20. Long Necked Bottles

'He always does that,' a smoky, smoker's voice came from beside my other elbow. I'd been staring into the mirror behind the bar and not seeing anything at all.

'Who? The Perfesser?'

'Yeah, him. Always making out he's drunk. Never seen him 'thout he pulls that stunt.'

'He drinks though, I could smell it.'

'Oh yeah, he drinks alright. He calls it a gift from God.'

I turned to face the voice. Maybe forty, peekaboo hairstyle over a half a century out of date, lipstick redder than a painted devil.

'A rare talent?'

'No, I think he means it,' she mimed the quote marks, 'Gift from God.'

'Doesn't he mean the Saxophone?'

'Naw, he taught himself to do that, he says.'

'Get yuh a drink?'

She held up a long-necked bottle of micro-brewery beer and I caught the woman behind the bar hitching up her skirt. My new friend's bottle arrived soon after.

'Looks like her, dontcha think?'

'Who?'

'Who does she look like or who looks like her?'

'Ain't it the same thing?'

She gave me a cool look with her lips round the neck of her bottle.

'I love a smart-ass.'

'Anyway, she does. Look like the woman on the TV does... did, anyway.'

I finished my scotch and waved at the famous Scientologist's lookee likee,

'Maybe she will again.'

'Don't start over with that, Junior.'

My scotch arrived. I was fiddling absently with the rings. She didn't seem interested. Finally she held out a hand with fingernails matching her lipstick.

'Maggie Cansino, pleasure to meetcha.'

I shook her hand and her nails trailed along my palm as I let go.

'Gabriel Chandler.'

'Gabe is it? Or Gabby?'

'Gabriel's good, it's my name. Don't much care for the others, though others seem to care a lot for them.'

'What do you do, Gabriel?'

I told her I was PI out of Virginia and she laughed, a hoarse, throaty sound,

'I thought that was mostly internet searches and computer hacking nowadays.'

'There are still some things the internet can't do for you.'

She crossed her legs with a crackle of nylon that could have lit a fire.

'Oh, I know that, Sugar, I'm just surprised that you do.'

I asked her what she did for a living and she replied she was into numbers.

'What do you mean?'

She sighed and I knew if you could actually light up a coffin nail in a legal DC bar she would have let out a long plume of cigarette smoke.

'I'm a computer programmer, I work on Artificial Neural Networks.'

'AI?'

'No, and not E I E I O, either.'

'What is it then?' I asked. Manners maketh man.

'Its teaching computers to learn from experience, or as I prefer to call it, mistakes.'

'Is that possible?'

'Not yet, Junior, not yet.'

Maggie Cansino finished her drink and slid, smooth and elegant, from the high stool. She reached into her purse and handed me a business card.

'Just in case you ever want to learn from a few mistakes.'

She left in haze of Opium and I looked at the card.

'Maggie Cansino, CEO Errata Enterprises, rhayworth@errataent.com'.