not been marinated Coke.

"Second room on the right," she said, sliding over a key.

I reached for the key, but she yanked it back. "What's your opening bid?"

I scrambled, checking my pockets. All I had was a pack of gum and a fuzzy Lifesaver.

"Goober," she muttered, popping the Lifesaver into her mouth, pocketing the gum. She threw the key with the kind of force that could stop a tornado or a Cuban refugee. I stepped back, covering my face. She could'a poked my eye out and I told her.

"Phht," she said, picking a piece of pocket lint off her tongue. She studied the lint with a professional eye, then popped it back into her mouth. "Come back later. I got some coupons I can give you."

I walked down the hall, following her directions, stopping in front of the first room on the left. A creaking noise came from behind the closed door. Suddenly, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I pressed my ear to the wood, recognizing the sound. Either a banshee had just gone into heat or my old flame was behind door number one. The key was loose in the lock; just like my old flame. The door gaped opened with little more than a push; just like my old flame.

"What's going on here?" I demanded. I stood there, my jaw scraping the floor.

There was Eileen in bed with the Miami Mahler, stroking his baton. And her a grandmother!

"It's not what you think, Vic," Eileen said, covering herself with the Mahler's toupee.

I didn't think my jaw could drop any further, but let's just say the boiler in the basement gave my chin a great tan. Despite the fact that the Mahler's hair had its own zip code, I could see her stomach peeking out around the edges. I knew that look. I'd been to Canada plenty of times.

"You're pregnant, too?" I asked, unable to disguise my shock. Back when we were making the wild monkey love, Eileen had told me she was a Changed Woman. I must've saved about a thousand bucks on condoms the first week we were together. My face paled as I thought of all the wild times we had in the park, the laundry mat, the chapel, and on the hood of her mother's 1963 Packard.

"It's not what you think," she repeated, adjusting the toupee a little higher. Her gargantuan breasts grazed her bulbous belly and her navel was pushed out from the pressure. The Mahler's hair sat at a jaunty position at the top. The effect reminded me of Newt Gingrich on a humid summer day.

"You're breaking my heart," I said, turning away. I couldn't bare to see her sitting there, open like an all night store, her eyes telling me no shoes, no shirt, no service.

I took a left towards the stairway, smacking into a small dark woman with jugs the size of honeydews. Speaking of doing honeys--

"Jesus Christ on a Peep," I whistled, taking in her headlights. They were on high beams and I was feeling trapped like the proverbial deer.

"They don't talk," the woman said, indicating her ta-tas. "What's more, they've never spoken."

"Right," I said, mesmerized. She was the hottest woman I had ever seen. My mind raced: Eileen who?

"And," she said, "Not a word has been uttered by my breasts since I've haddam."

The way she was saying the same thing over and over again was sending shivers up and down and up and down my spine. I was crawling in my skin, like a beaver working a dam. She had brains, she had intelligence, she was smart. And those hooters! I'd never wanted anybody so much in my life.

I heard a noise behind me. A guy wearing a loud Hawaiian shirt poked his head around the corner. "Oh, sorry," he said, "I thought this conversation was about me." He left before I could say anything.

I turned back to talk to my two new friends, but their owner had left the building.

"Ow!" I squeaked, feeling a pain at my ear. An arrow schlunked into the wall just to the right of me, cutting my dangling lobe in the process. I turned around, seeing KS standing in the hallway not twenty feet away. She was loading another arrow into the crossbow.

I took off, pounding up the hall. I jerked to a stop in front of the second door on the right. KS was taking aim behind me, so I plowed through the door. I stopped short at what I saw. My clients were in the room, hunched over a table stacked so high with money my eyes ka-chinged on their own.

Most surprising of all, Andi was in there with them, wearing a tight pink cocktail dress and doing the dance of the creature with one back against a sluice pipe.

"What the ƒ?", I tried, but was unable to continue. I felt a presence behind me, and not the good kind. KS was there, pressing the tip of an arrow into my back.