femme.

Charly Huston had the lofty and faintly antiquated air of a woman who was used to getting what she wanted with a glance.

The storm washed her into my office on a Wednesday afternoon: a vision in a long, vintage, ermine-lined trench-coat speckled dark at the edges beyond the wingspan of her incongruously cheap nylon parasol. Outside, the clouds beat a tattoo, shifting relentlessly as they exorcised a deluge of summertime ennui onto the winking pavements.

She wasted no time. By the time I'd stood and offered to take her coat, it was already draped across the chair, as if the royal-blue Stella Gardot gown and jewels beneath it had been itching for hours to emerge from their heavy poplin cocoon. The color worked nicely with her eyes; above them, deftly-coiffured auburn waves rippled with intentionality, barely brushing her shoulders at the slightest movement of her head.

Her ripe-strawberry lips hung in the kind of half-pout that must have got results every time.

"Mr. Dodge," she said. The words pirouetted elegantly upward, trembled, and vanished like cigarette smoke. "I've heard you were the best in town." Her body and voice moved with impeccable synchronization. "And I need the best."

She looked like money and determination - things I liked in a dame.