Only one bone came back. It was a fragment about four inches long, enfolded in bubble wrap and as smooth as driftwood. Merriam didn't know what part of his body it was from, and she didn't ask. She only knew it had been found in Cambodia and that DNA proved it was Larry's.
After I leave Starbucks, I settle on to the rear seat of taxi on the corner of Eighth Avenue and Fifty Fourth Street. I’m on my way to meet with my producer to discuss my up coming play.
Eleventh and fifty-seventh, I tell the driver.
It’s a short distance away. No more than a twenty minute walk if I felt up to it. But I don’t.
Bean sat perfectly still drawing shallow breaths into her hollow chest. Holding the pose of her still life in the vanity mirror, she held two shades of lipstick close to lips that sagged at the edges into a pout. The silver tubes glimmered like armour in the light. A splash of sun pooled next to the spot where the cat soiled the carpet last summer, extenuating the emptiness of the bedroom she once shared with David, her husband of fifteen years.
Heat.
A gecko hauls up the wall; hides under the sticky Havana Club rum bottle fixed to the display behind the bar. A tiny breeze rattles the palms beyond the veranda, carrying a scent of warm, stale water. It is three o’clock and the air is sodden with moisture. Sweat hangs in beads from the greasy faces of the two men who wait, bellies straining against too tight trousers, as they lean back against the cushions of the creaking bamboo chairs in the lobby of the Santa Clara Hotel.