Goldie

Burgundy. If a color could be a mood, that would be the mood. Burgundy. A faded burgandy. Maybe rimmed with scarlett and shadowed in maroon. But mostly... burgundy.

That was the mood.

Noblemen spotted the room. They werent too noble, but they were in fact neighborhood noblemen. Their nobility was acquired through fraud, scandal, and possibly the occassional death. (Murder).

They sat in inconspicous corners of the bar... hidden under the rim of their hats... making sure they could eyeball every enterance and exit. Occassionally a cocky young amateur would get shot by an elder nobleman... usually when he would try to sit in the plusher of chairs, or speak to the more beautiful waitress.

Stains were covered by new upholstrey. Or a newspaper.

Tonight was the night she played the piano. Usually she wore some sort of brassy toned dress, that was just snug enough and low enough to make a man wanting more. Her hair was brassy too. Auburn maybe. Maybe copper. You couldnt really tell under the dim light that hovered over her music sheet. She seemed sweet. Innocent.. and embodied a freshness about her that the weather-beaten-calender-girl waitresses lacked.

Unknowingly from the naked eye, she was tough as plexi-glass, and just wouldnt break. She wore her facade well in that bar, and her facade got her gig after gig. Her facade also enriched her with bodygaurds, which was needed in this area... her bodygaurds were all the noblemen that oggled her in desire while she performed. They forgot about their wives, and girlfriends, and she got her utilities and groceries paid for in one evening.

This area didn't scare her. It was the kind of place that someone would say, "Oh, that place, between 14th and 8th avenue." You know... that place. That place where hors d'oeuvre's had names like prostitues and a strange red glow never ceased to leave the premises.

She seemed innocent, she seemed fresh, and her marvelous beauty kept her from being subject to assault. One must protect such an innocent beauty.

Tonight she began as usual. She would inhale a cigarette grasped between two scarlett painted fingernails, and finish a glass of brandy. Slowly, but methodical, she would lay out her music. Take a sip of brandy staining her lipstick on the glass. Inhale. Exhale. Smooth any wrinkles on her dress from the evenings movement and hustle and bustle. Inhale. She would clutch the cigarette between her teeth, freeing her hands to smoth the wrinkles on top of her lap and over her thighs. Exhaling through her small nostrils.

Then she would swoop her long golden locks up with her free hands, still smoking, and systematically bobby pin her hair from her face, always missing one piece on her left side profile.

She knew she was being watched, so in utter confidence she melted into her projected image. The men would lift up their hats and wipe their balding scalps with hankercheifs, and chew on their ice at the bottom of their now empty cocktail glasses.

Finally she would drop her cigarette and put it out with the tip of her high heel, and knock back the remainding brandy. Time to perform.

Performance time was the only time the noblemen werent clutching their guns hidden deep in the pockets of their dress pants, or have 'shifty eye syndrome'.

They just ate their whores of a hors' doeuvrez.