Monday nights are generally quiet, allowing the day-drinkers and the usual sports rowdies to recover from their weekend excesses. My favorite booth was empty, as were most of the others, as a matter of fact. I slid in on one side so I could watch the front door for Reba’s arrival. I checked the menu, a mimeographed sheet inserted in a plastic sleeve. Rosie runs these off on a machine at the back, the blurred purple lettering barely legible. Two months before, she’d instituted a new style of menu, closely resembling a leather-bound portfolio with a handscripted list of the Hungarian Specialties du Jour of the Day, as she referred to them. Some of these menus had been stolen and others had served as hazardous flying missiles when opposing soccer teams enjoyed a hot dispute about the last big match. Rosie had apparently given up her pretensions to haute cuisine and her old mimeographed sheets were back in circulation. I ran an eye down the list of dishes, though I’m not even sure why I bothered to check. Rosie makes all my food decisions for me, compelling me to dine on whatever Hungarian delicacies come to her mind when she’s taking my order.
William was now working behind the bar. I watched him pause to check his pulse, two fingers of one hand pressed to his carotid artery, the other hand holding aloft his trusty pocket watch. Henry came in and flicked a look in his direction. He chose a table near the front, pointedly turning his back to the bar. As I watched, Rosie moved out from behind the bar bearing a glass of lip-puckering white wine that she passes off as Chardonnay. I could see an inch of gray hair growing in along her part. In the past, she’s claimed to be in her sixties, but now she’s so quiet on the subject I suspect she’s slipped over the line into her seventies. She’s short, pigeon-breasted, and the red portion of her red hair is dyed to a hue somewhere between cinnabar and burnt ocher.
She placed the glass of wine in front of me. “Is new. Very good. You sip and tell what you think. I’m saving two dollar a bottle over other brand.”
I sipped and nodded. “Very nice,” I said. Meanwhile, enamel was being eaten off my teeth. “I see Henry and William aren’t speaking.”
“I’m telling William to mind his own business, but he’s no listen to me. I’m shock to see a woman can come between them two brothers.”
“They’ll get over it,” I said. “What’s your take on the situation. You think Mattie has designs on Henry?”
“What do I know? That Henry’s a catch. You should hev seen little old ladies flirt with him on cruise ship. Was comical. On other hand, her husband die. Meybe she don’t want to connect with some guy. Meybe she want freedom all to herself and Henry for a friend.”
“That’s what I’ve been worried about, but William’s convinced there’s something more going on.”
“William’s convince she won’t be living two more years. He wants Henry to hurry in case she’s dropping dead already.”
“That’s ridiculous. She’s barely seventy.”
“Very young,” Rosie murmured. “I myself hope to look so good when I’m getting her age.”
“I’m certain you will,” I said. I picked up the menu and pretended to study. “I’m expecting a friend so I’ll hold off on ordering. Actually this all sounds pretty good. What do you recommend?”
“Lucky you esk. For you and your friend, I’m fixing Krumpli Paprikas. Is stew made of boil potato, ongion, and what you call weenies cut in pieces. Is always serve with rye bread and on the side you hev choice of cucumber salad or sour pickle. Which you want? I’m think pickle,” she said, scribbling a note on her pad.
“Sour pickle, my favorite. So perfect with the wine.”
“I’m bring you food as soon as he come.”
“It’s a ‘she’ friend, not a ‘he.’”
“Is pity,” she said, shaking her head. She added an emphatic mark to her pad and then returned to the bar.
At 7:15 Reba appeared, pausing at the door to scan the room. She saw me waving from my booth and made her way toward the back. She’d changed out of her jeans and T-shirt into slacks, a red cotton sweater, and sandals. Her color had improved and her eyes looked enormous in the perfect oval of her face. The spikes were gone from her hair, strands of which she’d tucked behind her ears, causing them to protrude like an elf ’s. When she reached the booth, she slid in on her side, saying, “Sorry I’m late, but I ended up taking a cab. Turns out my driver’s license expired while I was in the can. I was worried I’d be pulled over if I tried driving without one. I could have applied for a renewal from prison but never got around to it. Maybe tomorrow we can go to the DMV.”
“Sure. No problem. Why don’t I pick you up at nine and we can take care of your license and then run any other errands you have in mind.”
“Maybe some clothes. I can use a few things.” Reba craned her head, doing a quick survey of the room behind her where the patrons were starting to trickle in. “Would you mind switching seats? I hate sitting with my back to the room.”
I slid out on my side of the booth and traded places with her, though in truth I wasn’t any fonder than she was about sitting with my back to the room. “How’d you manage in prison?”
“That’s where I learned to keep an eye on my ass. I trust what I can see. The rest is way too scary for my taste.” She took up a menu and ran her eye down the page.
“Were you scared?”
She lifted her enormous dark eyes to my face, her smile fleeting. “At first. After a while, I wasn’t scared so much as cautious. I didn’t worry about the staff. It took me about two full seconds to figure out how to get along with them.”
“Which was what?”
“Compliance. I was nice. Polite. I did as I was told and I obeyed all the rules. It was really no big deal and it made life easier.”
“What about the other inmates?”
“Most of them were okay. Not all. Some of the girls were mean, so you didn’t dare let ’em see you as weak. You backed down on anything, they’d be all over you like flies. So here’s what I learned. Some bitch gets in my face? I get right back in hers. If she escalates, I do the same and keep on upping the ante until it finally dawns on her she’d better leave me alone. What made it tricky was you didn’t want to be written up, especially for anything involving violence—there was hell to pay for that—so you had to find a way to stand your ground without calling attention to yourself.”
“How’d you manage it?”
She smiled. “Oh, I had my little ways. The truth is I never messed with anyone who didn’t mess with me first. My goal was peace and quiet. You go your way and I’ll go mine. Sometimes it just didn’t work out that way and then you had to move on to something else.” She glanced down at the menu. “What is this stuff?”
“Those are all Hungarian dishes, but you don’t need to fret. Rosie’s already decided what we’re having. You can argue with her if you like, but you’ll lose.”
“Hey, just like prison. What a happy thought.”
I saw Rosie approach, bearing another glass of second-rate wine. Before she could put it down in front of Reba, I reached for it, saying, “Thanks. I’ll take that. What about you, Reba? What would you like to drink?”
“I’ll have iced tea.”
Rosie made an officious note to herself like a proper journalist. “Sweet or no sweet?”
“I prefer plain.”
“I’m bring lemon on the side in little diaper so you squeeze in your tea with no seeds come out.”
“Thanks.”
Once Rosie left, Reba said, “I would have turned that down. It really doesn’t bother me to see you drink.”
“I wasn’t sure. I don’t want to be a bad influence.”
“You? Not possible. Don’t worry about it.” She set the menu aside and clasped her hands on the table in front of her. “You have other questions. I can tell.”
“I do. What were they in for, the mean ones?”
“Murder, manslaughter. A lot for selling drugs. The lifers were the worst because what did they have to lose? They’d get thrown in detention? Whoopee-do
. Big deal.”
“I couldn’t stand having all those people around. Didn’t that drive you nuts?”
“It was terrible. Really bad. Women living in close proximity always end up on the same monthly cycle. I guess there must be primitive survival advantages—females fertile at the same time. Talk about PMS. You tack a full moon on top of that and the place turned into a loony bin. Moodiness, quarrels, crying jags, suicide attempts.”
“You think being among hardened criminals corrupted you?”
“Corrupted me? Like how?”
“Didn’t you pick up new and better ways to break the law?”
She laughed. “Are you kidding? All of us were in there because we got caught. Why would I take instruction from a bunch of fuckups? Besides which, women don’t sit around trying to teach other women how to rob banks or fence stolen property. They talk about what lousy attorneys they had and how their case is going on appeal. They talk about their kids and their boyfriends and what they want to do when they get out, which usually involves food and sex—not necessarily in that order.”
“Was there an upside?”
“Oh, sure. I’m clean and sober. The drunks and druggies are the ones who end up back in the can. They go out on parole and the next thing you know, they’re on the bus again, coming through Reception. Half the time they can’t even remember what they did while they were out.”
“How’d you survive?”
“I walked the yard or read books, sometimes as many as five a week. I did tutoring. Some of the girls barely knew how to read. They weren’t dumb; they’d just never been taught. I did their hair and looked at pictures of their kids. That was hard, watching them try to maintain contact. The phones were a source of conflict. You wanted to make an afternoon call, you had to get your name on a list first thing in the morning. Then when your turn came, you had twenty minutes max. The big beefy dykes took as long as they liked and if you had objections, tough patooties to you. I was a shrimp compared to most. Five-two, a hundred and four pounds. That’s why I learned to be devious. Nothing sweeter than revenge, but you don’t want to leave your fingerprints all over the deed. Take my advice: never do anything that points back to you.”
“I’ll remember that,” I said.
Rosie returned with a tray bearing Reba’s iced tea, the lemon swaddled in cheesecloth, and an order of Krumpli Paprikas for each of us. She set down rye bread, butter, and sour pickles, and disappeared again.
Reba leaned close to her bowl. “Oh. Caraway seeds. For a minute, I thought I saw something move.”
The potato stew was tasty, served in big porcelain bowls flecked with caraway seeds. I was using my last piece of buttered rye bread to sop up the remaining traces of gravy when I saw Reba glance over my left shoulder toward the front of the restaurant, her eyes widening. “Oh my goodness! Look who’s here.”
I leaned left, peering around the edge of the booth so I could follow her gaze. The front door had opened and a guy had come in. “You know him?”
“That’s Beck,” she said as though that explained everything. She pushed herself out of the booth. “I’ll be right back.”
7
I waited a decent interval and then peered at the two of them standing near the door. The guy was tall, lean, and rangy in jeans and a supple black suede jacket. He had his hands in his jacket pockets and his collar turned up, which didn’t look as thuglike as it sounds. His hair was a tawny mix of blond and brown, and his half-smile created a deep crease on either side of his mouth. Beside him, Reba was diminutive, a full head shorter than he, which forced him to lean toward her attentively as the two of them talked. I went back to cleaning my bowl—food, in this instance, taking precedence over idle speculation.
A moment later they appeared and Reba gestured at him. “Alan Beckwith. I used to work for him. This is Kinsey Millhone.”
He held his hand out, his wrist thin, his fingers long and slim. “Nice to meet you. I’m Beck to most.”
I put him in his thirties—fine lines on his face, but no pouches anywhere. “Nice meeting you, too,” I said, shaking hands with him. “Are you joining us?”
“If you don’t mind. I don’t want to butt in.”
“We’re just chatting,” I said. “Have a seat.”
On their side of the booth, Reba slid in first, scooting over to make room for him. He sat down, half-slouching, his long legs outstretched. He was clean shaven, but I could see the shadow of a beard. His eyes were the dark, rich brown of Hershey’s Kisses. I picked up the scent of cologne, something spicy and light. I’d seen him before…not here, but somewhere in town, though I couldn’t imagine why our paths would have crossed.
He tapped on the back of Reba’s hand. “So. How’ve you been?”
“Fine. It feels great to be home.”
I tuned them out, watching as the two exchanged pleasantries. For people who’d once worked together, both seemed ill at ease, but that might have been because he’d turned her over to the cops, a move that would put a damper on most relationships.
“You look good,” he said.
“Thanks. I could use a decent haircut. I did this myself. What about you? What have you been up to?”
“Not much. Traveling a lot on business. I just got back from Panama last week and I may be heading out again. We’re in the new building, part of the mall that was finished last spring. Restaurants and shops. It’s really slick.”
“That was in the works when I left and I know what a pain in the ass it was. Congratulations.”
“Have you seen it?”
“Not yet. Must be convenient for you, working right downtown.”
“Dynamite,” he said.
She smiled. “How’s the office gang? I hear Onni took my old job. Is she doing okay?”
“She’s fine. It took her a while to learn the system, but she’s doing great. Everyone else is pretty much the same.”
What did I sense? I tested the air with my little feelers, trying to identify the nature of the tension between them.
Idly, I listened while Beck continued. “I got a new deal in the works. Commercial property up near Merced. I just met with some guys who have capital to invest so we may pull something together. I stopped in here for a good-luck drink before I headed home.” His attention shifted in an effort to include me in the conversation. A smooth move, I thought. He wagged a finger between Reba and me, like a windshield wiper. “How do you two know each other?”
I’d opened my mouth to speak, but Reba got in first. “We don’t. We just met this morning when she picked me up and brought me home. I was going nuts, stuck at the house. Pop went to bed early and I was too hyper to sit still. The silence was really creeping me out so I called her.”
His gaze settled on mine. “You live around here?”
“Half a block down. I rent a studio apartment. Matter of fact, that’s my landlord over there,” I said, gesturing toward Henry at his table near the front. “The bartender’s his older brother William, who’s married to Rosie, the gal who owns this place, just to fill you in.”
Beck smiled. “A family affair.” He was one of those guys who understands the power of being totally focused on the person he’s talking to. No barely disguised glances at his watch, no surreptitious shift in his gaze to see who’s coming in the door. Now he seemed as patient as a cat staring at a crack in a rock where a lizard has disappeared.
“You live in the area?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I’m in Montebello, right where East Glen and Cypress Lane intersect.”
I rested my chin on my hand. “I’ve seen you someplace.”
“I’m a native, Santa Teresa born and bred. My folks had a place in Horton Ravine, but they’ve been gone now for years. My dad owned the Clements,” he said, referring to a three-story luxury hotel that folded in the late seventies. Subsequent ownerships had failed as well and the building had been converted to a retirement facility. If I remembered correctly, his father had been involved in numerou
s businesses around town. Major bucks.
I glanced over to see Rosie moving toward us with an empty tray, her sights fixed on Beck, her approach as direct and unwavering as a heat-seeking missile. When she reached the table, she made a point of directing all her comments to me, a minor eccentricity of hers. She seldom looks a stranger in the eye. Male or female, it doesn’t matter to her. Any new acquaintance is treated like an odd appendage of mine. The effect, in this instance, was coquettish, which I thought was unbecoming in a woman her age. “Your friend would like something to drink?”
I said, “Beck?”
“You have single-malt Scotch?”
She fairly wriggled with pleasure, shooting an approving look at him out of the corner of her eye. “Special for him, I hev MaCallum’s. Is twenty-four years old. You want neat or wit ice?”
“Ice. A double with a water back. Thanks.”
“Of course.” She cleared the table, loading our dinner plates and silverware onto her tray. “He’s want supper, perhaps?”
He smiled. “No, thanks. It smells wonderful, but I just ate. Maybe next time. Are you Rosie?”
“Yes, I em.”
He rose to his feet and offered his hand. “An honor to meet you. Alan Beckwith,” he said. “This is quite a place.”
In lieu of an actual handshake, Rosie allowed him temporary possession of her fingertips. “Next time, I’m fix something special for you. Hungarian like what you’ve never had until I give.”
“You got a deal. I adore Hungarian cuisine,” he said.
“You hev been to Hungary?”
“Budapest, once, about six years ago…”
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