The Final Country (29 page)

I walked back to Homer, picked him up by his ear. “You shouldn’t have told me the Vegas lie,” I said. “And perhaps you should have suggested to the law that they might look a little closer into your father’s death.”

“I’m sorry,” Homer blubbered, tears pouring down his face.

“Stop crying,” I said, “and tell me what happened. He ask them for more money?” Homer nodded. “And they killed him?” I wondered how many kinds of drugs it took for Homer to gather up the courage to follow in his father’s footsteps. “Let me guess. You’ve got one picture of Amanda Rae Quarrels in a safe-deposit box? One in the house? And another with a lawyer?”

“Becky’s husband,” he stammered.

“And I assume that’s Becky in the John?” He nodded as he scrubbed at his slobbery face. “How much money do you get?”

“Five hundred a month. That’s all.”

“Cheaper than killing you, I guess,” I said.

“That’s what they said. They gave my Daddy a hundred grand,” he said. “Then when he asked for more, he went fishing for the last time. They said they killed him for lying to them.”

“Who said?”

“The voice on the telephone.” Then he rattled off a local number.

“How do they pay?”

“Cash in the mailbox.”

“Outside?”

“Yeah.”

“When?”

“First Saturday night of the month.”

“Always.”

“As regular as clockwork.”

“How long’s this been going on?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Seven years or so.”

“Get me the picture you’ve got here,” I said. He hesitated. “I’ll tear your fucking ear out by the roots, kid,” I said, giving it a tug. Homer scrambled around, unscrewing a light stand, then pulling a rolled 8x10 photograph out of it. He handed it to me. “If I were you, son, I’d find another way to supplement my income.” He nodded. “Are you going to be all right?” He nodded again, snuffling. “Be nice to Becky. She looks like a good woman, if a bit overdressed,” I said on my way to the broken door.

“I’ll do that, sir,” Homer said.

“And fix your goddamned door, man,” I said before I left. “I think I’ve already paid for it.”

“Yes, sir,” he said sadly.

* * *

I didn’t know what I was looking for as I sat in the car and unrolled the photo of Amanda Rae Quarrels. She had long, straight silver-blond hair, mischievous green eyes, and a cocked, smart-ass smile on her wide mouth, high cheekbones, a slightly aquiline nose, and long beaded earrings.
Trouble
was the first word that came to mind.
Outrageous fun,
the second and third. But she didn’t remind me of anybody I knew. Maybe that’s what I was hoping to find.

I wrote the telephone number Homer had recited on the back of the photo, then checked it against the number wrapped around the chewing gum from Sissy’s BMW. They were the same. When I dialed it, a disembodied voice answered by repeating the number and suggesting that if I had any business, I could leave my name and number. I did neither.

* * *

Leonard Wilbur wasn’t any more happy to see me than Albert Homer had been. At least he didn’t run. Over the Line was almost empty just after lunch. Wilbur was still behind the bar, but today he carried a clipboard as he filled out a liquor order and he wore a nice gray suit, a white shirt, and an expensive silk tie, plus a new toupee as thick and stiff as combed porcupine quills. His smile was as phony as his hair. The lame Chicano kid with the flattened nose seemed to be the bartender now. Several other Latinos, who probably had more words of English between them than Green Cards, seemed to be remodeling Long’s office. Wilbur flinched as if I was going to tear his snotty lip off when I held my hand across the bar to shake his hand. I introduced myself as politely as I could, showed him my license, and gave him my card.

“Yeah, I remember you,” he grumped. “Let me buy you a drink, then you can be on your way. Crown Royal, wasn’t it?”

“Actually a can of Coors would be fine,” I said. “You mind taking a look at this picture?”

Wilbur glanced at it, shook his head, then handed me the beer. “I can probably guess who she is,” he said, “Mandy Rae Quarrels, but I ain’t seen the woman in years and I didn’t know her name when I saw her.”

“You sure?”

“Partner, a man doesn’t forget a woman like that.”

“So how do you know her name?”

“Hell, man, she’s a legend,” Wilbur said. “Word was, she came to town, fucked everybody worth knowing from Willie to the Governor, his wife, and his pet bullfrog…”

“Bulldog?”

“Bullfrog,” he said. “Then disappeared like a government check in East Austin. Not even a broken Thunderbird bottle left behind. Plus, that murdering son of a bitch who came in with you last month, he said her name, and I knew that Duval used to hang out with her.”

“Let me ask you something else,” I said. “Why do you think Mr. Long went for his pistol?”

“Well, Billy Long was always pretty touchy and…”

“And?”

“He hated niggers,” he said, “and I suspect that one in particular. Maybe they’d had some trouble over business or something. Maybe a woman.”

“And you, Mr. Wilbur?”

“What about me?”

“You ever have any trouble with Duval or Walker?”

“Hell, man, I just work here, and to folks like that, we’re all niggers of one sort or another.”

As soon as afternoon visiting hours at Breckenridge Hospital started, I went up to check out Renfro. He lay propped up in bed, the tangle of tubes gone, and his right hand in a small cast. The small ponytailed man sat beside his bed, fussing over him. Renfro introduced us.

“I guess I should thank you for saving his worthless hide,” Richie said. “But what he was doing out there in the middle of the night, I hesitate to guess. He just won’t take care of himself, no matter what, I —”

“I’m going to be fine,” Renfro interrupted, holding up his hand. “Spleen’s fine, and the bullet just clipped the big bone in the middle of my hand. I’ll be out of the cast in six weeks.”

“Just missed the ligament by a hair,” Richie continued breathlessly. “Would have ruined his hand. Forever.”

“Richie, darling, would you get me a Coke?” Renfro said. “Mr. Milodragovitch, you want something?” I shook my head as Richie headed for the door. “And that’s a real Coke, Richie, not a diet one.” Richie paused long enough to give Renfro a disgusted look, then hustled away. “If I’d wanted a Jewish mother,” he said, “I’d have had one. Jeez. Any word from Sissy?”

“Nothing,” I lied. “You said she had some sort of secret income, some kind of sugar daddy.”

“Yeah, she’s been pretty flush the last five or six years,” he said, “ever since she quit selling lots for Hayden Lomax, but she never said a word about where it came from.”

“I didn’t know she worked for Lomax,” I said, then suggested, “she must have been highly motivated to keep her mouth shut.”

“You know, that makes sense,” he said, then chuckled. “You’d probably have to shove dirt into her mouth to keep her quiet.”

He didn’t know how right he was. “Her money’s safe. I’ll get it back to you in a few days,” I said. He might need it for hospital bills. He’d certainly earned it. “You take care.”

“Hey, man, I’m going home tomorrow, you know,” he said, then looked terribly embarrassed. “Thank you again.”

“What for?”

“Saving my life, man.”

“Part of the job description,” I said, then waved goodbye, and left quickly before Richie could return to give me another lecture about Renfro’s bad habits. I had enough of my own.

* * *

I called Cathy from a pay phone in the hospital lobby. She didn’t sound all that glad to hear from me, but it had been that kind of day.

“Have you seen her?” I asked.

“I picked her up at the airport,” she said coldly.

“How is she?”

“Mad enough to chew up ten-penny nails and shit upholstery tacks.”

“I guess I just didn’t do what she wanted me to do.”

“You’ve always been pretty good at that, haven’t you?”

“You could say that,” I said.

“Well, she’s my oldest friend, man, and you’re just some guy I did drugs with and fucked,” she said.

“So I’m not on the old friend list, huh?” I asked, followed by an empty chuckle. Her silence was answer enough. “When she stops spitting tacks,” I said, “tell her to give me a call. I should be back by then.”

Cathy just sighed, said she’d try, then added, “How’s your back?”

“It’s there.”

“I could give you another number.”

“It wouldn’t be the same, honey,” I said, and this time I hung up without saying goodbye.

* * *

Molly’s face brightened when I showed up with two paper bags hanging from my hands. A bag full of sandwiches and salads from Central Market and a bag full of detective novels from Bookstop, but I wouldn’t let her look in the bags until I cleaned up her wound and replaced the butterfly bandages.

Tough as she was, I suspected she’d be a whiner about this part. I loosened the butterflies with alcohol. When I tried to get to the hole in her ear, she squealed like a baby.

“If you’re going to be a sissy about this,” I said, “I’ll bet I can find some tin snips and just cut the goddamned thing off.”

“Well, it hurts,” she said. “I don’t mind big pains, but these little stinging things drive me as crazy as swamp skeeters.” She stayed quiet, though, until I finished the rest of the job. “What’s the verdict?”

“You’ll live,” I said. “You’ve got good bones and great skin. You’ll be lovely into your old age.”

“Thank you,” she said, smiling. “Can I ask you something?”

“Ask, and I’ll tell you.”

“What did you mean about my Daddy knowing how unpleasant you could be?”

“The first time I found him in Houston, he tried to kick me in the nuts while a crowd of drunks held me down,” I said. “The second time, he tried to hit me with a Scotch bottle. I broke his jaw and knocked out half a dozen teeth.”

“Poor old Rollie,” she said, “he never had any luck, the cathead tongs took his arm, the drinking took his bar, then the government took his boat.” She broke into a thoughtful smile. “You son of a bitch, you remembered the address on the card, didn’t you?” I nodded. “When you took that old man down that way, I guess I should have realized that you had more than muscle between your ears.” I nodded again. “I wondered how the hell you found me.”

“You dropped so many hints, lady, that it almost seemed you wanted me to find you.”

“What an odd idea,” she said. “What the hell makes you think that?”

“Just guessing,” I said. “And also just guessing that Rollie Molineaux isn’t really your father.”

“He took my mother and me in,” she said quietly, “he gave me his name, raised me from a pup after she died, and he was always as good to me as he could be. He never judged me and he always tried to help. Whatever kind of trouble I managed to stir up. You can’t ask for more than that.”

“He’s pretty tough for a one-armed guy.”

“He’s pretty tough, period,” she said. “He and another guy beat a man to death in the parking lot outside the bar when I was a kid.”

“The other guy wouldn’t be Jimmy Fish?” I said, guessing.

“How the hell did you come up with that?”

“Just a guess,” I said. “I’ve got to go out of town this afternoon and I can’t get back until about this time tomorrow.”

“I get to go home then?”

“You get to go home when I find out what the hell is going on.”

“Oh, you’ll get tired of having me around,” she said. “Everybody does, eventually.”

“You going to be all right?” I said as I handed her the bags.

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “I noticed that you slept on the floor last night. Somebody cleaned the critters out of the corn?”

“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “Don’t make too much noise,” I added. “Right now not too many people know you’re here. And I suspect your health sort of depends on some other people not knowing you’re here’.”

“What the hell’s that mean?”

“Some very heavy people went to a great deal of trouble to get me to come looking for you, honey,” I said.

“Jeez, I thought you were just mad about your girlfriend.”

“And her pistol.”

“I told you, man,” she said, “I don’t know anything about that. I’ve done a lot of things in my life but I’ve never fingered anybody.”

“What kind of things?”

“You don’t want to know,” she said quietly, then hung her head for a moment, then lifted it brightly. “So who’s looking for me?” she asked casually.

“A woman named Lomax,” I said.

“I don’t know anybody named Lomax,” she protested, then leaned back.

“Mrs. Lomax said you had something of hers.”

“Since I don’t know who she is, I can’t think what it might be,” she said, thinking it over, and didn’t look up when I slipped out the door.

I traded rides with Tom Ben again, then headed out.

* * *

Thursby was sitting on a bench outside the Hays County courthouse in San Marcos, just where his secretary said he would be.

“What the hell are you doing out here?” I asked.

“Thinking about moving to California,” he said.

“What?”

“We’re being homered in the courtroom so bad that I’m letting one of my junior partners handle the cross examination of the local idiot deputy who put three rounds in my client, who fit the drug runner profile in his little, pointy head, at a phony traffic stop,” Thursby said. “One of them missed him completely and killed his girlfriend.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Unfortunately, he had just enough marijuana in the trunk of his old Camaro to make it a felony possession. The deputy said my client resisted, which is stupid because the kid has a tremor from brain damage in a car wreck. The death of his girlfriend makes it a capital murder. Interesting case,” he said. “We’ll beat them like a monkey’s dick on appeal, but I’m getting tired of dealing with these idiots.” Then he sighed, shook his head, and suddenly looked like an old man. “Speaking of idiots,” he continued. “I glanced through the Oates case file. Something’s wrong, Milo. I know Steelhammer can’t be bought, but he was new on the bench then, and he might have been handled. The whole thing stinks like your lazy brother-in-law’s shorts.”