She seemed to glow like a songbird illuminated by a ray of sunlight in a smoke filled forest. Her eyes sparkled and her voice carried through the dense air as if it were electricity flowing through a wire that connected my head to hers. Maybe it was just the single spotlight cutting through the smoky haze and the speaker behind my ear that made her seem like one. It couldn't have been the booze.

The ice had melted, my drink now had the alcohol content of a cough drop. Keeping one eye on the crowd, and the other on the Songbird, I sat there and sipped at my warm scotch.

The brunette crooned at the audience as if she were whispering into her lovers ear. You couldn't miss a voice like that. Not in this dive.

The murmur of the crowd competed with the music from the band, if you could have called it music. The only thing keeping them from being completely drowned out was her voice. And nobody was paying any attention to her.

I was that nobody. My eyes tearing in the swirling cigarette smoke, I sat in this booth, toying with my watered down drink. The Songbird had ninety percent of my attention. She held my gaze just long enough to let me know that she knew. I let go of the imaginary wire and looked over the room. There was a job to do, and she was not a part of it.

The other ten per cent of my brain was focused on three wise guys sitting on a table to my left. They just sat and smiled at each other, calm as clams in a shell.

A pair of Latinos were in front of us, but they were with women and drinking way too much to be of trouble. Their waitress was having a hard time keeping up with them and they kept letting her know.

To my right was the bar. I peered through the haze and picked out three marks. One was a black suited loner who nursed his drink, the other a boisterous fat man with a rosy face who made a point out of tagging the waitresses. They both drank alone.

I prefer the bar myself, but I was working. So I was stuck in this booth, biding my time in a place trying to pass itself off as a nightclub, waiting for my paycheck to get drunk so I could go home.

A guy in a brown wool jacket about a size too large sat at the end of the bar. His bourbon was disappearing so fast he might have been pouring it down his sleeves. A drunkard, but still, the oversized jacket bothered me.

I didn't let Nicky the Nose know. They didn't call him the Nose for nothing, he could smell out trouble. But for some odd reason, he like to dabble in it too. As a free-lancer, I didn't care what my paychecks did. I just cared about what they paid for.

Kramer sat across from me, with Nicky and his girl in between us. Kramer had called me and said this would be easy money. Just provide some extra protection for a few days, until the heat blew over. Duck soup he said.

We both pretended to watch the singer as our meal ticket played see me feel me in the booth.

Only I wasn't pretending.

The Songbird was a tall brunette with legs that would have stopped a runaway truck. Her blue satin dress had a slit on the right side that went all the way up to her hip. It didn't open up to show gam until she moved, and I was timing my sips of cough medicine to her movements. Sandra Lardo, a girl I chased in high school came to mind. Her pigtails swinging from side to side always looked cute to me. But she never wore a dress like this.

Her song slowly came to end and she bowed her head to the floor. A couple of guys at the bar clapped and she glanced toward them.

Then she looked me right in the eye, licked her full lips, and smiled. The spotlight went out and some piped in music started to play.

Her smile had caused some unknown chemical to release into my bloodstream. My cheeks flushed, my body tensed, and my hands became clammy. I grabbed the napkin under my drink and wiped my forehead. I wasn't here to watch leggy singers.

Nicky had his namesake buried deep into his lady friend's ear and Kramer was looking over at the wise guys or they would have noticed my condition. What condition I was in I wasn't sure, but it sure didn't have anything to do with Nicky. An odd feeling came over me.

The house lights went up and I quickly put my napkin back down. I picked up my glass and swirled the golden liquid around.

"Nicky," I said, "Lets blow. This place ain't safe."

"We make it safe," Kramer said.

The Songbird was seated next to the Brown Wool Jacket at the bar. She patted his head and they broke out in laughter.

"Relax," said Nicky, waving a hand around. "I come here all the time."

"That means they know where to find you," I reminded him.

He chuckled and drained his champagne glass. I refilled it for him.

"Enjoy yourself. This is my turf."

Kramer picked up his glass and took a sip of his drink. "But this ain't your bar."

Nicky snorted and continued to use his nose to explore his woman friend's ear. "Drink up! We're okay here."

Kramer looked over at me and shrugged.

You had to hand it to Nicky, he liked to live large.

The waiter brought over a fresh bottle of champagne and gestured to the table of wise guys. Nicky held his glass up to them and told the waiter to send them another round.

Kramer stood up and said: "Excuse me."

I looked at him and nodded. When you gotta go, you gotta go. I scanned the place and put my right hand under my coat. When left alone, I preferred a my gun in my hand, not under my arm.

I should have seen it coming.

The Songbird wasn't smiling at the Wool Jacket anymore, she looked miffed. The wise guys on the left were toasting each other, celebrating. The Latinos were paying their tab and getting ready to go.

Nicky the Nose? Well, he was using his nose.

I didn't notice her until she was almost on top of me. To my right, I looked into the bluest eyes I'd ever seen.

"Hello," the Songbird said.

I looked up at her and smiled by best smile. Those lips parted and asked what my name was. Somehow I had taken hold of the electric wire again.

Bending over slightly she extended her right hand. Her leg protruded forward making the slit in her dress run up so high I wondered if she wore anything underneath.

I was about to take her hand when the Wool Jacket came up from behind and jerked her around. Off balance, she fell right into my lap.

"What the hell you think you're doing Daphne?"

I looked up, Nicky looked up, and before I could get a hand on my Colt, the Wool Jacket let both barrels of a twelve gauge go off into Nicky's chest.

They told me Kramer was dead.

"I'm telling you, I don't know nothing about it." A fist to the kidneys was what I got for telling the truth. I gasped and looked up.

"The woman. She took me for a ride." It was a plead. Not a statement.

That earned me a slap to the head that made my ears ring. School was out. Sandra had her tight jeans on and I was following her. She motioned me closer and whispered in my ear, but I couldn't understand what she was saying. Sandra just laughed.

They dragged me out into the cool of the night. My attempts at breathing seemed to spurt out clouds that dissipated as fast as they formed. I felt the softness of Cadillac leather and then heard the slamming of a car door. The little puffs of breath I could see, the ache in my limbs, the throbbing in my head all made me feel alive. The sound of callous laughter ended that feeling.

I thought of the Songbird. She did have nice legs.

This was for sure, the last ride anyone would be taking me on.