The Final Country

  “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.

  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 sav
ing 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.