Bordersnakes

  A question I didn’t bother to answer.

  “Then you show up alone, man,” he continued, shaking his head, “nosing around my shit. Well, lemme tell you something. After I blew out my Achilles’ tendon in college, I started a little sports book, that got me into a sports wire, then titty bars, massage parlors, and some motels. That was the sum total of my scam, man. Drugs were fine with me, but drug deals were way too exciting, too dangerous, too many guns…”

  “But you know those people?”

  “Sure,” he said, “what’s not to know? But I never did business with them. And I never took a fall, so when I made enough bread, I went legit. When I heard you were asking about me, friend, I checked you out, and when I found out who you were, I didn’t know what to do. Really.”

  “So you arranged this little dinner?”

  “Well, at first Rennie was just supposed to pump you, but I decided to play it straight.”

  “Thanks,” I said, almost meaning it, “but Tipton called you a couple of times from California. What did he want?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, “I didn’t talk to him.”

  “Don’t give me that shit,” I said.

  “No, really,” he answered, leaning across the table. “Listen, five or six years back I had some extra change and a buddy of mine talked me into financing a low-budget movie. They shot here. A football movie. Maybe you heard of it. Pigiron?” I nodded. “Didn’t cost shit,” he continued, “and did a little business. Made some actual money. For the fucking distributors. Those bastards are real criminals. I just barely got out with my ass intact.

  “Learned my lesson, though,” he said, then laughed and waved for more cognac. “That’s how I met the Tipton kid. He came out from Hollywood for a bit part. As a ’roid monkey. Talk about type-casting. So we hit it off and started hanging out. His career, as he called it, wasn’t going anyplace, so I gave him work.”

  “Collecting?”

  “He was the best I ever had, man, because he was truly fucking crazy,” Wilbarger said. “Which is why I didn’t take his calls.”

  “What’d he want?”

  “That’s the funny part,” he said. “I’m not quite sure.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Well, my boys told me that he was asking about a broad who played a hooker in the movie,” he said. “I mean I did a little number with her on location, but shit, man, she was just too fucking crazy and dangerous for me. Pure mean. Even had a mean name. Darcy Stone. Plus, she tried to run a scam on me. So I shit-canned the bitch and haven’t heard from her since. Can’t even exactly remember what she looked like.”

  “What sort of scam?”

  “She wanted me to finance her movie project,” Wilbarger said, “but what the hell. Everybody on the fucking job pulled a project out of their asses when they found out that I had a bunch of cash stashed. That’s the way those people are, man, real fucking greedy when it comes to projects.”

  “That’s what they say,” I said, without really knowing who they might be. “Can I ask you one last thing?”

  “If I can ask you a favor.”

  “What’s the favor?”

  “Analise Lara used to cut my hair. She was a sweet kid. When you find out who did her, friend,” Wilbarger said softly, “call me. I want to talk to the bastards. Personally.”

  “That shouldn’t be hard,” I said.

  Wilbarger stood up, shook the kinks out of his bad leg, picked up Irene’s purse and sweater, then paused. “You had another question?”

  “You’ve already answered it,” I said.

  He smiled sadly, then limped back to the protection of his new life. “I’ll call.”

  —

  None of my backup help wanted to take off, but after the Wilbarger crowd disappeared, I managed to convince them to leave me alone. I left shortly, then spent the night drinking 7-Eleven coffee and letting the Beast drive me around Austin. Maribeth was supposed to come to town in a couple of days, without her boys, but I needed to decide where to go and what to do. And how to apologize to Sughrue. But my wanderings seemed to have some purpose. Twice I drifted past the Laras’ house. And just as a gray line gathered at the cloudy eastern horizon, the Beast carried me to the Emergency Vet Clinic in north Austin for the third time that night, by which I supposed I had something in mind. So I parked, hesitated for a long moment, then buzzed the night bell.

  “Dr. Porterfield?” I asked when a soft voice answered the bell.

  “Betty,” she said.

  “Remember an old Lab bitch named Sheba?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I’m the guy who dropped her off,” I said, and she buzzed me inside. Bravely, I thought. Later she told me she had a stun gun in her sweater pocket and a Ruger .40 double-action automatic in her belt pack.

  Once I was inside the clinic that morning, the door locked behind me, the vet leaned on the counter, the portable telephone in hand. “I’ve already dialed the nine and the first one, bud,” she said, “now convince me not to dial the last one.”

  “Do I impress you as the sort of asshole who would…”

  “Bud, I don’t have any idea what kind of asshole you are,” she interrupted calmly.

  “…shoot a dog with a twenty-two?” I asked.

  “You don’t know how little that kind of shit impresses me.”

  “I’m going to empty my pockets,” I said, then did.

  She poked idly through the change, money clip, Buck pocketknife, and keys, then thumbed through my wallet. “How would I know if this stuff is real?” she said. “All I can tell is that you drive a new Cadillac with New Mexico plates, have a Montana driver’s license that’s about to expire, and carry too much cash to be trusted.”

  “I can explain that,” I said.

  “I’ll just bet you can,” she said. “Explain the dog.”

  So I tried to make up something she might believe, a story about bikers and dopers and cops, a good story. Maybe because of the way she looked. Betty Porterfield looked to be in her late thirties, had a large heart-shaped face, a spray of freckles across her cleanly weathered skin, and a wild thatch of light red hair gathered at the back of her neck with a ribbon. Her nails were short, her hands blunt and serviceable, the sleeves of her sweater pushed above her elbows. She listened to my lies without interruption, bright blue eyes shining, her right thumb occasionally touching her right cheekbone, rubbing a narrow unfreckled line of a scar that angled across the cheekbone almost to her ear; the sort of flaw, I suspected, that would make her face even more lovely in smiling repose. Should she ever decide to smile at me.

  “Which side were you on?” she asked when I finished the lie. “Criminal? Or cop?”

  “A deputy sheriff once,” I said, “and a private investigator later.”

  “And now?”

  “Just a friend, I guess,” I admitted. “Actually, I guess I was just trying to help a friend come up with…some version of revenge that we could live with.”

  “I can understand that,” she said thoughtfully. Then she paused. “But you took the time to bring in the Lab. Why?”

  “I couldn’t leave her there,” I said. “Did she survive the gunshot wounds?”

  “If you’ll hang around until I get off,” she said, “I’ll let you see for yourself just how well.”

  When she left the emergency clinic at eight, Betty Porterfield nodded at me without speaking, jerked her head for me to follow, then climbed into a battered Toyota four-wheel-drive pickup and led me west for an hour or so while the rest of the norther blew itself out, led me through a little town called Blanco, across a low water crossing, then onto a dirt road. Six locked gates and two creek fords later, she stopped at the end of the road beside a tin-roofed stone house with a gallery running along the south side. The house sat on a bench on the side of a limestone ridge that overlooked a small, narrow valley with a clear-running creek down the middle. Except for a Quonset-hut-shaped barn built from rough cedar poles, al
l the other outbuildings were constructed from the same flat rock. Even the chicken house and the hog pens. Everything looked carefully used, I thought as I stepped out of the Beast, perfectly preserved and in its element.

  Like Betty Porterfield. Who greeted me outside the Beast with a combat stance and the Ruger .40 automatic unwaveringly pointed at my thorax region.

  “Assume the stance,” she said quietly.

  “Say ‘please,’ ” I said.

  “What?”

  “Say ‘please,’ ” I repeated. “I’m not in the habit of taking orders from people. With or without guns.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Assume the position!” she screamed. “Please! Before I blow your balls off!”

  So I assumed the position. She patted me down carefully, not avoiding the afore-threatened gonads, then stepped back, still holding the pistol on me.

  “I guess you’re clean,” she said. “But I couldn’t watch you in the car, so I had to make sure.”

  “Change your mind on the way out, lady?” I asked, standing and facing her now.

  “Not exactly,” she said, “but I decided I wanted to hear the whole truth.”

  “It’s not pretty,” I said.

  “Believe me, bud, I know some ugly stories.”

  So I told her most of the whole truth. She listened without flinching. Not even when I told her about the intrusion into the Laras’ murder scene or Tipton’s death. But she did slip the pistol back into the belt pack holster.

  “So you’re sort of a cop, sort of a criminal, sort of a fortune hunter…”

  “My fortune,” I pointed out, but she didn’t smile.

  “…and seeking some sort of wild justice,” she said. “So what did you want with me?”

  “Just wanted to find out about the dog,” I said, “and maybe hear your voice again…”

  “Give it a rest,” she said.

  “…and maybe convince you that I hadn’t shot the dog.”

  “You at least did that,” she said, “ ’cause if I thought you had, bud…”

  “If I had, what?” I said.

  “Maybe I would have taken you down to the spring hole, popped you there,” she said, then looked at her scuffed cowboy boots, “gutted you, then filled your body with rocks. Drop your fucking land barge on East Sixth…”

  “You can talk the talk, lady,” I said, “but can you walk the walk?” I didn’t know exactly what it meant, but Sughrue said it a lot.

  “Bet on it,” she said calmly, then pointed at a heart-sized rock twenty yards away already stained with lead fragments. “Watch this, Buster Brown,” she said, then drew the pistol so quickly I didn’t see her hand move and emptied the clip against the rock. The echoes filled the small valley. When they stopped, a thin whine came from the door of the house.

  “Pretty impressive,” I admitted, “but rocks aren’t coming at you and don’t shoot back.”

  “That won’t bother me a bit,” she said, replacing the empty clip, then turned toward the house, adding, “Let’s see if Sheba remembers you, bud. While I rustle up some breakfast.”

  Betty scuffled random chickens and lazy cats out of the way, stepped up on the gallery, opened a screen door, and a black quivering mass circled her feet, whimpering and yipping with happiness as Betty scrubbed Sheba’s head with her knuckles. Betty pointed at me, then escaped into the house. The Lab paused, then came for me, prancing and dancing with joy. I knelt to greet her, but her rush knocked me on my ass. Maybe she just recognized my supine posture, and maybe she just loved humanity in general, but she nuzzled and licked my face until she convinced me it didn’t matter.

  The screen door opened long enough for a tennis ball to bounce out. Sheba turned her attentions to the ball and let me get off the ground. But not off the hook. She dropped the ball at my boots and whined until I threw it. My arm wore out before she did, so I took refuge in the house.

  The long, single room contained the kitchen, the living room, a futon against the far west end, and hundreds of books shelved along the walls. And a dozen sleeping cats. All the heat came from the wood cookstove, which Betty worked like a native, a compact sheepherder’s stove at one end, and a stone fireplace at the other. No electric lights, no telephone, nothing from the modern world.

  Breakfast smelled like nine hundred dollars. Betty poured coffee into a heavy mug, didn’t offer cream or sugar, and waved me out of the way. I leaned against one of the rock pillars that held up the roof beam and watched Betty work. Her movements had an economy and grace that transcended beauty. I reached for a cigarette.

  “Outside,” she said without turning. “Please,” she added, then gave me a smile that dimmed the winter sunshine.

  During a breakfast of fried eggs from her free-range chickens and smoked venison sausage from her own smokehouse, neither of us spoke. We just sat across a handmade cedar table and ate in a comfortable silence until it was all gone. Then we took our coffee out on the gallery and sat quietly in carved cedar rocking chairs until long past noon.

  “Thanks,” I said. “That was great. And thanks for letting me see Sheba.”

  “Anytime,” she said, leaning over to scratch Sheba’s head. “Thanks for bringing her in.”

  “I’ve got to be going, and quite frankly I don’t come this way much,” I said, “but would you mind if I called the next time I’m in town?”

  “Anytime,” she repeated. “Call me at work. I’m there from ten to six, three nights a week, midnight to eight the other two.” Then she stared across the valley and suddenly began to talk. “My great-great-grandmother and my great-grandmother were born in the barn over there. It used to be half-barn half-house. It was the Spivey place then. My grandmother and mother were born in this house. I was born in Breckenridge Hospital in Austin. My mother took up with a doctor’s son who used to have a deer lease up here. That’s all this land is good for—deer leases—but I don’t need that money anymore.” Then she paused. “Want some more coffee?” She went inside for the pot without waiting for my answer, filled our mugs, then put the pot back on the stove and stopped just inside the screen door. “I was going to be a doctor,” she said, “but I lost my faith in humanity. When I was in…medical school.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You come back,” she said, “maybe I can tell you. You’ve got a face a woman can talk to.”

  “Count on it,” I said.

  “Please,” she said, then stepped out of the door and gave me another sunrise of a smile. “Be careful,” she added, “and get the hell out of here. I’ve still got morning chores.”

  “Don’t you ever sleep, lady?”

  “Not in a long time, buster,” she said, “not in a long time.” She touched my cheek with her work-hardened hand, kissed me lightly with dry lips, then moved her hand to the back of my neck, held me for a moment, held me so hard I felt my bones creak, then shoved me roughly away.

  Betty stomped to the end of the gallery, her hands stuffed tightly in the back pockets of her faded jeans, then turned angrily. “You better call me, you son of a bitch,” she said, stalking back, “or I will shoot your sorry ass the next time.” Then she chuckled and said, “I’ll bet I’m not the first woman who threatened to shoot you.” She laughed again. “Just the latest.”

  “I’ve been shot at,” I admitted, “but never hit.”

  “We’ll fix that,” she said as she walked me quickly to the Beast, said goodbye without touching me again, then hurried off to her animal chores.

  —

  Back in Austin at the Hyatt, I called Sughrue at the store, but got Whitney instead. Laughing, she told me that they had a telephone now and gave the number, but when I tried it, nobody answered, so I called her back.

  “Tell him I’m sorry,” I said, “and…”

  “Don’t be, Milo, please. It was wonderful to have him back,” she interrupted.

  “…I’ll be in Fairbairn tomorrow night.”

  “St
ay with us this time,” she said. “It’ll be all right.”

  So I agreed. Then slept until daylight, slept long enough to miss Betty at the clinic, slept long enough so that I didn’t remember my dreams, then headed the Beast west one more time, faced with the endless expanse of West Texas again, armed only with a cooler full of Negra Modelo and a couple of ounces of a dead man’s cocaine. It was enough to take me to Sughrue’s front steps.

  PART FOUR

  Sughrue

  Fucking Milo. First he dumps me at the store without a word, then shows up four days later a little bit haggard, road drunk, and half-coked, but he didn’t act like a man who had been having fun. He didn’t even argue with me when I offered him the guest room. Just said sure, now that we’ve got a telephone, then he took a forty-eight-hour nap, broken only by these mysterious midnight telephone calls that he won’t talk about, a nap that wiped the circles from under his eyes but not the solemn look off his face. Then he pulls this other crazy shit.

  The third morning Whitney takes Lester to the store with her so Milo and I can hammer out the next moves while we’re sitting on the steps drinking coffee and watching the wet, cold wind work the brush.

  “It smells like weather,” I tell him.

  “What would you think, Sughrue,” he says, “if we gave up all this shit?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “I’m thinking,” he says, “maybe I don’t need all that money. Maybe you don’t need revenge. Not like we did when we started.”

  “What’s changed?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “I was just thinking—maybe we don’t need this shit.”

  “I hate to point this out,” I say, “but this was sort of your idea.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he says. “Fuck it, let’s just do it.”

  I don’t have the heart to ask the old man exactly what it is we’re doing.

  —

  It’s snowing like mad at dusk when we reach El Paso. The local radio tells us that schools and businesses are closing and the city is buckling down for six or eight inches of snow in the next twelve hours.