The Final Country (28 page)

“What the hell?” she said, then focused on my face. “You son of a bitch,” she said softly. “I should have known.” Then glancing around the room again, she spotted the pile of unshucked corn in the far corner. “Oh, shit,” she moaned. “Not again.”

“A little more comfortable than your last visit,” I said. “What do you want me to call you?”

“What?”

“Your name,” I said. “You seem to have several.”

“Call me ‘shit out of luck,’” she grouched.

“Okay, shit.”

“Just call me Molly,” she said. “Where’s your stuffy girlfriend? You guys looking for a menage a trois? You didn’t have to kidnap me. I’m a working girl. To tell the truth, though, I don’t think she really gets off on girls.” I let her ramble on until she either ran out of energy or lost track of the thought. She recovered quickly, though, a crooked smile blossomed on her face, and her eyes brightened as the drug flushed out of her system. “Where are my contacts?” she said. “And what the fuck do you want?”

“Just a couple of answers,” I said as I pitched her purse to her. “Everything’s in there. Except your little gun.” I had put her derringer in my war bag. “We can get this over quickly. Just a couple of questions.”

“You’re more likely to get me to fuck that old man again, or one of his goats, than get me to answer a question,” she said.

“I can be an unpleasant guy,” I said. “Ask your Daddy. When he can talk again.”

“Maybe you are an unpleasant guy,” she said. “But listen, you jerk, I slept with you. I know you. I’d bet my life that you don’t have it in you to really hurt me. As long as I don’t try to hurt you.”

“That’s an interesting approach to reality,” I said.

“What the hell happened to Jimmy Fish?” she said, touching the bandage again. “And my face?”

“Jimmy decided to defend your honor, I guess.”

“What?”

“He came out of the house shooting. A fragment of one of his rounds poked a tiny hole in your ear and a little scratch across the top of your cheek.”

“Stupid asshole,” she said, touching her face again. “Is my face going to be all right?”

“The slice on your cheek is clean. The scar will give you character. Like the one at the corner of your mouth,” I said. “But I fear the hole he put in your ear is sort of permanent.”

“I hope you put a round in his fat head.”

“Actually, in his fat thigh.”

“You should have killed him. He turned out to be a hitter in middle age,” she said. “He used to just want to spank me, but lately he’s taken up hitting.”

“Maybe I should have brought him along.”

“Wouldn’t have done you any good, man. You might beat the shit out of me for a month of Sundays,” she said, “but the people who hired me would run me through a limb chipper. Alive. After half the Third World gangsters in South-Central had a piece of my ass.”

“Don’t give me any ideas.”

“What the hell are you so mad about, anyway?” she asked. “You got a prime piece of ass, and you must have broken up with what’s-her-name.”

“They didn’t mention anything about blowing my head off ?”

She paused a moment, reconsidered her position, then shook her head. “That was a surprise. I didn’t know about it until that doofus cop said something about it that morning.”

“What did he say?”

“First, you. Then me. Eventually.”

“Lovely.”

“They knew I wouldn’t go for something like that,” she said. “I was just supposed to break you two up. Seduce her, then come back and seduce you. That’s what he said.”

“He?”

“Just a voice on the phone.”

“What the hell was the business with Betty’s revolver?” I asked. “Why did you swap her pistol?”

“I don’t know anything about that, either,” she said, glancing away. “But the rest was just a straight deal. Fuck you, fuck her, watch the cop beat the shit out of you, then pick up my cash.”

“From who?”

“I told you, man, I don’t know. Just a voice on the phone. So forget it.”

“Why did you dump your fanny pack that morning?”

“Get rid of the piece and the cell phone,” she said.

“Somebody called you just after you split,” I said. “You know who?”

“No idea.”

“We’ll see how you feel after a couple of weeks,” I said. “See if you can’t remember some names.”

“Shit, this is like a vacation for me,” she said, then smiled, pointed at the television. “I’m not much for TV, except old movies, but I could be awfully sweet if I had a stack of crime novels. The good hard-nosed ones, you know. None of that namby-pamby shit.”

“Namby-pamby?”

“You know. Nice guy meets bad people. Justice prevails. That kind of shit,” she said.

“I don’t know anything about that,” I admitted, so I rolled up my sleeping bag and pad. Wondering if I could torture Molly with a stack of Agatha Christie novels. Or get a blowjob for the collected Hammett.

“I’ll see what I can do,” I said.

“How about some coffee? And maybe some orange juice? And a buttered roll?”

“I ain’t the room service waiter, lady,” I said. But it seemed I was for now.

* * *

Luckily, I didn’t have to get the crib ready. I’d called Carver D from the road, told him what I needed, and asked about Eldora Grace and Sissy Duval, but there had been no word about either. I’d thought about calling Betty, but she had left the scrambled cell phone in the Caddy. I left the other one with Red. I wanted to know what sort of shit-storm we’d stirred up and which way it was blowing.

When we had gotten to Tom Ben’s about dusk the second day I had carried the woman into the crib, removed the straitjacket, changed her diaper, then dressed her in new socks and sweats, and locked her ankle back into the hardened steel shackles. I gave her the last of the sedatives, then grabbed a handful of Coors, the scrambled cell phone, then stepped outside.

The sun had just dropped below the horizon. Except the stars blinking through the darkness and the stain of ambient light from Austin to the east, the sky deepened until it was nearly as blue as the woman’s eyes. A random, cold breeze licked at my face to remind me that it was nearly December. I opened a beer, then dialed Red.

“Hey, man, it’s cool,” he said quickly when he answered. “Fucking Jimmy Fish is making a joke out of it, pushing the free press as hard as he can. Says he’s already been offered half a dozen script deals about the incident.”

“What about the word on the street?”

“It’s all a big joke, man,” Red said. “Most people seem to think that there wasn’t even a woman with him. He just got coked up and shot himself. Either by accident or for the publicity.”

“And the cattle guard?”

“Hell, nobody’s even mentioned that,” he said. “They had it fixed the next morning.”

“You went out there,” I said. “Be careful, dammit.”

“Hey, man, I rode out in a limo. I’ll be sending you the charge.”

“Fuck the money,” I said. “You just stay clean and easy, man.”

“I’m cool,” he said. “You want me to mail you this cell phone?”

I told Red to keep it for a week or two just in case. Then I drank another beer, had a couple of cigarettes, and checked my voice mail. A cool message from Sylvie Lomax inquiring as to my progress in the search for Molly McBride. Travis Lee had called twice, his voice deep and troubled as he said we needed to talk about business. Important business. Very important business. I assumed that he was still talking about his unnamed investment opportunity. Phil Thursby had left a crisp message asking me to call. But nothing from Betty. So I called Gannon on the scrambled cell phone. When he answered, it sounded as if he were in a bar.

“Where the hell are you?” I said.

“It’s my night off. So I’m leaning on your fancy bar, buddy,” he said, sounding a bit worse for drink. “Where the hell are you?”

“I’m running down a lead outside Houston,” I lied. “How’s business at my place?”

“Booming, man,” he said. “Looks like you could use another bartender, though. I’ve had some experience.”

“How are things around the cop shop?”

“The usual bullshit. Nobody seems to miss you but me,” he said, then quickly added, “Oh, there’s word that my walking papers are in the works. That’s why I was down here looking for a job. When are you coming back?”

“Just as soon as I find that goddamned woman,” I said. “Tell Mike to let you have one on me,” I added, then cut off the connection. I called Betty on the other phone, but got her voice mail, and had no idea what to say, so I cut that one off, too. Called Phil Thursby, but no human response there, either. So I cracked the other beer. As I drank it leaning against the Caddy, I realized my knees were ticking like bombs. Cocaine and road miles. So I grabbed a pad and a sleeping bag, went back into the barn, locked it, then lay down like a dog on the floor next to the woman who had nearly gotten me killed. Sometime later in the night, maybe in a dream, maybe with the chill seeping out of the concrete floor into my back, I found myself standing beside the cot as if I were about to crawl into bed with the woman. It seemed that changing her diapers and cleaning up her shit hadn’t diminished her charm in my unconscious mind. But she moaned softly, turned in her chemical sleep, so I pulled the covers over her shoulders, tucked them tightly, then returned to the floor.

* * *

After I finished my room service duties that first morning, I took a shower in the corner of the barn, changed clothes, then opened the barn door, and stopped there. “There’s some fruit and sandwich stuff in the reefer,” I said, “and I’ll bring something when I come back.”

As I rolled the door shut, Molly shouted at me. “Are you just going to leave me here alone?”

“If you hear the shucks rustling, lady, don’t put your feet on the floor!” I shouted back, then locked up and drove away, at least as far as the main house.

The old man sat in one of the porch rockers, puffing nervously on the stub of an old pipe. “Milo,” he said, tapping his knuckles on the foot locker I had shipped from Vegas. “UPS delivered this a while ago. What the hell is it?”

“Just some stuff,” I said, not wanting to tell the old man it was full of guns and drugs and cash money. “Just leave it there,” I said. “I’ll move it later.”

“You sure all this shit is going to be all right?”

“She doesn’t seem inclined to file a complaint,” I said. “Hell, she’s acting like she’s on vacation. Like I did her a favor, or something.” Then I realized that Molly hadn’t been at Jimmy’s by accident. She was hiding out. That changed everything.

“She’s a piece of work, that’s for damn sure,” he said, then chuckled. “It took my hands a whole day to clean the rats and mice and snakes out of that corn pile. But I told them to leave the cowshit.” Then Tom Ben laughed. “She might have been my last piece of ass,” he said, “and she sure as hell did cost me more than just ten thousand dollars’ worth of fence-line. But it was damn near worth it.”

“Cowshit’s not bad. But that old milk stink might drive her over the edge,” I said. “How come you gave up on milk cows?”

“Hell, them goddamned Angora goats were bad enough. Selling mohair was like living on government welfare,” he said. “But milk cows, that seemed too close to farming to suit me. And my hands kept saying that they were cowboys, not milk boys. At least that was better than Betty’s first idea. Chicken houses. Jesus, I’d rather raise Barbary apes.”

“The dairy herd was Betty’s idea?” I said.

“Yeah, hell, she put up the money for it when I incorporated.”

Well, it wasn’t the first time I’d been involved with a woman who lived her life as if it were a closely guarded secret. But that didn’t make me feel any less foolish.

“Any idea how long you might keep that woman locked in my corn crib?” he asked.

“Probably not long,” I said. “I’m not going to give her to the Lomax woman and I don’t seem to be very good at this warden shit. She’s already got me fetching and carrying like a house slave. Next thing you know she’ll be sending me downtown to buy her underwear.”

Tom Ben smiled as if he didn’t think it was such a bad idea.

“You stay out of that barn, you old bastard,” I said, but the old man’s smile grew even larger. “Can I borrow your pickup? I got some chores in town, and my ride is too visible. But I’ll be back.”

“Keys are in it,” he said, still grinning.

I carried the foot locker over to the barn, set it inside the door. Molly was asleep, though, so I took off to do my chores.

* * *

Albert Homer still hadn’t cut the dead grass in front of his studio-cum-house. I parked on the street because a pink Cadillac was in the dirt driveway. The burglar bars on the front door had been left unlocked and even outside I could smell the burnt rope stink of marijuana, so I didn’t bother with the buzzer, just put my shoulder to the door until the inside frame splintered.

A chubby woman in heavy makeup with tiny feet and hands, dressed in a complicated leather bra-less and crotch-less teddy and garter belt arrangement, lay across the velvet bedspread beneath the warm glow of the raised light stands, all a-titter as she scrambled for a wrap. Homer turned quickly, his eyes wild and wide open like a man who had seen more than one husband advancing from the front door, then whirled back as if to flee.

Before he could take a step, I grabbed him by the throat and lifted him off the floor. “You lying son of a bitch,” I said. Then I dropped him. Or perhaps threw him down. “Excuse me, ma’am, this won’t take a moment.” But she ignored me. I noticed that she had stopped looking for something to cover her naked body parts, and was digging through her purse. I nudged Homer in the ribs with my boot, and he curled up like a sow-bug, then I stepped over to the chubby little woman just as she pulled a small semi-automatic pistol out of her purse. “Give me that, you fucking idiot,” I said as I jerked it out of her hand. I wanted to slap the makeup off her tiny face. Instead I fired the pistol into Homer’s round bed, emptied the magazine, broke the slide off, then threw the two pieces out opposite windows. The woman jumped more at the sound of breaking glass than she had at the shots. “Does everybody in this fucking state have a gun?”

“My husband gave it to me,” she whined.

“He give you that outfit, too?” I asked. She blushed, covered her breasts, shook her oddly small, well-formed head, then sat, weeping among the bits of charred cotton stuffing I’d blown out of the mattress. I handed her the purse. “Why don’t you put some clothes on and head into the bathroom and fix your face?” She nodded slowly, then fled toward the back of the house.