Fish Out of Water Read Free Page B

moved like a boxer, light on his feet. He’d wondered if it was a wrestler, for the festival.
    Missy Lovelace had seen something too, but was even less helpful. Admittedly, she was distracted and it had been hard to question her as she adjusted her bikini and mentally banked audience appreciation points. Man, dirt wrestling is just a whole other thing.
    This town doesn’t really have a lot going for it, just people on their way somewhere else, or hiding out, or dropping out. So about ten years ago, the big men of Dirtwater started looking for a way to attract tourists. They thought mud wrestling had something going for it, but given that there wasn’t much water, there wasn’t much mud. So dirt-wrestling was born.
    Anyway, I hit Missy up as she was preparing for her set, tugging on one improbable breast to bring it further into the action – a delicate task given that it already seemed unbelievable that you could expose that much breast without revealing nipple. Surely that little sucker was popping out any second. Watching Missy in her bikini, I cursed Mom’s sense of humor. I still couldn’t believe the theme for this year’s festival was Under The Sea.
    I could hear the dull murmur of the crowd building, even from inside. The little dressing room was hot and impossibly wet. Missy told me she kept the shower running because the steam helped her false eyelashes stick. “It’s good to see you, Rania. Listen, I know I said it at the time, but I really appreciate…” Pause. Tug, tug on her bikini. “What you did, y’know.”
    I tried not to look as she pulled on her bosom again. I shifted uncomfortably, as much at her words as at the whole bosom-fiddling thing. “It was nothing Missy, just part of the job.”
    She shook her head adamantly and flashed me a Zoom-whitened smile. “No way, honey. You’re the best. I ain’t never seen nothin’ like the way you flew in there and pulled him offa me. And y’know? He ain’t bothered me since.” She looked at me for approval. “And y’know what? I did just what y’ said. Changed the locks n’all.”
    I nodded, pleased Big Barry Buckford was leaving her alone. Missy and I had been in high school together. She was sweet but had a worse habit for ugly drunks than I did for pirates. I tried to do like Mom always said, just smile and say thanks. But I knew it was coming off like a grimace so I got down to business. “So, Missy. The guy Dan saw?”
    “Yeah I saw him too. I was late, y’see.” She rolled her eyes, motioning to the star-spangled bikini. “Costume dramas. Y’know how it is.”
    “Totally,” I lied. The room was even steamier than outside, the thick heat unbroken by the single, crippled fan sluicing through the air. It was making the shiny scar on my arm itch.
    “How did you know it was a guy?” I doubted if Missy knew her own last name right now, she was so jangled about her upcoming performance.
    “Dunno,” she offered unhelpfully. “But oh man, I knew. If there’s one thing I know, it’s guys. He looked hot too, y’know, from behind. Big. Yum. My kinda guy.” She chewed her lip and went on. “I was gonna call out to him, ask him if he was coming in, but my mouth got all gummy. Couldn’t talk. Nerves, I guess. You know, the competition.”
    “I guess,” I agreed. “Anything else? What’d he look like?”
    She shrugged.
    “Would you know him if you saw him again?”
    “Oh yeah, baby. Like I said, I know guys.” Another tug for good measure. I believed her. As she tugged some more, I was sure a thin pinkish-brown rim finally broke free of the bikini and I averted my eyes towards the shower before I threw up.
    As I did, it happened.
    The mildewy pink curtain billowed forward and a large shape crashed to the floor, right between Missy and me, wrapped in the voluminous plastic. Missy screamed.
    My heart tapped out a tango and one hand went to my Glock without any conscious command as I tried to disentangle the curtain from the lumpy