Coyote by Rhonda Roberts

he just thought it was hilarious that I tried to give him tips about moderation.
    â€˜What are you talking about, woman? I’m the healthiest I’ve been in years.’ He thumped his chest with both hands. Then coughed.
    â€˜Yeah, sure you are …’ To distract him I said, ‘Come on, Des, let’s talk tactics over dinner. Why don’t we go downstairs and see what the bar and grill is like?’
    Des grimaced. ‘I don’t know if I’ve had all the shots I’d need to survive it.’
    He wasn’t wrong; the place looked pretty dilapidated from the outside.
    â€˜If I can just find that scotch then we can use it to sterilise the food …’ He bent over the boxes again.
    â€˜Forget it, Des, we need to have clear heads to work out how to swing this one.’
    Des shot me one of his ‘I know what you’re doing’ looks, but stopped rummaging anyway. He swiped Seymour’s newspaper off my desk and stalked to the doorway.
    I grinned.
    â€˜Well … what are you waiting for — an engraved invitation?’ he growled. ‘Are you coming or what?’
    I followed him out the door, still grinning.
    Â 
    According to the sign over the door, the bar and grill was now known as Jake’s Place — but originally it’d been the Zebulon Hotel’s dining room. The real-estate agent said it was the best place to eat in our part of SoMa and that it’d become the local cool place to hang out, drawing in clientele from the surrounding, wealthier neighbourhoods.
    The clinking of glasses and the click of cutlery meeting plates greeted our entrance.
    Like the rest of the Zebulon, the fixtures were original. The bar and grill had an ornately moulded once-white ceiling, wood panelling, and architraves everywhere you’d expect. In here the wall sconces were more risqué than in the lobby; the nymphs had been replaced by naked male discus throwers who suffered from an uncomfortable excess of crotch foliage.
    Also like the rest of the Zebulon, and courtesy of the flaking paint, threadbare carpet and bare light bulbs dangling from the ceiling, the place had an air of decadent decay. But that was the end of the resemblance to the rest of the hotel. Whoever ran thisjoint had their own very … er … particular taste in decoration.
    Every spare inch of the walls was covered in nude women.
    They were of the oil-painted variety and, if the anatomical aberrations were anything to go by, were from an artist who combined his personal interests with a love of Picasso’s cubist technique. The woman hanging on the wall next to me was baring four perfect breasts and smiling with three sets of equally lush red lips.
    I was guessing the artist believed that more was definitely better.
    But the real-estate agent had been telling the truth. As dingy as it was, Jake’s Place was crowded with better-dressed patrons than would normally trudge down our section of Prendergast Street: artsy types, computer geeks playing with their latest high-tech toys and designer-clad couples slumming it.
    The waiters and waitresses looked more like they’d been drafted from the homeless shelter on the corner … They were cleaned up but distinctly frayed at the edges and their worn-down faces showed they’d spent a lot more time on the rougher side of life than the corn-fed people they were serving.
    Des and I made for an empty table near the far wall. It was underneath a painting of a multi-armed woman who was either massaging moisturiser into her five nipples or doing something else entirely.
    â€˜Maybe we should buy one of these for the office,’ muttered Des, as he stared up at the well-endowed female. He peered at the price tag on the wall next to her. ‘It’s only the cost of our next month’s rent.’
    â€˜Yeah, Des, that’s a steal,’ I replied. Never one to let an opportunity slide by, I added, ‘Promise me