The city was in the middle of an intense heat wave. The sunset was a heartless shade of crimson, like an electric cherry in a neon orange sky. Down at the docks, I met my team: Mac Red, Lady Danger, and Daredevil.

“Okay, team,” I said. “This heist is going to go down like Niagara. We’re going to jump on the yacht, and we’re going to beat everyone up, and then we’re going to take off in the yacht. Got it?”

Lady Danger gave me a baby doll pink pout. “I’m worried, angel. What if our arch-nemesis Kryolan Red is there?”

“Then you’ll eat him, baby. Like the maneater you are.”

She made a funny face. “I’m not worried about him so much as I’m worried about his lady, Ruby Woo.”

I shook my head. “You and Woo are fire and ice, baby. She’ll melt.”

And it was on. Under cover of darkness, we boarded our speedboat The Retrofuturist and sped out into the harbor, where we pulled up alongside the yacht and sneaked aboard.

It was quiet. Dangerously quiet, like Red Square. I asked the others to search the yacht’s sleeping quarters and party room, and I made for the bridge.

Inside the control room, I found the captain slumped in his hair, stoned. “Hey, daddy-o,” he said when I took the keys from him, “what kind of lime crime is this?” I gave him a box on the ear, and headed back to check on my team.

I found them—tied up and lying on the deep lacquer of the dance floor. Standing over them were Kryolan Red and the impassioned Ruby Woo, the It Girl of international terror.

“Well, well, well,” cackled Kryolan. “It looks like once again the Red has beaten the white.”

“The brave Red,” murmured Woo. “the Russian Red.” She grabbed his crotch. “The jungle Red!”

Their ill-timed pillow talk annoyed me, but I couldn’t blame Kryolan for going wild at the sight of that lipstick queen. She was a true babe, hot perfection from her coral hair down to her toes painted like cherries in the snow. She was curvy, too—I don’t know how big those gazongas are, but she’s got to be at least a 511B. Maybe even a 905D or a 918D.

“Red you may be,” I said, “but you’re no Red Saint! Why don’t you and your Scarlet Empress come over here and try to give me a wet cranberry. I dare you.”

Kryolan just laughed. “You think you’re so chaud, such a rebel. Well, I’ve got news for you, baby doll. We’re taking a Greek holiday, and you’re taking a one-way trip to Tashkent!” He paused as he raised his semiautomatic YSL Rouge Pur 150. “I will always cherish the memory of our brief time together.”

There was a loud schiap, and the dance floor came up to meet me like a hungry lacquer dragon.

When I woke up, I was lying alone in an alley in Madrid. I stumbled to a bar and ordered a stiff Creme de Gloss. There was a star-red blood spot on my shirt, but someone had bandaged my wound.

I never found out what happened that night, but I decided to surrender my life of crime and finish my bachelor’s degree. It took a while in makeup school, but eventually I graduated, started an online importing business, and bought a little cottage on an island off Terre de Feu.

My love life? Well, I’ve had many a girl about town. There was Angelika, and Stella, and the lovely Lanvin. Sometimes I think about trying to find Lady Danger on Facebook, but I never follow through. After all, you can’t make up for ever.