Read Online San Francisco Noir by Peter Maravelis - Free Book Online Page B

Ha.”
    A large red amanita mushroom graced the sign for the Wonderland Diner. Alhambra said, “You’ll like it here, Gina.”
    Gina looked dubious, but as they entered she murmured, “Whoa. A real diner. Cool.”
    Knotty pine walls, sweet breakfast smells, a waitress with a sharp take-no-prisoners grin greeted them. “Good morning. Sit yourselves wherever you’re most comfortable. Coffee?” Not even a small blink at Gina’s broken face. Maybe smashed up faces were common. Maybe the waitress was just good.
    Alhambra grinned back. “Mornin. Two double espressos, please, to start.”
    “Comes double. You want double double?”
    “Yes, please.” Alhambra whispered to Gina, “Great coffee. They tested every kind they could get their hands on—”
    The waitress pulled the handles on the old espresso machine like an Italian barrista. Serious. No shortcuts like the machines at Peet’s.
    “Sounds like my kind of job.”
    “Pffft. You would be the worst waitress on the planet. It’s an art.”
    Grumbling, “I wanta be the taster, not the server.” Gina bit the lemon peel, sipped her double espresso. “Damn. Well. All right then.”
    “Country pleasures.”
    Gina didn’t respond, she got up, bringing her coffee with her, walked to the side of the diner, called her job. They hadn’t missed her, really, but they were aware that the work wasn’t done. Not to worry. She’d deal with it when the roads opened up. Sometime in May. Monte Rio had a certain appeal.
    “Okay, so tell me: What do people do up here?” Gina spoke through a mouthful of biscuit ten minutes from the oven with real Maple syrup poured over. She stabbed at her bacon and spun it around on her fork, pointing the whole arrangement at her friend.
    Alhambra chewed her BLT on rye, considering an answer. “Same as anywhere. Folks try to get by, grab the energy of the earth and put it to work.”
    “Energy of the earth? Crap.” Gina wasn’t going to be mollified by an outstanding breakfast. “Diddlin. That’s what happens when you don’t have the energy of the city. Ya go soft in the head and spend all your time diddlin.”
    “Define.”
    Gina’s mouth opened, closed. She scowled. “Eh. You know what I mean.”
    Alhambra looked up.
    Gina felt a large ominous shadow on her right. She craned her neck, wincing for effect, focused her one functioning eye on the steel worker who stood by their table.
    “I know you.”
    Gina’s lips parted, starting to snarl then wiggling into a limp smile. “Yeah?”
    The six-foot steel worker with the blond buzz cut spoke in a melodic soprano, she stood sort of shy, one foot on top of the other. “Uh-huh.” She shifted to another self-effacing position. Her eyebrows lifted, her head tipped to the side, one shoulder raised up—a sort of traditional body language for you-know-where-we’ve-been.
    “Jail?” As soon as Gina spoke she would have eaten her own head if only she could’ve fit it in her mouth. In for a nickel. “Which one?” In for a dime.
    “Bryant Street. You were on your way somewheres else, probably don’t remember me. Name’s Joey. They called me Big Rig .”
    It would be impolite to admit she didn’t remember anyone quite so large, impossible to say she had no memory at all of someone who tried so hard to be small. And failed so utterly. “Ah.” Perhaps the woman was smaller then?
    Joey pointed, a small movement, at Gina’s arm. “That my design, that one there.”
    Gina took a long breath, blew it out. This person was too sizable to insult, but truth is truth. “No. It ain’t. It ain’t yers. It’s from the hand and mind and soul of a monster great master in the Mission. I watched it bein born in his psyche, I watched it get drawn here on my arm, and I watched him, in total tattoo trance, ink this sucker by hand with needles he tied together right there in front of me with secret knots, and with ink he ground up hisself from pine sap. So don’t give me no shit about it’s