Mystery Girl: A Novel by David Gordon

just a pickup line?”
    She blushed and laughed loudly, and play punched my gut, with the delight of the gorgeous, adored woman being teased. For a guy who hadn’t been on a date in years, I wasn’t doing badly, not that I had managed much witty badinage even when single.
    “Yes, I admit it,” she said sarcastically, but with a spark in her eyes. “I was just trying to talk to you.”
    “I knew it. The oldest trick in the book. And this is your lair I’ve stumbled into.”
    “Yes.” She glanced at the silent drinkers watching a silent game on TV. “This is where I come to pick up men.”
    Across the room a red-haired, red-faced man in red golf pants laughed loudly and slapped his pal’s back. An old lady of the sinewy, sun-shrunken type, decked in a visor and strung with gold, rattled the ice in her empty glass, squealing like a witch casting a spell tillthe ponytailed bartender brought her a fresh one. She sighed, settling back into her chair.
    “I can see why,” I said. “It’s quite a scene.”
    She shrugged. Her hair kissed her shoulders. Her flesh was perfect, like coffee ice cream, smooth and rich, racially ambiguous, and without flaws or variations in tone, so unlike my own splotchy, hairy pink hide. “So what are you doing here all alone?” she asked.
    “Me?” I looked around dramatically and then leaned in. “I’m a private eye on a case. Looking for a mysterious missing woman.”
    “I see.” With a nail she drew a jagged line, like a crack, in the fog on her glass. “And who is this woman?”
    “I don’t know. That’s why it’s a mystery.”
    “Is she good or bad?”
    “Both, probably.”
    “What does she look like? Maybe I’ve seen her?”
    “She looks a bit like you.”
    “Ah, then she’s probably bad.” She finished her drink. “I have to admit, you’re cleverer than most strange men in bars, although less well dressed. What do you do when you’re not on a case?”
    “Read. Watch too many movies. Wander around.”
    “That’s it?”
    “I try to write a little.”
    “Ah, a writer. That makes sense. I bet you’re good at telling stories, with the private eye stuff and all.”
    “Actually, I write experimental fiction. I’m not really into plot-driven stuff.”
    “You mean more just about the characters, their psychology?”
    “No, not that either. I’m not really so interested in psychology.”
    “So more like a poem or something, abstract ideas?”
    “No, it’s a novel. Definitely not abstract. I can’t stand all that intellectual abstraction.”
    “A novel with no story or characters or ideas? It’s hard to imagine.”
    “Yeah for me too.” We both laughed. “Actually, I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about.”
    “I noticed.”
    “What about you? What do you do?”
    “I don’t know. Wander about, like you said. Be a woman of mystery.” She tapped my glass with her empty glass. It rang lightly. “Another gin and tonic?”
    “Sure,” I said. “But this time hold the gin.” She frowned curiously. “I’m a master of drunken kung fu,” I explained. “I might lose control and kill someone.”
    “Okay, if you say so… one virgin gin and tonic coming up.” She sallied off with our glasses. I settled my eyes on the ocean and considered how nicely this was working out. The perfect way to keep a private eye on someone, without them knowing you’re following, is to have them hang around with you. True, Lonsky had specified a discreet distance, but an operative working a case has to improvise. I was also amazed at how well I was doing with such a knockout. But, of course, I told myself, as I had at so many smoky neighborhood barbeques and winey gallery openings: don’t worry, this is just a bit of harmless flirting, you’re a married man. But was I still? Standing there, where no one knew my name, where no one even knew I was, I realized how far I had drifted, in just a day, away from my own life. I felt seasick, and I clutched the railing