old Russian got up, walked over to the big guy’s table, put his hand on the big guy’s shoulder as he looked closely at the drawing. A giant diamond on his hand sparkled—the real thing. The old Russian nodded approval, went back to his table. One of the Greek’s brothers whispered something to him—I didn’t need a translator: “Sit still!” The ocean swallowed the island again. Maybe the Greeks were really Russians. Or just guys who knew the score. Whoever the big guy with the drawing tablet was, he was nobody tofuck with.
The waitress strolled over, a stone-faced woman in her forties. “What’ll it be?” Her voice made her face look inviting.
“Mimi around?” I asked.
“I’ll check,” she said, and walked off.
I cracked a wooden match into flame, but I didn’t even have it to the tip of my cigarette when she materialized at the booth.
“You looking for me?” Mimi asked, a friendly smile on her classic Aztec face. Her skin had a lovely pale-bronze glow. Highlights glinted in her long raven hair. But her eyes were as flat as a cadaver’s heart monitor.
“Actually,” I said, “I was looking for some work.”
“What kind of work do you do?”
“Body work,” I told her, softly.
Her obsidian eyes ran over my torso appraisingly. “You work with your hands?” she asked, showing me hers. Her fingernails were long black-lacquered talons.
“I do heavy work,” I said, meeting her gaze.
I didn’t know where Mimi had been raised, but she recognized the jailhouse stare quick enough. “We don’t vouch for anyone here,” she said. There wasn’t a trace of accent in her voice. Just a warning.
“I got it,” I told her. Handed her a hundred-dollar bill. It disappeared—she had fast hands.
“You want something while you’re waiting?”
“Rye and ginger. Don’t mix them, okay?”
The waitress brought me the shot glass of what they said was rye and a taller glass with a small bottle of off-brand ginger ale. “Seven-fifty,” was all she said. I gave her a ten. She took it and walked away again. Rollo’s ran like city buses: Exact Change, No Refunds.
Moved just about as fast too. I sat there by myself for a good while. Poured ginger ale into the tall glass and drank most of it off. Then I dumped in the shot and let it sit there melting into the ice cubes until the glass was a quarter full. The waitress came over, asked me if I wanted another one. I told her “Sure,” nodding at the tall glass. She took it away, brought me the same setup, pocketed another ten.
I couldn’t spot the Chinese woman, but the cell phone in my pocket hadn’t gone off, so she hadn’t left. If she was the right one, we had her boxed.
An argument broke out at one of the little round tables. Man and a woman. He grabbed her hair and slapped her a couple of times. Back and forth. Slow. Showing her how things were between them. I couldn’t hear what he was saying to her, but he was talking all the time he was slapping her. The bouncer—the one they call T.B.—glided over, hands empty at his sides. He spread his arms wide, saying something peaceful. The guy dropped the woman’s hair and jumped to his feet. T.B. stepped back. Encouraged, the guy came out with a knife, flicking it open with his thumb as he went into a crouch. A grin split T.B.’s face, twisting the scar under his left eye. I didn’t see his foot move, but the guy’s knee went out. T.B. hit him once, just under the heart, as he was falling. The guy stayed where he was. The girl was on her feet then, but Mimi was behind her, hands on the girl’s wrists, locking her in. The girl said something I couldn’t make out.
“As if!” Mimi laughed, letting the girl go, giving her the shot if she wanted to take it.
The girl kept her hands down. Eyes too.
T.B. put his finger to his lips. The girl helped the guy up. They went out together—she was walking, he was leaning on her. T.B. went back someplace into the shadows. Mimi pulled a rag out of her waistband and started swabbing up the table.
Then the Chinese woman sat down in my booth.
Only she wasn’t Chinese. Her face was too square, especially around the jawline. And her complexion was a dusky rose, with a gold underbase. Her eyes were a pale-almond color, and they lacked the Oriental fold at the corners. Her hair was a red so dark that the color kept shifting in the reflected light, with a distinct curl as it fell to her shoulders. Her mouth was wide and full, slightly turned down at the corners. A faint spray of freckles broke across her wide flat nose. Along the L-line on her right jaw was a dark undulating streak, as though an artist had inked it in for emphasis.
“Trying to guess?” she asked me. Her voice was husky, cigarette-burnished. Musical, but not Top Forty.
“Yeah, I was,” I admitted.
“I’m half Inuit, half Irish.”
“Whatever the mix, it worked great.”
“Thank you,” she said, flashing a smile. Her teeth were so white, tiny and square they looked fake, like a mouthful of miniature Chiclets.
“You, uh, want something done?” I said.
“What are you?” she asked suddenly.
“Me? I’m just a guy who—”
“No. I mean, what
“Oh. Truth is, I don’t know.”
“You were adopted?”
“Abandoned,” I told her, watching her face.
Her almond eyes darkened. “But somebody had to raise you. Didn’t they . . . ?”
“The State raised me,” I told her. Telling it all, if she knew anything.
“What’s your name?”
“Burke,” I told her. If she was a cop, she already knew. And even if she wasn’t, those almond eyes had photographed me good enough to guide a police sketch artist’s hand right to my mug shot anyway.
“Mine’s Crystal Beth.”
“Your parents were bikers?” I laughed.
“No,” she said, smiling. “Hippies. At least my father was. He met my mother up north, and they came back to Oregon together. Where I was raised.”
Rollo’s wasn’t a singles bar. And I didn’t even know for sure if she was the same woman who’d hired Porkpie. I was there on business. But I felt the current pulling me and I went with it.
“In a commune?” I asked her.
“Yes. It was a lovely place, but it’s all gone now. All the old ways, gone.” She might have been a Plains Indian talking about another century for all the sadness in her voice.
“You want something to drink?” I asked her. Once someone in a booth attracted a visitor, the waitress would stay away unless you signaled her over.
“You drink the stuff they serve here?” she asked. A slight smile played around her lips, but the corners of her mouth stayed turned down. Genetics, then, not an expression.
“I got a strong stomach,” I assured her.
“Umm. Then maybe you’d like a job . . . ?”
“I might. What have you got in mind?”
“My . . .” She hesitated just a heartbeat, but I caught it. “. . . cousin’s having trouble. With her boyfriend. Her
“Sure. Some guys don’t get the message the first time.”
“And sometimes it depends on the messenger.”
“Yeah. You need a messenger?”
“That’s exactly what I need.”
“Uh-huh. You know this guy?”
“I don’t
“Just what you’ve been told?”
