Neil McMahon - To The Bone

The place was called Hanover Station. It was located several blocks west of China Basin – another industrial building that had been abandoned as industry died. Dot-commer entrepreneurs had refurbished it and opened it at the crest of that money wave, five or six years ago. Larrabee had never been inside.

When he walked in, he saw that it had been turned into a single space the size of an airplane hangar, ringed by a second-story balcony for dining. The brick walls had been left uncovered, the old hardwood on the main floor refinished. The back bar was antique, cherry or rosewood. All in all, it was not bad, although the nut must have been fearsome. The room was nowhere near full now, and he suspected it was in jeopardy, with the crashing of the markets that had built it.

He ordered a Lagavulin scotch, straight up with an ice-water back, at the bar. He paid for it with a twenty and got five back. That came as no surprise, but the drink was short. For a place that was losing business, that was the wrong direction to take. The bartender was a slick, good-looking young man, brimming with unconcealed self-admiration. Larrabee decided there was no help there for what he wanted.

He stood and sipped, casually watching the scene. The crowd was all young, mid-twenties to thirties, well-dressed, confident, used to spending money. Two cocktail waitresses circulated among the tables. Larrabee made his choice, left his empty glass on the bar with no tip, and sat at a table in her area.

She came over immediately. He had picked her because she didn't really fit this place – she looked like she would have been more at home in North Beach or the Haight. She was about thirty, tall, and very slender, dressed in close-fitting black, with long straight dark hair. She wore at least one ring on every finger, and many bracelets, all silver. She was quite attractive, although there was a certain Morticia Addams quality.

"What can I get you?" she said.

"I'd like to buy you a drink."

She rolled her eyes. "Sorry. I work till two, and I'm going straight home. Alone."

"I didn't say you had to have it with me." He laid a twenty-dollar bill on her tray.

"What do I have to do for that?" she said warily.

Larrabee handed her three photos of Eden Hale taken from the Internet, face shots with different angles and hairstyles, that he had chosen from her films. "Recognize her?"

The waitress touched one of the photos with a long-nailed fingertip. 'There was somebody who used to come around, who looks like this. I think her name was Eden?"

"That's her."

"I haven't seen her for a while."

"You won't," Larrabee said.

The bored glaze in her eyes went away. Her mouth opened a little.

"Have you got five minutes to talk to me?" he said.

"You a cop?"

"Private." He opened his wallet and showed her his license.

She was starting to look interested. "I'll meet you out front," she said.

He waited outside the front door. A sea breeze was springing up, and the moon was dimming behind thickening fog. There was not much traffic on the streets, but a few blocks away, the stream of headlights on the skyway of Interstate 80 was steady, an unending fuel line of human fodder for the city's guts.

The waitress came out and stood by him, fishing nervously for cigarettes in her purse. Larrabee took her Bic lighter from her fingers and held it while she leaned into the flame, cupping her hand against the breeze. She inhaled and stepped back, crossing her arms, one hand cupping the other elbow.

"Thanks," she said. "She's dead, that woman?"

Larrabee nodded.

"Murdered?"

"It's looking that way," he said.

She shivered. "What do you want to know?"

"What she was like. Who she hung out with. If there was anybody in particular."

"She was nice enough. She always came in alone, and I never saw her leave with anybody. But she got hit on a lot."

"She was a good-looking girl," Larrabee said.

"Yeah, but it was more than looks. There was just something about her that said 'fuck me.' I'd see the guys watching her; it was like they were back in the jungle – wanted to throw her down on the floor right there. She'd play into it, but it wasn't really even like she was prick-teasing. It's just the way she was."

"You ever overhear her talking? Figure out her story?"

"Just a little. She said she'd been an actress, but she was getting into modeling. There was something else, too. Wait a minute."

The waitress put her hand to her forehead, concentrating, with the cigarette smoking between her fingers.

"She was going to work for some famous surgeon, something like that. Seems like maybe she hinted she was going to marry him."

Larrabee's eyebrows rose. "Marry him, huh?"

"I think I heard that. I didn't pay much attention, really. I hear so many people talking about all the stuff they've got going, and I think, then why are you sitting in here trying to impress everybody?"

She inhaled deeply on the cigarette, watching him. Her eyes were softer now, the early toughness gone. It was something that happened, an odd bit of psychology, like transference. People wanted to please their interrogators, to contribute something important. People who were not criminals, at least. The suggestion that Eden had talked about marrying D' Anton was a choice bit of information. But there wasn't much else he did not already know, and he doubted there would be much more.

"One more question," he said. "How did she dress?"

The waitress shrugged. "Like everybody else here."

"Like a businesswoman? Not flashy?"

"Like she'd just come from the office."

"Did that seem strange, with her acting slutty?" She snorted with amusement. "Are you kidding?" Larrabee handed her one of his business cards. "Keep thinking about it, and ask your friends, huh? If anything turns up, give me a call."

She reached into her purse again, head ducking as her fingers searched, hair spilling around her face. It made her look more vulnerable still. She found the twenty-dollar bill and offered it back to him. "You didn't have to give me money," she said. "Come on. I've been keeping you away from your tips."

"I don't make twenty bucks in five minutes."

"Neither do I," Larrabee said.

She smiled and tossed her hair. "Maybe we should have that drink sometime."

He left with her name, Heather, and her phone number written on another one of his cards.

There were many available women in San Francisco, and Larrabee encountered them frequently through his work. That also gave him a romantic gloss that was more imagined than real. He got his share of come-ons, with the offer of sex usually there more or less immediately. This was fine with him, although, by his own lights at least, he never exploited it. But the need was there in him just like anybody else, particularly when he was in between longer relationships. Like now.

The last one of those had been Iris, the stripper with the stage name Secret, who had left two years ago to dance in Vegas. At first she had come back to stay with him often, and there was a time when it seemed like the relationship could have gotten solid. But she had slipped into another world, or maybe hardened into what she was destined to be from the beginning, with the dancing giving way to hooking and drugs. He had not heard from her in a while.

He was thinking seriously about Tina's offer. The sheer weirdness of it was intriguing, and he was reasonably sure that she wanted exactly what she said and nothing more. As for the waitress, Heather – he had been in those sorts of situations many times, and he doubted he would go for this one. The way it usually went, there would be a few nights of entertaining discoveries about each other's lives, accompanied by energetic lust. Then the unraveling would start – the realization that there were no real common interests or compatibility – and it would take its course, probably with a fair dose of pain and trouble.