Timothy Hallinan - Skin Deep

In that crowd, Mr. Beautiful and the Korean girl shimmered like millionaires in disguise, minor gods slumming incognito.

By seven-thirty, the crowd in question had jammed itself noisily into McGinty's of Malibu, which, all gussied up for the Fourth of July, was even more of a slag heap than usual. Red, white, and blue crepe paper sagged despondently from the rafters. Red, white, and blue beach balls had been tossed into the ropy fishnet that hung from the ceiling. They nestled among seashells, starfish, old floats, weights, and other nautical bric-a-brac to create a landscape that looked like the place where drowned children go to play.

The bunch jostling merrily beneath this doleful composition in primary colors was a cross-section of virtually every objectionable white urban minority. There were guys who called each other "Dude." There were cowboys and cowgals wearing western hats with those infuriating feather sunbursts on them. There were people wearing both sunglasses and earphones. There were yuppies, puppies (yuppies who had tied their dogs outside), and suppies-garden-variety suckers, but with aspirations to urban chic. Members of the last-named club had thoughtfully identified themselves by ordering McGinty's "John Philip Sousa," a tall-glassed, red-white-and-blue error in judgment that, drunk on an empty stomach, was guaranteed to plant the happy patriot several feet beneath the Ould Sod. We had Topanga Canyon creek rats, out from their caves to blow a week's worth of recycled aluminum cans on a red, white, and blue drunk, and we had a patriotic trio of amphetamine burnouts, skeletal, wild-eyed, hoisting imaginary drinks and nattering together in a far corner. We had people who still hadn't run out of patchouli. And every moment more of them poured in from the Pacific Coast Highway outside, drawn to the beach to celebrate the freedom that, for better or for worse, made them possible.

Some seventies retro with lead ears had programmed the jukebox to play "Stairway to Heaven" nine times in a row. He'd also located the volume control. I was halfway into the basket, working simultaneously on drinking my fourth beer, ignoring the music, and flirting with the one of the female bartenders when a ripple of excited voices penetrated Led Zeppelin and drew my attention to the door.

The focus of the flutter seemed to be a man and a woman who had just pushed their way into the bar. The woman was convincing evidence for the Argument from Design: beautiful far beyond the demands of function, maybe Korean, maybe twenty, definitely sensational. She had long, tangled black hair, extravagant cheekbones, and a lower lip that might as well had "Bite me" tattooed on it. Wrapped low around her hips was a short black skirt, and even her knees were perfect. The world is full of beautiful women who keep their knees under cover.

I was trying to rip my eyes off her and get back to my bartender when I noticed the guy. His sun-streaked hair was so perfect I was surprised he took it outdoors. The face framed by the artful tousles looked to be around thirty, deeply tanned and classically handsome, terminating in a chin with a cleft that could have been his fanny's little brother. The really blinding feature, though, was a set of teeth white enough and flawless enough to make me involuntarily close my mouth. The teeth were revealed in a grin that had probably sucked half the wattage from the urban grid. People in Santa Barbara were doing macrame in the dark. Below the neck he was trim and muscled, encased in tight black leather clothes that sported more fringe than all five members of the Buffalo Springfield in their prime. In all, he was just the kind of guy the rest of us hate.

But he seemed popular enough at the moment. People were slapping him on the back as he made his way through the crowd. The guys who call people Dude were giving him soul handshakes, pounding their open palms down into his with a smack that could be heard even over the music.

"Here's Godzilla," the bartender said sourly. It was the first sour thing she'd said, on an evening that was sour enough to parch peaches. She picked up a perfectly clean glass and polished it, turning her back pointedly toward the spot at the bar where room was being made for Mr. and Ms. Beautiful. "Simeon, it's seven-thirty," she said tightly, alerting me to the fact that I had apparently told her my name. I stared down at my glass, wondering whether she'd told me hers. "Why don't you finish up that beer and flee this den of contagion?" she asked, wiping the glass fiercely enough to break it. "Go up on the bluff, where all the nice people are waiting patiently for the fireworks. Watch parents hug their children. Look at young couples in love. Don't hang around here getting drunk with these mutants. What do you say?"

The other bartender, a large and aggressively shapeless female wearing a leather butcher's apron that looked like it had dried on her, gave my bartender a hard bump on the shoulder as she squeezed by to grab a bottle of tequila. "Thanks, Roxanne," she said nastily. "Remind me to do something for you sometime."

"I'll take him next drink, Felicia," Roxanne said. "Okay? We'll trade off." Felicia muttered something that would have made my mother sit up very straight indeed and toted the bottle back down the length of the bar as I refocused on

Roxanne. She reminded me of cream rising. There was something clean and dairy-maidish about her that made me expect her to have a milk mustache. She'd braided her long, loose brown hair for the occasion and had woven red, white, and blue gift-wrap ribbon into the braid. I suppose it was intended to make me feel patriotic. It just made me want to unwrap her.

"Are you listening?" she said a touch sharply.

"Of course," I said, sitting up and looking attentive. In fact, I'd been watching the shadowy little pulse in her throat, which was beating in time to Led Zeppelin, and wondering if she'd get upset if I leaned forward and licked it.

"Then are you going to do it?"

I went to mental replay. "Leave, you mean?"

"Sure."

"Uh," I said, looking at her pulse. "No."

Midway down the bar, Mr. Beautiful tasted his drink and spat it on the floor. He shoved the glass back at Felicia, and she missed it and it toppled off the inside edge of the bar. Standing behind him, the Korean girl looked apprehensive. Felicia looked like she'd enjoy taking Mr. Beautiful's hand off at the elbow with her teeth, but she got a new glass and began to mix. Mr. Beautiful yelled precise instructions over the music.

"Why not?" Roxanne said, taking no notice of the scene behind her even though she'd flinched when the glass shattered.

"Because I belong here," I said. "These are my people. Roxanne," I said, retrieving the name and committing it to whatever was passing itself off as my memory. "Why should I deserve better? I got the blues so bad you could use me for a dye. Jesus, I haven't worked in weeks. Did I tell you I'm a private detective?"

She gave me an assessive squint, then picked up my glass and sloshed the fluid around. "How many of these have you had?"

"Tonight?" I said. "Or in my whole life?"

"Skip it," she said. "You've had four. And yes, you told me you were a private detective. Is that supposed to change my life? How many did you have before you got here?"

"Two," I lied. If you can't lie to a stranger, who can you lie to?

One corner of her mouth lifted, tickling a dimple into revealing itself. "You know," she said, "there's guys you can believe and guys you can't. And who cares, anyway? Half the trouble in this world is caused by believing. Give me more about your blues. Guys with the blues are so, I don't know, nostalgic."