Among the Living - By Dan Vining Page 0,1

big laugh.

A woman stood at the bar along the far wall under a Ruscha, her face turned away, quarter profile, talking with someone, maybe watching herself in the plateglass window beyond the man. There was something Old School about her look, too, black hair over the eyes, a silk dress that caught the light, shoes taller than they needed to be. In another time, or at least another movie, she would have had a cigarette smoldering and a little chrome .25 automatic in her clutch bag. And a hurt in her heart.

Jimmy was watching her when Joel Kinser came up.

“Maybe I could see some I.D.,” the host said.

Kinser was just over five feet. He wore a suit the color of raw clay, a black silken V-neck tee underneath, thin-soled slip-ons, no socks, a belt that picked up the hardware on the tops of the shoes. He had his hands in his pants pockets, pockets which were always empty. He hated bulges.

“Look who’s talking,” Jimmy said. “It takes an I.Q. of one-twenty to get into Mensa. What’d you do, have one of your story editors take the test for you?”

Joel Kinser loved talking about how very intelligent he was. It was almost his favorite subject. He smiled in an oddly feminine way.

“Don’t hate me because I’m perspicacious,” he said.

Jimmy couldn’t look away from the beauty.

“Who’s she?”

“Jean Kantke. Go talk to her. We don’t bite.”

“Oh, I could never talk to one of you.”

“Funny.”

“What would I say?”

“Right.”

A television star, a comic, came in from the foyer, even later to the do than Jimmy. He stopped on the steps, looking for Kinser, or making an entrance, letting them all get a good look at him. He had a face that made you smile or at least think of smiling. He had a can of beer in his hand and wore a black Hugo Boss suit over a Day-Glo Dale Earnhardt Jr. T-shirt.

“He’s not Mensa is he?” Jimmy said.

“Just a friend. Like you, Jimmy.” Kinser turned up the wattage in his smile and started toward the comic.

“Have fun,” he looked back and said. “And, by the way, it’s one thirty-two.”

Jimmy went over to the bar, stepped behind it, poured out the martini and started making a shaker of something of his own. The black-haired beauty, Jean Kantke, was still there, alone now, her back to him.

Jimmy said, “Just as I pulled up, this great song started on the radio. I was going to hang a U-ey, keep on going. You ever do that?”

She turned. From across the room, she was pretty. From here, she was stunning. She brushed her hair away from her face. Up close, her black hair had a blue shine to it. She had green eyes, a bit sad. Her lipstick was some shade of fifties red, edged in black in a way you couldn’t exactly see when you looked for it. Her arms were bare. And long. She laid a hand on the bar, struck a pose, but with her it looked natural. A line of little pink pearls followed each other around her pretty wrist.

As he took her in, in that long second, Jimmy had a thought he’d never say aloud, how a beautiful woman was like a classic car, the bold lines, the unexpected color, the speed of it, standing still. And the sense that its time was gone already, even as you stood there in front of it.

“I guess not,” he said.

“I might,” she said.

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“You’re not the radio type.”

“What was the song?” she said.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said.

She was drinking a martini, too. Jimmy took her glass, dumped it, poured her one from whatever he’d made in the pitcher and one for himself. It was pink. He dropped a thin green curve of lime peel onto the surface, like a professional, or an actor playing a bartender.

She started to taste it.

“Wait,” he said. The lime twist was still turning in a circle on the surface.

She waited.

“OK.”

She tasted her drink. “Wow,” she said.

“Yep.”

“What is it?”

“Manna.”

“Manna.”

“That’s what manna means,” he said. “In Hebrew. Mannah. What is it.”

He heard himself. I’m trying to impress her, he thought. It had been a while for that.

He came around the bar. “So, how smart are you?” he said.

“Pretty smart,” she said.

She tilted her head to one side a few degrees, a look that was meant to be friendly, open the door a little further, better than a smile. Her skin was perfect, her face full of light. He wondered why