From "Die Giftig Lilie" by Sean Taylor
The woman’s accent was just German enough to get his attention, all dripping with sexy gutturals and thick vowels, just exotic enough to trick a man’s ears into thinking he was having a drink with Marlene Dietrich instead of some two-bit nightclub singer in a no-account New York dive like Belle’s. But the comparison stopped cold at the woman’s voice. She was attractive, of course, but lacked the sex appeal that would have brought sell-out crowds to the local bijou. Her skin was pale and almost sickly, and her figure—while a far sight better than that of the average woman with a nice apartment and radio in her living room—well, it was never going to get her silhouette painted on a playbill. But her eyes, her dark eyes that threatened to go solid black in just the right light, those were something special, and it was those eyes that had convinced him to listen to her story in the first place.
“So listen, honey,” he said, tapping a Camel from a pack of cigarettes then slipping it back inside his coat pocket.
“Gerta,” she said.
“Right. Gerta Stein. You said that.” He smiled and nodded as he lit the Camel. “So, what’s all this noise about your uncle?”
She shifted her weight in her seat, and he pretended to be gentleman enough not to overtly notice the way her dress slipped off the side of her thigh. “I think he’s in trouble, Mr. Ruby. I think he’s in the kind of trouble could get him killed.”
“What kind of trouble is that, honey?”
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