Read Angel With a Bullet for Free Online Page A

I volunteer.
    â€œYeah.” Kristy’s smile brightens her already cherubically fresh face.
    In a deliberate attempt to make me feel older than my years, Kristy is wearing her honey-blonde hair in a pink-bow ponytail and—though the sun has yet to burn off the morning fog—is dressed for a summer’s day. Even standing still, she gives the illusion of dancing in an ink black, pleated skirt that shows off shapely legs in multi-striped knee-high socks. She tops this with a translucent silk blouse that reveals a nipple-proud pink tank top to match her bow. If she were to walk by a junior high school, every boy would spontaneously combust into puberty—acne and awkward hair growth everywhere.
    Kristy’s partner, Sam, goes casual in white sweatpants with the word BUM stenciled in soft gray across her seat, and an oversized T-shirt that reads, “Dip me in honey and feed me to the lesbians.”
    She resembles Eighties Irish singer Sinéad O’Connor, only with a spiky black buzz cut, at least a half dozen piercings in each ear—one of which is a thin steel bar that cuts across the top of her left ear and contains five letter beads that she can rearrange at a whim. Today, it reads: BITCH. She is also fond of LEZBO, CRUEL, and FUCKU. A ruby stud sparkles in one nostril.
    _____
    Kristy and Sam share the apartment directly across the hall on the middle floor of our eclectic Painted Lady. Our other neighbors, Derek and Shahnaz (she writes cookbooks and has a perfume collection that attracts men faster than the incredible food she cooks), split the top floor with Ben and Saffron (no stranger to exotic scents himself), while Mr. French and his parakeet, Baccarat, have the misfortune to live beneath Kristy and her morning jazzercise. Mrs. Pennell and King William live below me.
    â€œDid you at least bring coffee?” I ask.
    â€œUm, no,” says Kristy with little hint of apology. “We like the way you make it in that bubbly pot.”
    â€œPerfect.” I don’t mean for it to sound as bitchy as it does, but lack of sleep will do that to anyone.
    I head for the kitchen. There’s no point inviting them in; they’ll enter anyway.
    Kristy and Sam close the door behind them and head for the mismatched couch and loveseat that take up most of the room. The only other furniture is a wooden rolltop desk stuck in the corner by the window.
    The desk—a former resident of the post office and rescued from a yard sale for $20—doubles as my dining-room table and home office. It houses a widescreen iMac computer with TV tuner and an ancient printer whose only saving grace is that it consumes cheap, generic ink.
    There are two pieces of art on the walls. Both are original mixed-media works, worthless and signed by the artist: me. Like all journalists, I often claim to be writing a novel. But when you spend every day working with words, it can be the last thing you want to do in your spare time.
    Painting helps me relax. I’m just not much good at it.
    As Kristy and Sam sit, I pull three oatmeal-chocolate-chip muffins from a box in the freezer and pop them in the microwave.
    As soon as the soothing gurgle of the stovetop percolator begins, I return to the bedroom and slip into pajama bottoms and Godzilla slippers that, if the batteries haven’t worn out, roar when I walk. I also manage to pull a stiff brush through my hair to offer the illusion there is a possibility that I give a bit of a damn.
    Back in the kitchen, I place the warm muffins on individual plates and add a slice of aged white cheddar on the side.
    â€œI was out late,” I call from behind the waist-high island that divides the galley kitchen from the adjoining room. “A friend was killed. An artist.”
    â€œOh, my goodness,” says Kristy “Are you OK?”
    I shrug. “Yeah. We weren’t close anymore, but still.”
    â€œThat’s awful.”
    â€œAnyone we know?”