Tom spent the rest of the afternoon laboriously scribbling away at his new project - new<i>career</i>, by God.  It was a mass of erasures and scratch-outs when he was finished, and his pensmanship was never the greatest, but he felt good about the results. Well, pretty good. He’d only gotten a couple of questions answered, so a lot of his quotes were things he’d heard said by the ladies at the bank.<br/><br/>Newspapers liked quotes, right?<br/><br/>Nodding to himself, he tucked his notebook into his jacket pocket and perched his hat on his head. This shouldn’t be hard, right?  Sell the newspaper ladies his story, then hit the whorehouse for the free drinks that had been promised. Free booze sounded like a good deal right now.<br/><br/>The streets were quiet as he walked, shimmering with a heat that a thin breeze did little enough to cut. Yeah, free drinks sounded<i>really</i>good right now. But first... he knocked at the door of the old barber shop. “Pardon me, ma’am,” he said, removing his hat. “But Ah was wonderin’ if’n y’all would be innerested in buyin’ a story fer this here paper?”<br/><br/>-*-<br/><br/>Cassie watched Miss Vickie climb the stairs, not bothering to hide her appreciation of the view. “So,” she finally asked, “anything I should know?”<br/><br/>A petite redhead leaned forward.  “Well,” she said in a slight Irish accent, “I can tie a knot in a cherry stem with my tongue.”<br/><br/>“That, uhm...”. Cassie took a deep breath and tried again. “That's... good to know. But, I meant about the business. Any troubles?”<br/><br/>“Some of the regulars have been getting rough,” a brunette piped in. “Tougher than usual, I mean. Miss Vickie’s kept them in line so far, but some of them are starting to like... hurting us.”<br/><br/>“All right.”  Cassie looked at the door. “Point them out, would you?  As they walk in. So I can explain manners to them.”