Neil McMahon - To The Bone

Then his gaze was caught by a figure, a woman, off to his left, moving away from the crowd, toward the shadows at the edge of the lawn. She paused, cupping her hands to light a cigarette. A nearby sconce highlighted her coppery skin and long mane of silky black hair.

She was dressed differently than she had been yesterday – soft sleeveless pullover, skintight flared jeans cut below her navel – but there was no doubt that this was Coffee Trenette.

Another link in that chain that kept leading back to Eden Hale.

The match she was holding flared. But Monks saw that what she was lighting was not a cigarette – it was aluminum foil twisted into a conical pipe. Whatever was on the foil glowed briefly as she inhaled. She shook the match out, then let her head hang back in bliss. Maybe crack, Monks thought. Maybe heroin.

He walked over to her. She was half turned away and didn't see him.

"Small world, Ms. Trenette," he said.

Her hand moved quickly to thrust the pipe into her purse. She turned to him, face cool. Then recognition came to her, and she jerked away as if she had been hit with an electric shock.

"What are you doing here?" she hissed.

"Nice to see you, too."

"Don't you fuck with me, asshole."

"All right, I'll get straight to it," Monks said. "Of all the guys out there, how was it you happened to pick Ray Dreyer on that one particular night? The way he tells it, you wouldn't have spit on his shoes before then."

Her eyes gleamed with the feral look of a threatened animal. Her cultivated air was gone, too.

"You got a problem with that, you better lose it," she said. "I got some people be pleased to deal with you."

"Eden was your friend, Coffee, and now she's dead. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"You don't make friends in that world." She spun away, her shoulders rising and falling rapidly with her quick breaths.

Then, with her back still to him, she said more quietly, "You think I don't feel bad? Eden was nice to me."

"Even though you got a break, and she never did?"

Her head moved, in a nod that might have meant yes. "She was too nice, you know what I'm saying? People walked on her."

"What really happened that night, Coffee?" Monks said. "After your fight with your boyfriend?"

"There ain't no boyfriend, honey," she said scornfully. "Unless you count the ones come around wanting smoke and pussy."

"Then why did you call Ray?"

She stepped away from him, her forearms rising to cross her breasts, hands clasping her slender upper arms. Then she glanced back to him, with her gaze cool again.

"Because I'm a bitch," she said. But it had the feel of bluster this time.

She walked away, toward the crowd around the swimming pool. Monks almost felt sorry for her. Under her hardness and arrogance, there was a girl who had been given too much too fast. It had gone to her head, and she had made bad choices. Like Eden, she was a casualty of a world that glittered on the surface but was lined with broken glass.

But his pity stayed at almost. There were too many real victims who had never had anything but bad choices to make.

So – there hadn't been any boyfriend or fight. Something else had impelled her to sleep with Ray Dreyer that night, and guilt about it was softening her. Monks decided that he and Larrabee would be calling on Coffee again.

"I didn't realize you two knew each other," a sultry voice said.

Monks turned to see another young woman walking toward him. Like Coffee, she was dressed very differently than the older guests, in a thigh-high leather skirt and black tube top under an open white blouse. A wide belt with a big brass buckle encircled her narrow waist. Her dark hair was done up in a tousled ponytail.

He realized, with astonishment, that this was Gwen. He had only seen her before in her professional mode, beautiful, but sedately dressed and clearly almost forty. Now, in this light, she could have been in her twenties.

When she reached him, she leaned forward, offering her cheek to be kissed. Monks obliged, catching the scent of that same perfume she had worn at the clinic, deep and heady, musky rather than sweet.

"You look ravishing," Monks said.

"Tell me how you met Coffee," she said teasingly. "I need to know if I should be jealous."

"No worry there. My partner and I found out that Eden's boyfriend spent the night with her, while Eden was dying."

Gwen stepped back in shock. "My God, that's awful. That's why he wasn't with Eden?"

Monks nodded. "We asked her to confirm it. She did, but she wasn't happy about it."

"No, I don't suppose she would be. Coffee's not doing very well anyway."

"Drugs?"

"Big-time. And money. She's about to lose her house."

Monks remembered the air of neglect around the place. "I heard she had a very promising future."

"There's a million luscious young girls with promising futures out there, darling. Some of them get lucky, for a while. But only a few are good enough and smart enough to stay on top."

It seemed clear that Gwen included herself in that select group.

"Let's have a drink," she said. "I've got a bottle of Veuve Clicquot on ice. I've been saving it for a special occasion."

"I'd better stick with club soda for now," he said.

"Come on, just one glass. You'll be more fun if you relax."

"You mean, I'll have more fun?"

"No, be more fun, for me," she said. "I'm very selfish."

Monks smiled. "All right. Just one."

"It's inside. I'll get it."

She left him, walking to a side door of the house, her long slim legs flexing gracefully with a model's fillylike stalk.

Monks heard another loud splash from the swimming pool.

"It's great," a young woman's voice called invitingly. "Like a bath."

He moved quietly closer. The pool was like a grotto, springing out of a rocky cliff, lit by underwater lamps. It had a distinctly Mediterranean feel. Quite a few of the guests were standing around it, drinking and talking.

By now Monks had started to notice that there were two fairly distinct groups – the older and more affluent, and a younger set, dressed casually and even flamboyantly, like Gwen and Coffee Trenette. Tight jeans and tops that accentuated breasts or pectorals seemed to be the prevailing uniform. They were mostly quite attractive – they looked like they were, or could be, actors and models.

One of them, a man, was looking back at him pointedly – glaring, in fact. He had on wraparound sunglasses, and it took Monks a moment to realize that it was Ray Dreyer, Eden's ex-boyfriend.

Dreyer was wearing a black silk jacket over a T-shirt. Monks walked over to him.

'Thoughtful of you to dress in mourning," Monks said quietly.

'Tuck you," Dreyer mouthed. Monks braced himself, thinking that Dreyer might want to pick up their fight where it had left off. But he turned away and went the other direction, farther into the shadows.

Another old friend who was glad to see him, Monks thought.

Then he noticed a slight flare of light, from the other direction. The main front door of the house was opening and closing. A man was coming out.

D'Anton.

Monks walked quickly back that way and intercepted D'Anton as he reached the bottom of the porch steps.

"Good evening, Doctor," Monks said.

D'Anton glanced around impatiently. The glance turned to an icy stare as he recognized Monks.

Monks was very aware that he might be looking into the eyes of a man who was capable of mutilating a living human being.

"How dare you come to my house," D'Anton said.

"Gwen Bricknell invited me."

"And you actually accepted?" D'Anton said, with withering disbelief.

"I was watching you inside there. It must be quite a feeling, being surrounded by your own creations."