face Drummond in blue jeans and a T-shirt. I breezed past the first floor entrance to my studio and bounded up the stairs two at a time to my living quarters, telling Lola over my shoulder to help herself to iced tea.
I dashed to my large bedroom in the back of the oblong flat, which faced the garden. I tore through my wardrobe, looking for the perfect costume. It was customary for retributionists to wear elaborate outfits on the job. That tradition was established in colorful New Orleans, where the first CRSs set up shop and established standards for the profession.
Most of us learn our trade on the street, and most come to the job with a background in martial arts or street fighting and a burning desire for justice. Actual certification is granted by a board of retired professionals. We’re not recognized by any state or national organization, but so far no one has outlawed us, either. Government officials know that as long as the justice system is broken, someone has to make sure crime doesn’t pay.
Enter moi—a five-foot-four chick with lots of muscle and even more chutzpah. But sometimes that’s not enough. Clothing heightens the mystique factor and adds an element of danger. It also protects my identity. Not that I hide my profession from anyone, but I don’t like the idea of being recognized on the street by someone I’ve recently hauled in for retribution.
I flipped past the Grim Reaper robe, my Crips gang wear and my nun’s habit. Hmm. That had possibilities. Drummond was Catholic. Nah, I decided, moving on. While a white wimple and black habit might guilt him into good behavior, it wouldn’t last. Better to scare the hell out of him, so to speak.
I briefly considered my Madame Dominatrix leather outfit. That would be a fitting irony since he obviously got off on dominating and abusing his poor wife, but I didn’t want to turn the scumbag on. Better to assume the identify of what frightened him most—an intelligent, independent twenty-second-century woman. Besides, if Judge Gibson’s warrants became protocol, I’d look like the Grim Reaper even without the costume.
I dressed in record time, pulling on flexible cobalt-blue pants over a paler blue crisscrossed spandex sleeveless shirt. Very feminine and conservative, but it also showed off my muscles and gave me complete freedom of movement. I snapped on spiked wristbands and a leather belt, and after serious consideration, put my Glock in the belt’s holster.
Last but certainly not least, I applied a blue dragon easy-stick tattoo on my forehead. It was just bizarre enough that it sometimes intimidated my opponents. When I wore the sign of the dragon, I was telling the world, and myself, that I meant business. I grabbed the bogus Gibson Warrant I’d created on my computer and rejoined Lola.
“Oh, my God!” she barked in her post-menopausal smoker’s voice when I emerged from my bedroom. And damned if she wasn’t smoking a cigarette. “What is that thing on your forehead?”
“What is that thing in your mouth? Put it out!” I strode to the couch in the living room, my black ankle boot heels clicking on the polished wood floor, and grabbed the burning contraband dangling from her lips.
“Hey, hey, hey!” she cried. “Give me that!”
“No smoking, Lola! You’re going to get me arrested.” I went to the bathroom and flushed it down the toilet. “You know tobacco is illegal.”
“If I wanna die, it’s my right! What’s this world coming to? You can’t smoke. You can’t even have sex anymore without a license. When I was young, we used to do it in the back of a hydro Chevy!”
Sex was not a subject I wanted to talk about with my sixty-year-old mother. “Intercourse licenses are required only for people who want good health insurance,” I reminded her. “Now can we get back to your problems?”
She gave me a needling, curious look. “Do you have a sex license?”
I glared at her. “Mo-ther.”
That pleased her enormously and I took the opportunity to change the subject. Pulling up an ottoman near her and taking a seat, I said, “Now, what’s the problem? You need help?”
What followed was one of those rare moments when my mother’s hard, scheming expression melted into something that looked suspiciously like maternal pride. Her rheumy-brown eyes puddled up. I tensed. I’d never been comfortable with her unexpected bouts of affection.
“Honey, I’m so proud of you.”
I crossed my legs and adjusted the zipper on my boot. “Thanks.”
“To think you’re a retribution specialist! You actually do good in the world. Not like me. You’re so strong, honey. You’re such a good girl.”
“Not everyone shares your admiration for my profession. And I’m twenty-eight. Hardly a girl.” I nervously placed my hands on my slender knees. I was sure that wherever she was going with this, I wouldn’t like it. But she was my mother. She brought me into the world. The least I could do was allow her to be proud, even though she had nothing to do with my success. “But thank you, Lola. That’s nice of you to say.”
“I just have one question, Angel.”
“Yes?”
“Why in the hell do you have to ruin your beautiful face with that weird tattoo? I hate that Chinese crap.”
I gave her a crooked grin. “Don’t hold back, Lola. Tell me what you really think.” Relieved by the insult, I stood and examined myself in the full-length mirror near the front entrance, trying to see myself through her eyes.
My white-blond hair stood straight up in short, soft tufts that tapered down the back of my head to the middle of my neck. My lips were curvy and naturally pink. My robin’s-egg-blue eyes seemed almost innocent compared to the dramatic colors of my tattoo. Some women tried hard to be feminine. I tried hard not to be and was frustratingly unsuccessful, a disadvantage in my line of work.
That’s why I needed a mean, green-eyed dragon with blue shimmering scales hunched over my brows. Don’t look into her soft azure eyes, the dragon warned, look into mine and meet your fate.
Arched downward for the strike, the tattoo directed focus toward my neatly formed chin and, below that, a neck and body that was packed with more muscles than God had ever intended a petite, narrow-waisted, B-cup woman to have. I wasn’t born that way, of course. I work out daily with Mike, my martial arts guru, and I’d started taking Provigrip as soon as the FDA okayed its use for policing agencies, bounty hunters and retribution specialists. Lola told me that when she was young, athletes took dangerous steroids to build muscles. Provigrip increased my strength by twenty percent at no risk to my health. I don’t look like a body-building freak, but I can pack a punch.
“You really ought to dress normally, honey,” Lola added as I turned back to her. “Best way to get a man.”
I glanced at her outlandish everyday wear and shook my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. My outfit looks normal to me.”
My whole body suddenly gave a quick shiver, like a divining rod honing in on water. My head jerked toward the window and a chill settled over my shoulders. “Someone’s here.”
It couldn’t be Drummond. How would he know where I lived? I’d given him a fake name and told him to meet me at the green lot down the street, luring him with the promise of a shady construction deal.
As I’d hoped, his desire to make some quick bucks had overcome
