The Final Country

  “And you can count on me, too,” Cathy said. “Anything I can do to help.”

  “How did you fix Sissy Duval’s orgasms?”

  “Went out to her great-granddaddy’s place for two weeks,” she said, “and fucked all the resistance out of her. Taught her that sexuality is best when it’s bound to love, but it ain’t all that bad when it’s just random fun. Trouble was, she loved that asshole, Dwayne. For reasons nobody ever understood.”

  “When was this?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Sometime after Dwayne took up with Mandy Rae,” she said, “and before he got blown away. Skinny son of a bitch had destroyed her confidence.”

  “Where?”

  “In bed, you idiot.”

  “No, where was her great-granddaddy’s place?”

  “A shack surrounded by abandoned pump jacks, old time oil patch machinery, and a bunch of slush pits somewhere near a hole in the road south of Lockhart,” she said. “Town had some kind of funny name. I can’t remember exactly. But it was on his first big-time producing lease.”

  “Can you show me where it is?”

  “I’m not sure. The old man’s name was Logan, though, and she called the place Logan’s dump — that’s about all I remember. Why?”

  “I think somebody’s trying to kill her.”

  “Why in hell would anybody want to kill Sissy,” she said. “I’ve always liked her, but she’s such a frivolous bitch.”

  “Maybe you better tell me about it,” I said.

  But before Cathy could start her story, Betty came out of the house, her smile as bright as a dew-sparkled rose, shaking her fluffy light red hair golden in the sunshine. “Okay, kids,” she said, “no fooling around without me.”

  “Dammit all to hell,” Cathy snorted. “I always knew you were a selfish bitch. Ever since you stole my four-colored pen in the third grade.”

  “It was mine in the first place,” Betty said, grinning. “And besides, it was a three-colored pen in the fourth grade.”

  “Just proves my point,” Cathy said, faking a sulk as she leaned her head on the flagstone wall. “And Miss Batson always liked you better.”

  “That’s because I didn’t shoot her in the butt with spit wads and rubber bands,” Betty said.

  “She had the kind of ass that invited pain,” Cathy whispered into the shadows.

  “What’s on the agenda today?” Betty asked, her hand warm on my cheek.

  “Road trip,” I answered. “I’ve got to go to Houston, then Louisiana to look into some shit.”

  “How long?”

  “Don’t exactly know how long I’ll be gone,” I admitted.

  “How long we’ll be gone,” she corrected me, “and if we’re going, I’ve got to run out to the ranch, then see if Tom Ben’s hands can look after the stock while we’re gone.”

  “It would be safer if I went alone,” I said.

  “Not a chance, cowboy.”

  “Then I’ll pick you up at Tom Ben’s,” I said. “We can leave your truck there.”

  “I’ll give you a call on your cell phone before I head out to Tom Ben’s place.”

  Betty gave Cathy a hug and me a long sweet kiss, then left.

  “Alone at last,” Cathy said, her wrist to her forehead. Then she ruffled her short dark hair. “You got time for this story?” she asked seriously. “It’s going to take a couple of Bloody Marys.”

  “I counted on at least one.”

  Once we had drinks in hand and perched on stools at the breakfast bar, Cathy sighed, then said, “Austin in the seventies. What a fucking circus. It was like Hollywood with cowboy boots. Or maybe, what we thought Hollywood was like. Or maybe, we thought we were starring in our own movies. It was seventy-three and I’d just come back from acupuncture school in London, a fairly upright young woman — never as stuffy as Betty — but close. By eighty-five I’d been married and divorced three times, had the clap twice, and overdosed three times, twice on purpose, and spent most of my time hanging out with the kind of guys who were interesting when they were rebellious students at UT. But now they drove beer trucks and dealt the drugs they didn’t smoke or stuff up their noses — Christ, I married two of them, much to their regret, and their daddy’s trust funds — but at the lowest moment Betty and I hooked up with Sissy and. Mandy Rae and their crowd.” Then she paused for a long breath. “Nobody has the constitution for that kind of action. I don’t know how I survived.”

  “How’d you get out?”

  “Woke up one morning with Enos trying to strangle me with his dick,” she said, “while fucking Dwayne was trying to squirm his skinny dick up my ass. It was too much. I stepped back, watched them go after each other without me as an excuse. Then I just stayed away, so unlike most of the rest of them, I survived those years without suffering rehab, jail, or death. Believe me, cowboy, I paid for this life. And I intend to enjoy it.”

  “I noticed that,” I said. “I’m sort of interested in where Mandy Rae’s cocaine came from.”

  “Nobody seemed to know,” Cathy said. “Mandy Rae had dumped her first husband — some old guy who pushed tools on an offshore drilling rig out of Morgan City, or somewhere down in coonass country — then hooked up with Enos, maybe in New Orleans, I don’t remember exactly. But they came to town with kilos, not ounces, and it kept coming — more coke than any of us had ever seen, and shit even purer than yours. By the way, why don’t we do a short line?”

  “It’s always the people’s cocaine,” I said. “That keeps it simple.”

  “Good plan,” she said.

  Afterward, Cathy’s story drifted through those lost days, which seemed so happy at the time, and for many of the people it had turned out so sadly. Some people should never have a drink. I knew at least a hundred people who were alcoholics midway through their first teenage beer. They either survived or didn’t. And the drugs.

  Just after my forced resignation from the Meriwether County Sheriff’s Department, I had been on a toot, during which I offered an anthropology graduate student a hit off my doobie before we made love. The next weekend the young woman, behind three hits of Purple Haze acid, had tried to fly out her apartment window. Luckily, she lived on the second floor and landed in a snowbank. She broke three ribs and lost the tip of her little finger to what she called an interesting case of frostbite. Three months later, arguing with her new boyfriend over where they were going skiing, she shot him in the butt with a .22 short to get his attention. When that seemed to have no effect, she shot herself in the thigh. They drove all the way to Bozeman before they decided prescription painkillers sounded better than bleeding all over the chutes above Bridger Bowl, so they checked into the ER. The boyfriend later died in a Mexican prison, but the young woman grew up to be the head of a chain of drug rehab clinics in California.

  Nobody knows when or where addiction begins. I also knew I couldn’t count the number of people who had done cocaine without either becoming hooked, going crazy, or losing their jobs. But the dozen or so who had gone down the hard way, went that way from the beginning, and ended very badly.

  “Maybe it wasn’t us or the, drugs or even the sex,” a sad-faced Cathy said, “but the shitty moral force of all the whitebread assholes who tried to impress their will on us, make us behave, and live their frightened little lives.”

  I nodded, but slowly because I didn’t know.

  “Maybe it’s always been a religious war,” Cathy whispered, “like the abortion thing.” Then she stood up, shouting, “Well, fuck ‘em. When they die and find there ain’t nothing afterward, think how silly they’ll feel.”

  “I thought they were dead?”

  “I’ve always hoped that there’s just enough afterlife for the assholes, just a nanosecond where they understand that this is all there is,” she said.

  “Here’s to the final answer,” I said, raising my glass. We finished our drinks.

  “I’ve got a client in about fifteen minutes,” Cathy said, then gave me a fierce hug and a kiss lik
e a punch in the face. “Kick ass and take names, cowboy. Mi casa, su casa, mi amigo. Stairtown. That’s where Homer’s place was.”

  “Thanks,” I said, then left.

  * * *

  Down in the Caddy I checked my voice mail. Except for six hang-ups, it was empty. So I went down to the Four Seasons, grabbed my gear, stuffed the Browning into a shoulder holster under my vest, and checked out. I drove out to the gun safe to pick up some more traveling cash, then headed the Beast toward the Lodge, for a shower, packing, and a change of clothes. The Caddy felt good under my hands and butt, as close to home as I got to feel these days. I almost felt guilty when I checked the mirrors for a tail.

  But it was a waste of time. When I unlocked the door of my suite, the drapes along the south wall were open, flooding the room with smoky sunlight. Two large men in dark suits and darker glasses were outlined against the glare. Another slimmer one in a light suit stood a bit apart from them, leaning lightly on the heavy bag hung from the ceiling, the strong sunlight gleaming off his glasses and bald head. A dark-haired woman wearing a round, black hat with a wide brim and a half-veil that hid her face sat in one of my easy chairs, a slim cigarillo smoking between her red-tipped fingers. A low-cut black dress exposed a soft round cleavage that seemed to glow in the shadow of the hat. She smelled like money all the way across the room. Beside her, the bulk of an old, fat woman moldered in an electric wheelchair. She was also dressed in black and wearing a veiled hat covering a square, heavy face. Even through the veil, though, I could tell that her skin was riddled with pitted scars and hairy moles. Her hooded eyes glared angrily at me. The visible wings of her hair were so deeply black they had to be a cheap wig or an oil spill.

  I had the Browning from beneath the vest with a motion so quick and smooth it surprised even me, my two-handed combat stance solid, the sights locked on the younger woman, hammer cocked, safety off. But I hadn’t bothered putting a round in the chamber.

  “Very nice, Mr. Milodragovitch,” the young woman said, her voice husky, tired, worn from smoke and drink, and deeply unimpressed. She spoke carefully, with a slight accent, as if English wasn’t her first language. Maybe Spanish, I told myself. The old woman’s eyes rose, glittered madly for a second, then dropped.

  “Three days a week at the range,” I said, only lying a little bit. I’d been avoiding the range more often than I’d been there for months. Even with earmuffs my ears rang for hours after fifty rounds. Just as I’d avoided the heavy bag because my hands ached so badly after a workout. “And clean living,” I added.

  “You won’t be needing that.” The woman tilted her head toward the corner of the room where a third man in a dark suit covered me with a shoulder-strapped mini-Uzi with a large suppressor on its barrel.

  “You’ll be the first, lady,” I said.

  The woman nodded to the third man, who calmly draped the assault weapon back under his coat. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I could see that the men in the dark suits seemed to be Latinos, Secret Service radio earplugs in their ears. They even had the easy but alert stances of real professionals, their faces in a bland, almost happy repose. They were on the job.

  “Just calm down, Mr. Milodragovitch,” the man in the tan suit, Tobin Rooke, said, his thin lips barely moving.

  I moved the Browning slightly, aimed it at the heavy bag, then pulled the trigger. Although the hammer falling on the empty chamber sounded as loud as a grenade in the closed room, nobody even flinched, or even moved until the echoes of the hammer died, when Rooke lightly touched the heavy bag as if it were swinging.

  “Fuck all of you,” I said. “Whoever the fuck you are.”

  “I believe ‘whomever’ is the correct usage,” Rooke said so quietly that I nearly didn’t hear him.

  “I’ve been to college,” I said, charging the Browning and shoving it back into the shoulder holster. The next time I pulled it out, I wanted to have a round in the chamber. “It’s obvious I ain’t gonna impress anybody unless I put a round up their nose. So what’s the deal, lady? Since I assume you’re in charge.” She nodded. “A nice hat, too. I haven’t seen a hat with a veil since the forties.” My mother had worn one just like it to my father’s funeral, black gauze wreathed with expensive sherry fumes.

  “Thank you,” she said without irony. “I understand you are looking for the woman known as Molly McBride,” she added.

  “Molly McBride?” I said, more than somewhat surprised. “What’s it to you?”

  “I want to talk to her,” the woman said. “She has something of mine, and since you don’t have an actual client, I thought perhaps I might provide you one. If you would be so kind.”

  I had no idea what to say at this sudden turn.

  So the woman continued: “I know you don’t need the money, Mr. Milodragovitch, so I’m going to offer you something much more important.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Your freedom,” she said quietly.

  “Who the hell are you, lady? And what do you have to do with my freedom?”

  She took a long drag on the little cigar, then blew a long, slow billow of smoke into the stolid air. “I’m Mrs. Hayden Lomax,” she said, “and this man, as you well know, is Tobin Rooke, the district attorney of Gatlin County, and he has an envelope containing a contract, a small check, a bench warrant for a material witness, the woman who calls herself Molly McBride, and a DA’s special investigator badge and identification. Of course, he had to use your booking photo, so the picture’s not too flattering, but it’s clearly you.” She didn’t bother introducing me to the old lady in the wheelchair.

  “A bail jumper warrant would be better,” I said, “but isn’t there some sort of conflict of interest here?”

  Mrs. Lomax presented me with an icy sneer that should have frosted my balls, and she kept staring at me, silently, until the old woman pinched her arm. “As an officer of the law, you answer to me, not some crooked bail bondsman,” she said quickly without a trace of irony and as if she had been waiting all day to say the line. Then she nodded to Rooke to answer the rest of the question.

  “There are not now, and upon successful completion of your contract, will be no charges pending,” Rooke said primly. “This McBride woman, whoever she might be, is a material witness in a homicide. So this is all, however personally abhorrent, perfectly legal. Your business partner, Mr. Wallingford, has examined the documents and approved them. You are certainly free to consult him at this time.” Rooke slipped a cell phone out of his perfectly draped suit, punched redial, then crossed the room to hand me the phone.

  “Where the hell are you?” I said when Travis Lee answered. “It sounds like you’re next door.”

  “Sippin’ Tennessee whiskey and lookin’ at this pile of caca de toro on my desk, and wonderin’ where my next fortune’s comin’ from,” he said.

  “What the hell is going on with this Lomax woman?” I asked.

  “Sounds to me like a chance to pull your ass out of the pigshit,” he said. “I’d be on it like a duck on a June bug, if I were you.”

  “What’s the woman want?”

  “Who cares what she wants?” he said. “She’s Hayden Lomax’s last trophy wife, so whatever Sylvie Lomax wants, she gets. So maybe you better ask her yourself.”

  “Thanks. I will.” I handed the cell phone back to Rooke, who gave me a manila envelope. “What do you get out of this?” I asked Mrs. Lomax. “Aside from the sheer pleasure of using your money like a club?”

  “Don’t think of it as a club, Mr. Milodragovitch,” she said, a wisp of a smile like a thread of smoke flickering around her face, “but more like a willow switch.”

  “Thanks for correcting me,” I said. “I assume you mean that a willow switch tickles before it stings? Believe me, lady, I’m tickled shitless, but that doesn’t answer my question.”

  “I was warned that you’d be like this.”

  “Who warned you?”

  “Someone who knows your type,” Mrs. Lomax crooned. “Li
ke a pup with a bone: you don’t know if you should chew on it, bury it, or hump it.”

  “Aside from the fact that I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” I said, “what do you want from me?”

  “When you locate this Molly McBride person and inform the Gatlin County authorities,” she said, “you’ve completed your chore. They’ll handle it from there. That’s all you need to know.”

  “Why use me to find the woman,” I said, “instead of the police or one of the big firms?”

  “It’s in your interest to give this chore your full attention,” she said calmly. “I prefer the people who work for me to also be personally motivated.” Then she stood up, leaving the little cigar smoking in the ashtray. I was clearly dismissed, and Mrs. Lomax was already out of the room in her rich mind.

  “Don’t you have to swear me in?” I asked Rooke.

  “I don’t think that’s necessary in this case,” Rooke said, his steel gray eyes glittering with what had to be rage, madness, or both.

  “Well, I sure as hell do,” I said, “but not with these goons for witnesses. Let’s go down to the bar. I feel safe in bars.”

  “I’m sure you do, Mr. Milodragovitch,” Mrs. Lomax said with a coy smile. Then she snapped, “Handle it, Rooke.” She swept past us with a rustle of silk, a waft of sandalwood, and the solid weight of a gold chain swinging at her waist, a golden snake curled up her arm. Up close the young woman obviously wasn’t nearly as old as her makeup made her look from a distance — not even thirty, I guessed, wondering why a young woman would want to look old — she wasn’t even as old as she sounded, but her green eyes, as hard and unyielding as malachite, looked older than the dark side of the moon. Her fine features, framed by coal black hair, seemed chiseled from an ancient marble as pink and bloody as the froth from a sucking chest wound. As she walked out the door, her hips swayed like willows in the wind and her bare white shoulders gleamed like a hot flame in the smoky shadows. The last bodyguard, a large man with a pair of puckered scars in the middle of both cheeks, paused long enough to put out the smoking cigarillo, then stepped behind the old woman’s wheelchair.