Prayer for the Dead by David Wiltse

can.”
    She was still wearing her spandex climbing outfit, but the front zipper was open far enough to suggest cleavage and her hair was flowing freely over her shoulders. Becker had not realized she had such a full mane of it.
    “Are you a detective of some kind?” Becker said.
    “I notice things,” she said, then grinned.
    It was peculiar, Becker thought, but it seemed that he could see her better in the half light of the bar than in the full sunshine. There was a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose and her cheekbones. Not enough to even qualify as a dusting, a countable number. Her teeth were unnaturally bright when she smiled because of the fluorescent lighting, and her last swallow of beer had left her with a foam mustache just on the corners of her mouth.
    “I notice you’ve been climbing again,” said Becker. “Or else you’ve got a very limited wardrobe.”
    “Right on both counts. We tried a new face today. It’s about a quarter mile farther north than the last one.”
    “How is it?”
    “Kind of tough. We missed you.”
    She seemed a little older than she had on the rocks, too, for which Becker was grateful. He had trouble finding himself attracted to women who were too young for him. Cindi, if one were liberal enough about these things, was just old enough for a man his age. Her bottom teeth were not quite straight, as if orthodontia had been abandoned before it could take full effect. A restless, impatient girl who did not wear her retainer often enough or long enough.
    “Do you do anything else for fun, or just climb rocks?”
    “Now that is a lousy come-on for a man of your age and experience,” she said.
    “I’m out of practice.”
    “That might be marginally in your favor,” she said.
    The waitress stopped at the insurance salesman’s table and spoke to him. The salesman shook his head and the waitress moved off. Becker watched him from behind as he rearranged his papers, put some in his briefcase, then checked his watch.
    “So he finally looked,” said Alan as he slid into his chair. There was an extremely loose, limber quality to everything he did. A natural ease in his body that was completely lacking in his social manner.
    “I summoned him.”
    “Bullshit,” said Alan. “She was trying to make you turn around by the power of her thoughts. Her karma, or whatever you call it.”
    “That’s pronounced charm,” said Becker.
    Cindi grinned again. “Better,” she said.
    “What?” said Alan, testily. “She came over and got you, right?”
    “No. Like she said, she summoned me as if from afar.”
    “Yeah, bullshit.” Alan waved impatiently for the waitress. Becker guessed it was at least his fourth beer. Alan seemed just at that point of balance where the night could go either way. Alan clearly had decided it would go downhill.
    “So you were a hotshit fed, is that the story?” Alan demanded. He was the type of blond who should not try to grow a mustache. Becker felt an urge to pluck it off his face.
    “Tee talks too much.”
    “Tee? Who’s Tee? I heard this from my mother.”
    “Who’s your mother?”
    “Mrs. Tolan. That help?”
    “Not much. Should it?”
    Cindi was leaning back in her chair, looking slightly amused. Becker decided she was perfectly content to let them butt heads.
    Alan said, “She said you wouldn’t remember her. She knew you from school.”
    Becker instantly reappraised Alan’s age. The man had to be much younger than he looked.
    Cindi laughed, without explanation.
    “You’re some kind of a legend among the older generation,” said Alan. “What was it, you blew a lot of people away or something?”
    “Cindi tells me you tried a new face today.”
    “No, the same one. He didn’t even shave,” said Cindi.
    “It’s not as if you were a war hero, though, is it? These were civilians you were killing, right?”
    A middle-aged man in a tweed jacket approached the salesman’s table. They shook hands, the man in tweed sat