Homicide in Hardcover

I stepped outside and felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. I glanced around warily, then pulled my jacket tight and ran to my car.

Rather than sit in traffic, I had the taxi driver drop me off at Larkin and Beach and I walked a block over to the Buena Vista. Cabbing it to Fisherman’s Wharf on a Friday night solved two problems for me. I wouldn’t have to fight for a parking place and I’d avoid the idiocy of drinking and driving.

But speaking of idiocy, I wondered if I was nuts for hoping to find the unknown Anandalla, based on a flimsy cocktail napkin note.

“Flimsy maybe, but intriguing nonetheless,” I maintained as I maneuvered my way along the crowded sidewalk, then had to cover my ears as a cable car rumbled down Hyde. It gained speed and clanged its bell loud enough to wake the dead and to alert the large crowd milling at the cable car turnaround a half block away.

Reaching the door of the Buena Vista, I stared in dismay at the standing-room-only crowd inside. Robin was going to kill me for bringing her into this madness. If I ever made it to the bar, I’d make sure to have a drink waiting for her when she showed up.

I forced my way inside and nudged people out of the way until I hit the bar. As the scents of chili and fried fish hit me, old memories poured in.

I was ten years old the first time I came here. My parents had brought our whole brood along to meet some Deadhead friends for breakfast. It was the Friday morning after Thanksgiving and we had so much fun, we insisted on making it a yearly tradition. Mom and Dad would perch at the bar, drinking Irish coffee and enjoying the fantastic view, while we six kids would pick a likely table and hover anxiously until the seated customers paid their tabs and left.

After a huge breakfast, we would pile into cars and drive out to the polo fields at Golden Gate Park where Dad and his friends and all the kids would play football for a few hours. After a few years of that, Mom and her girlfriends and my sisters and I got smart enough to pass on the football insanity and head instead to Union Square and the shopping insanity.

Within five minutes, I lucked out and grabbed a barstool. Two bartenders worked at each end of the long bar. They’d each lined up twenty Irish coffee glasses in the well of the bar. The show was about to begin.

I watched the tall, lanky bartender at my end grab a pot of hot water and move down the line, spilling hot water into each glass to warm them up. Then he quickly tossed the water out of one glass and dropped a sugar cube inside before passing to the next glass. His hands worked so fast, I could barely follow the action. After filling each glass with fresh coffee, he whisked a spoon into each one to dissolve the sugar, then added a healthy shot of Irish whiskey, followed by a large dollop of freshly whipped cream.

Classic.

There was some scattered applause. I calculated that it took both bartenders less than ninety seconds to make forty Irish coffees. Given the way the two men eyed each other, I had a feeling there was some competition involved.

I held up my hand and made eye contact with my guy. He gri

“Thanks,” I said.

“De nada,” he said in a twangy Texas accent and I noticed his name tag said “Neil.” He must’ve been a new hire because I didn’t recognize him. Even though I hadn’t been here in a year, I still knew the faces of most of the employees. There was very little turnover here. Seriously, they still called one busboy “the kid” and he had to be seventy years old.

I blissfully sipped my drink, drawing the hot coffee through the cream so I could taste the individual flavors without stirring it all together and losing both the coolness of the cream and the heat of the coffee.

Turning on my stool, I glanced at the thick crowd behind me and the picture-perfect view beyond. There was nothing complicated here, nothing to deal with other than the sounds of laughter and the aroma of Friday night clam chowder.

I didn’t want to think about Abraham or murder or blood or books. I was tired of spi

“Is that so much to ask?” I wondered, and took a healthy sip of my new drink.

“Wha’d you say?” Neil, my tall bartender, asked. I did like an attentive bartender.

I smiled and took a chance. “Do you know someone named Anandalla who comes in here regularly?” I asked casually.

“Anandalla.” His eyebrows squinched together, so I figured he was thinking. “You a friend of hers?”

“Sort of. She told me to meet her here tonight.”

“Huh.” He grabbed a wet towel and dragged it along the well where the multiple Irish coffee creation had taken place. I imagined it got pretty sticky if they didn’t mop up immediately. “I haven’t seen her since, hmm, must’ve been Wednesday.”

Could I be this lucky? Could we really be talking about the same Anandalla? But seriously, how many women with that name were ru

“Is she out of town?” I asked.

“Nah, I don’t think so.” He pulled twenty glasses out of the tray the busboy left and began lining them up to make another batch. “She said something about going north for a few days.”

“You mean like Canada or something?”

“Nah, she’s got relatives up in the wine country. Said she might hang out there for a few days.”

“Oh. Must be nice to have a place to stay up there, huh?”

“Bet your ass.”

I smiled thinly. I’d have to leave a nice tip for Neil because he’d been so forthcoming, even though I still didn’t know much. I still didn’t know how she knew Abraham. Was she a bookseller? Another bookbinder? Was she the one who’d torn his studio apart?

“Oh, hell, maybe she’s a hooker.” I shook my head in disgust. Neil had given me some answers, but now I had more questions. I hated when that happened.

“Hey, you,” Robin shouted, tapping me on the shoulder.

I bounced four inches off the stool and almost spilled my drink.

“Aren’t you the jumpy one,” she said.

“People keep sneaking up on me,” I complained.

“That’s got to be a problem since you’re currently surrounded by a few hundred of them.”

“Never mind. You want an Irish coffee?”

“Sure.”

I caught Neil’s eye and held up two fingers. Then I stood up and gave Robin a hug.

“Only one barstool,” I said. “Do you want it?”

“You go ahead. I’ve been sitting all day.”

Neil was waiting with our drink when I turned the stool around. The new kid was okay.

“Remind me again why we’re here,” Robin shouted.

“I love this place.”

“So do I, but you’ve got to be a masochist to show up on a Friday night. I had to park three blocks away.”

“Sorry about that.” I filled her in on everything that had happened since we last spoke. I left nothing out. Well, except for the irritating twinge I got in my stomach whenever Derek Stone looked at me with those eyes that saw too much. I didn’t mention that.

When I was finished, Robin shook her head and ordered another round of drinks since we’d both plowed through the ones we had.

“Okay, this better be my last one,” I said, toasting her.

“Famous last words,” she murmured, clicked my glass with hers and drank.

“So, what do you think?” I said.

“What can I say? I think you’re insane.” She took another sip, then looked me up and down. “And even though you have atrocious taste in clothing and worse taste in shoes, I’ll really miss you if you get yourself killed.”