Good to the Last Kiss Read Free

friend’s eyes dart away. ‘Are you two flirting?’ he asked Julia.
    ‘What two?’
    ‘You have this rather blissful grin on your face and he is spying on you every chance he gets.’
    ‘He’s a little too full of himself for my taste,’ she said.
    ‘Um hmmn,’ David said.
    Julia had a moment alone outside. David had gotten caught up with friends and Julia had artfully slipped away before introductions could be made and before she’d have to explain what she did for a living and that she lived in a little studio on Hayes Street, though no doubt they would all think that was quaint.
    ‘Now, now,’ she told herself. This was her own, private little game of insecurity. ‘Grow up,’ she told herself.
    She walked further out toward the sidewalk. The huge, dark private club was before her. Then the delicate little park. Behind it was Grace Cathedral. She looked around. The hotels – the Fairmount, the Mark Hopkins, the Huntington. Up here was where the power was, well before the turn of the century. The titans of banking and railroads. Even Levi Strauss – a single, shy man who smoked cigars and invented blue jeans – had been one of the kings of the hill.
    Down the hill meant that you descended into the glittering edifice complexes of the financial district; or the swarms of touts and tourists at the piers; or the Peking duck and ginger scents of Chinatown; or back down into the Tenderloin, the tattered bottom of the safety net, where the more base acts of humanity were committed less privately.
    ‘Where have you been?’ David asked, coming out and finding her staring at the cathedral.
    ‘I was thinking about getting away.’
    ‘Are you going up to the river tomorrow?’
    ‘No. Friday.’
    ‘Why not go early? I could meet you there – for one day anyway.’
    ‘I’ve got an investigation to complete,’ she said.
    ‘Let Paul do it, that’s why you have an assistant.’
    ‘Paul has to help as it is. Stakeout. And two of us aren’t really enough.’
    ‘What is it this time?’
    ‘A guy is suing my client over some on-the-job back injury. Says he can’t walk. He may be telling the truth, but the insurance company wants to be sure before they cut the check. The guy stands to collect a bundle.’
    ‘So you are standing in the way of this poor man and happily ever after?’
    Julia ignored what might have been a deeper insinuation.
    ‘How about I come up Saturday afternoon?’ David asked.
    ‘Why do I always end up having to say “no”? I want to escape everything.’
    Thaddeus Maldeaux and his mother brushed by them on their way to a waiting car.
    ‘David? Handball?’
    ‘Sure,’ Seidman said.
    He had ignored Julia. Her stomach pitched. She was shamed by her schoolgirl reaction.
    The Camaro was parked on the right, facing down the hill. It was the girl’s idea to come up there. It was her idea to get out of the car. She stood in front, her back to him. The entire city of San Francisco – pulsating with light and energy – unfolded below them. She was more than willing and had even suggested that they could make out up there, way above the Haight. She told him he reminded her of someone.
    ‘Eminem?’ he asked. He’d been told that before. But he had a better build than the rap star and resented the comparison.
    ‘No, someone darker.’
    ‘Darker?’
    ‘Inside darker.’ She liked him. She would make him happy, she told him. She was so glad to be away from the city. Here, there was electricity in the air. ‘I forgot how beautiful the world could be,’ she said.
    He moved closer. She leaned back pressing her body against him. It was quick. She didn’t really have time to resist. He was so quick and so strong.
    He lifted the limp body and carried it down the other side of the hill, the vast ocean down there, out there somewhere. Fewer lights dotted the far hillsides. It was lonelier here. Even so, this was the most daring he had ever been. He could see well. It was as if he had a special