My Entry for 1st Page Blogfest

YA writer Kelly Lyman is hosting a First Page Blogfest!  For details, visit her blog here: http://kellylyman.blogspot.com/2010/03/in-beginning.html

Below is my entry:

     Just me, a bottle of Oban, and Pamela the bartender.  Hard to tell which was smoother.  I’d just had Pamela, so I reached for the scotch.  I poured a double, leaned back in my barstool and watched as she started to close down the place.

She shelved all but the bottle in front of me, wiped down the already gleaming bar, and then turned her attention to a few remaining dirty glasses.  She washed each one, and then began to dry them with a glaringly white towel.  Her work was quick and focused, and she seemed eager to be done with it.  I knew the feeling.

Pamela stopped her task long enough to change out their typical yuppie bar music for a compilation of my personal favorites she’d made for me soon after we met.  Amazing how quickly she’d figured out my tastes, seemed to know what made my blood boil and what made it merely simmer.  Even more amazing, her knowing something about me didn’t cause the usual reaction.  The more time I spent with Pamela, the less I felt on full alert.  I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.  Hell, I knew it wasn’t a good thing—but for now, I was fine with enjoying the ride, however brief it had to be. 

The music started, and as I hummed along to the first few bars of One For My Baby, something inside me stirred.  The melody played out, and soon the crooning of Ol’ Blue Eyes lulled me to a place of easy contemplation. 

My life, by necessity, takes many turns.  The latest was to this place—Baltimore.  I’d been enaged in a bit of—let’s call it freelancing—in the D.C. area, when I’d received a distress call from an old aquaintance of mine.  A brutally murdered body had been found along the Inner Harbor.  Nothing newsworthy there, but according to my aquaintance the exact nature of the murder and of the victim, was in my line of interest.  Given D.C. hadn’t yielded anything worth sinking my teeth into, I’d figured what the hell.  One town’s as good as the next for getting a job done.  It had been close to two weeks since that body was found, and the progress I’d made was barely worth mentioning.  On the murder, that is.  I stole another quick glance at Pamela.  With her, I’d made progress aplenty.