Hard Case Crime: Money Shot by Christa Faust

unpadded style, rather than my usual cleavage enhancing push-up in-your-face variety. It didn’t matter. I was amazed by his flawless memory for detail. The sizes were all perfect. I didn’t think the last six men who’d actually touched my breasts could have guessed my bra size at gunpoint, but this man I barely knew remembered how I took my coffee and the exact style of jeans I like. I snuck a glance over at Malloy as he handed me a bag of travel-sized toiletries. He looked the same, deadpan and squinting against the morning sun as he lit another cigarette. I wondered if maybe I was starting to develop a bit of a crush on him. Or maybe it was just some dumb girly thing about being rescued. Either way, I found myself suddenly speculating about what it might be like with him. I wondered if he would crack open and get wild in the sack, or if he would do the deed with the same quiet determination as everything else he did.
    I think he might have sensed my impure thoughts, but if he did, he chose not to comment. He just fished a pair of black sunglasses out of one of the bags, tore off the tag and told me to put them on. I felt suddenly embarrassed, hyperaware of my ugly, beat-up face and dumpy dress.
    “Thanks,” I said quietly, slipping on the sunglasses.
    “You’re welcome,” he replied and pulled out of the lot.
    Malloy wanted to rent a car, something generic and forgettable, just to be on the safe side. He transferred all the shopping bags and a roomy green gym bag from his own SUV into the little rented Kia Rio. Then as soon as we were out of the rental place, Malloy pulled into a big supermarket parking lot and swiftly snagged the license plates off a crappy little Honda not unlike my hated Civic, stashing the Kia’s legit plates in the gym bag. I thought he was being kind of paranoid, but of course it turned out he was right.
    On our way out of town, we stopped at a 7-Eleven. I changed in the bathroom and stuffed the hateful tranny dress into the trash bin. I brushed the sticky tangles from my hair and the funk from my teeth and then splashed some cold water on my swollen face. That hurt like hell but I felt better once it had been done.
    A chubby blonde teenage girl with giant hoop earrings and too much lip gloss pushed open the bathroom door and then froze when she saw me at the sinks.
    “Oh,” she said, tucking her pink face down like she’d been smacked. “Sorry.”
    She turned and left without meeting my eyes. Like she had caught me fingering myself or shooting up. The bathroom had several stalls and was meant to accommodate more than one person, yet she fled the moment she saw me. I looked up into the spotted mirror at my face. I couldn’t really blame her. I put my sunglasses back on.
    When I left the bathroom, I deliberately dawdled in the store, watching the reactions of the people around me. It was amazing. Once they noticed the bruises, they looked away like I was a leper. Men would scope my ass in the new jeans, but when their gaze hit my face their smirks would evaporate and they would suddenly notice some really fascinating nutritional information on the label of their Red Bull can. Women would cringe from my bruises like they were contagious, like looking at me would remind them that they weren’t really safe after all. No one wanted to see me, to think about what might have happened to me, and so they did everything in their power to unsee me. I had a sudden perverse urge to shake people and force them to look but it occurred to me that my new Teflon face was probably a good thing. After all, a murder suspect on the lam doesn’t want to be looked at.
    I imagined a tan, handsome cop with a thick mustache questioning the girl with the big earrings.
    “Can you describe the individual you encountered in the restroom?” he would ask.
    “She was all beat up,” the girl would answer.
    “What color was her hair?” he would ask.
    The girl would chew her gooey lower lip and shrug.
    “How about