The Dead Do Not Improve Read Online Free PDF Page B

model to pin his nickname upon. He began surfing shortly after that. As for his unusual first name, Finch’s explanation was more direct. “My mother,” he would say, “is a fucking hippie.”
    SURFING WAS WHAT was on Finch’s mind as he stared down at the last known living photograph of Dolores Stone. Taken by a
Chronicle
photographer at last year’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park, it showed an old woman swinging around an unidentified child. The caption read, “Dolores Stone of San Franciscobraves the chilly weather and fog at this year’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival.”
    A half hour before, Finch had written the word “barefoot” in his notebook. He had not moved since. When Jim Kim, his phlegmatic, pockmarked partner, came barging into their shared office asking if he could borrow fifty cents, Finch managed to nod toward the dish on his desk where he kept his change. Kim grunted, stubbed his fat fingers around until he came up with two quarters, and stalked off in the general direction of the vending machines. A mild distaste settled over Finch. Kim had picked through dozens of nickels and dimes, all of which would have worked perfectly well in the station’s vending machine. When Kim came back, Diet Coke in hand, Finch said something about it.
    “Why would you skip over all these nickels and dimes and take two quarters?”
    “What’s the difference?”
    “Now I have to count out five dimes the next time I go to the vending machine.”
    “Jesus fuck, man.”
    “That’s how I feel.”
    “You take a look at those photos yet?”
    Finch handed the stack of photos over to Kim, who shuffled through them quickly.
    “Is that lipstick?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Nice choice of color, especially for that neighborhood. I can’t imagine the neighbors were too happy to see red on the block.”
    “Probably not.”
    “Have you looked into the seedy life of our victim yet?”
    “You don’t want to see those photos.”
    “I don’t know, man. I’ve gotten into some weird shit in my day. Give me a hint.”
    “Apparently, there isn’t a part of the female anatomy that doesn’t wrinkle.”
    Kim tossed the crime scene photos back onto Finch’s desk and sat down on the office’s beat-up leather couch. He said, “We should be getting free sodas, anyway. My cousin works at some stupid Internet start-up a few blocks from here. They have Ping-Pong tables, TVs, and free sodas. The kid’s fucking twenty-four and he’s playing Ping-Pong and drinking free sodas, and here I am risking my life to pay half a dollar.”
    “Fifty cents is a discount.”
    “You should see what my mom charges at her restaurant.”
    “How much?”
    “Two twenty-five. Can you believe that shit? The woman is an animal.”
    “Koreans truly are the Jews of the Orient.”
    “That’s right. Although I should point out that you just got all fucked up ’cause I improperly borrowed your pocket change.”
    “That’s different. It’s a hygiene issue.”
    “Hygiene, Keanu? Do you have any idea what gets washed out onto the beaches here?”
    “What were we talking about?”
    “We were talking about Jews, man. Koreans as the new Jews. When white people have to stop feeling guilty about you and start planning around you, it means you’ve arrived. It’s like that thing I was telling you about with the landlords.”
    “What?”
    “What do you mean, what? I was telling you about it like a couple weeks ago.”
    “Sorry.”
    “It hurts me when you do this.”
    “Sorry.”
    “You really don’t remember?”
    “I was probably pretending to listen.”
    “Last year, I go to New York to visit my cousin there and I pick up a paper on the subway and there’s this list of the ten worst landlords in New York City and I go down the list and it’s Shlomo Rubenstein and Jew Jewbergstein and then I get to number seven, which is some Korean guy who I can’t remember, like Kim Chee fucking Guevara and it’s not only him,