The Bohemian Connection Read Online Free PDF Page A

was an enormous appetite. I walked more in a week now than I had in a year as an account executive in San Francisco. If I ever stopped reading meters, I’d either have to go on a hunger strike or seek work with the circus. But for now I just hoped it was too hot for tourists to think of food.
    I was wrong. The café was jammed. Every stool at the counter was taken, every table crowded, and there was a line waiting to get in. In disgust I stomped across the street to Fischer’s Ice Cream and joined the line there. The Fischers had run the shop for years and they moved the line through with a speed any bank would have envied. There were five flavors a day and by the time you reached the front of the line, you were expected to have your choice ready. Mine was strawberry, double-scoop. It would do for an appetizer.
    Cone in hand, I wandered along the sidewalk, skirting toddlers, jumping back to avoid a boy in cutoffs who was backing toward my cone. At the far end of the sidewalk was a beach umbrella, and under it, I made out as I neared, was a woman sketching. Presumably, she was Jenny McElvey.
    I had seen her there before, but I had never taken the time to look closely at her work. Today the subject of that work, a man in his early twenties, sat on a folding chair, staring tensely to one side of Jenny. He looked edgy and self-conscious, as if he were sitting there on a bet. The corners of his mouth seemed about to break into a nervous grin. I glanced from him to the sketch. Nearly done, it approximated his features but missed the singular qualities that would have transformed it from a likeness of a pale young man into a portrait of this particular one. Still, there was a certain flair to it, perhaps the angle of the head, or the thick definite strokes that seemed fitting for a charcoal sketch acquired while on vacation.
    I moved around behind the man so I could watch Jenny. She looked to be a little younger than I, probably about thirty. Her brown hair was drawn back at the neck, folded over and clasped up on her head, so that none of it hung against her neck. Her face was bare of any makeup. Her eyebrows were thick and seemed to have grown randomly. But her eyes, large and dark brown, stared fiercely at the paper, moving only briefly to view the subject.
    Abruptly she put down the charcoal, and without an appraising glance, handed the paper to the young man. She looked exhausted, like a psychic recently revived from a trance.
    I glanced at the crowd, expecting the man’s friends to push forward to get their money’s worth of amusement, but no one elbowed in. The crowd as a whole moved closer and their murmurs, of approval bubbled up. The man himself gave the drawing all the careful evaluation that Jenny had not. Finally, he smiled, and returned it to her to be wrapped. The crowd stood a minute or so, apparently waiting to see if another subject would take his place. When none did, individuals and small groups wandered off. The man stepped up to Jenny, extricated a bill from his wallet, and accepted the drawing.
    A couple walked up, glanced at me, and moved on.
    “Are you trying to decide?” Jenny asked me.
    “No, actually, I’m looking for your neighbor, Michelle Davidson.”
    “She’s not here.” Jenny adjusted the sketch paper in its clasp. Clearly, to her the subject was closed. She wasn’t even curious as to why I couldn’t find Michelle or why I was bringing my problem to her.
    “I’ve been looking for her since last night. I talked to your husband.” I hesitated, then decided to plunge in. “He said you particularly disliked her.”
    “And so you figure I’ll know where she is?” There was a mixture of irony and irritation in her voice.
    “Actually, I thought you might be pretty straightforward.”
    She fingered the charcoal. “Straightforward is that you’re hurting my business. People don’t come to watch me talk, they’re attracted by seeing me draw. Either you want a picture, or leave the