The Bookman's Wake by John Dunning Read Free Book Online Page A

trying to adjust our
     eyes. It was still early, but already the bar was crowded
     with happy-hour zombies and refugees from various wars.
     Music was playing loudly on the jukebox: “Sea of
     Love.” Maybe thirty people were at the bar and at
     tables scattered around it. The bartender was a fat man who
     looked like Jackie Gleason. Olga sat on a stool at the far
     end. Two stools away was Eleanor Rigby.
    “There she is,” Pruitt said.
    We stood for another moment.
    “Is it your job yet, or am I supposed to stand
     here all night?”
    “Go on, blow.”
    He motioned to Olga, who left an untouched beer and came
     toward us. “I’ll probably meet you again
     sometime,” he said to me. “The circumstances
     will be different.”
    “I’m in the Denver phone book, if you ever
     get out that way.”
    “Maybe I’ll make a point of it.”
    Asshole
, I said, not entirely under my breath.
    I ambled to the bar and sat on the only empty stool,
     directly across from Rigby. The bartender came; I ordered a
     beer and sucked the foam off. Ten yards away, Eleanor Rigby
     had another of whatever she was drinking. I watched her
     without looking. I looked at two guys having a Seahawks
     argument and I watched her with peripheral vision. I
     watched the bartender polishing glasses and I looked at
     her. She looked bone weary, as if she might fall asleep at
     the bar. I stole a frontal look. There wasn’t much
     danger in it, she was just another good-looking girl in a
     bar and I was a lonely, horny guy. She’d be used to
     gawkers, she must get them all the time. She was
     twenty-one, I guessed, with thick hair pinned back and up.
     “Eleanor Rigby.” I shook my head and tried to
     clear away the Victorian spinster the song conjured up. I
     wondered what it does to people, being named after
     something like that and having to carry that baggage all
     your life.
    I was in it now, committed to the deed. I told myself
     she was nothing more than a cool five grand, waiting to be
     picked up. I wasn’t sure yet how to take
     her—probably later, on the street. I didn’t
     like the smell of the crowd in the bar. It was a
     blue-collar crowd, a sports crowd, and there’s always
     some ditz ready to rise up out of a crowd like that and
     defend a pretty woman’s honor no matter what. Never
     mind my court papers, never mind the cheap-looking ID
     Slater had given me as I left. The ID identified me as an
     operative of CS Investigations of Denver, but there was no
     picture of me on it and it gave me no authority beyond what
     Slater had, what anybody has. What I could use right now
     was a state-issued license with my kisser plastered all
     over it. But the state of Colorado doesn’t require
     its private detectives or its psychotherapists to have
     special licenses: all a bozo needs is an eight-by-twelve
     office, the gift of gab, and the power of positive
     thinking. I was making what amounted to a citizen’s
     arrest, and I had the law on my side because she had jumped
     bail and was now a fugitive. But if you have to explain
     that to a crowd in a bar, you’re already in
     trouble.
    I nursed my beer and waited. She sat across the
     waterhole, a gazelle unaware of the lion’s approach.
     The stool had opened to her immediate left. I was tempted,
     but a shark moved in and filled it. Story of my damn life:
     the studs make the moves while I sit still and consider the
     universe, and I go home to a cold and lonely bed. I thought
     about Rita McKinley and wondered where she was and what she
     was doing with herself. In a way that was difficult to
     explain, Eleanor Rigby looked a little like Rita, like a
     younger model. Actually, she looked nothing like Rita at
     all. The stud to her left was already hitting on her. In
     happier times she might’ve been thrilled, but now she
     just looked tired and bored. The bartender drifted down and
     asked if I wanted another brew. I said I was okay,
     I’d send up a flare when the