I held Lucky's arm tight, a little too tight, for she looked up at me with those baby-blues sending out their "whotthehell is wrong with you" vibe. I kept walking.

That's the way it always goes, folks. Not five minutes ago I was sitting in the dark of night, lit by stars, and sucking spun sugar off the end of Lucky's fingers, with the biggest break in the case thusfar drinking beer out of a sack not 50 yards away.

"I am a back door man
I am a back door man
Well the, men don't know, but little girls understand.."

I, somewhat nonchalantly, dragged Lucky behind a flea market tent, and she jerked her arm out of my grasp and turned to face me.
"You mind telling me what that was all about?" she asked
I turned her to face the crowd and whispered in her ear, "That bunch over there, the army surplus store? You see them?" She nodded, the movement giving me a whiff of her perfume, "That greasy one on the ground? I think that's our man.."
"How do you know?" she asked, but then nodded again and whispered "Oh!" as Cosmo turned to fish a beer out from under the blanket, giving her full view of leather.

"What do we do now?" she whispered to me over her shoulder.
I could detect the slightest trace of cotton candy on her lip, and I could think of a few things to put on my to-do list, but I figured she was talking about the case, so I replied, "We wait.."
"But what if that's not 'the' Cosmo? And we're wasting a lot of time following around some thrift-store joker who's only crime is murdering a perfectly good song?"
I couldn't fault her logic, but I was still skeptical and that blister-dawg was eating holes in my stomach, "So what you're telling me is that we should just go up and ask him if he's murdered anyone today?"
"You have a better idea?" With that, she reached into my shirtpocket, retrieved my cigarettes, and tapped one out into her fingers. "I'll only be a minute," she looked up at me deathly serious and followed with, " and watch my back, eh?"

So simple. It was like using a t-bone steak to fish for Rottweilers. Lucky walked around the flea market tent, looking coyly at the Dirty Everything Gang, and proceeded to paw through a stack of used Kingston Trio LP's on the table. The singing got a little louder, and a little raunchier, and she looked over her shoulder again. What is that? Are they born with that? Look up, look down, look back up, half smile, flip of the hair and voila. Our man covered the distance in roughly half the speed of smell, and was standing beside Lucky. A smile, a little more of the hair flip, and draw out the cigarette.

He fished around in his many zippered pockets, and produced a book of matches. He lit her cigarette, and was making his move. Ah, but she counters with the slight hand wave and the 'well, I'm here with some friends, but maybe I'll see you around' look over her shoulder to the crowd. Our man went for macho, that's what leather men do in those situations, and he pulled Lucky close enough to slip the matches in her back pocket and give her a swat. She giggled, and turned around to leave, waving and looking over her shoulder as she walked back behind the tent.

She looked up at me, evidently disgusted, which was no big surprise, and said, "Can we go home now? I feel like I need to be disinfected..." She handed me the matchbook, and I opened it to reveal the name of our mystery guest in the same child-like scrawl.
"Oh, not just yet Lucky..." I could feel the bloodhound in my soul start to howl. "I promise you the biggest bubble bath in town, and I'll wash your back, hell, I'll even wash your front," She rolled her eyes and looked disgusted all over again, mental note to not be 'cute' "But for now, we hang right here...."