The Last Good Kiss (10 page)

in touch with her father. For reasons I don't quite

understand-perhaps because he withheld his affection

from her-Betty Sue had an unhealthy fixation on him.

I would think she would have been in touch with him.

Yes, I would look for the father," he said, then leaned

back in his chair, sipped his drink, and sighed heavily,

like a detective who had just broken a big, sadly

corrupt case in an existential movie.

My temper and my mouth had always gotten me in

trouble. And occasionally prevented me from picking

up the information I needed. I wanted to tell Gleeson

to stuff his stupid advice. I also wanted to tell him to

stuff his Time magazine analysis, and to explain what

fixation meant, but instead of carping, I kept my mouth

shut, my temper in hand.

"I never had a chance to meet Betty Sue when she

was growing up," I said, changing directions. "What

sort of girl was she?"

"One in a million," he answered, quickly but softly,

then paused abruptly as if he had confessed to something. I knew I had him now.

"Why?"

"Why?" he whispered. "When I first saw her, she

was playing in a grade school production of Cinderella,

which I had to attend for reasons I don't even want to

think about now. A simply dreadful production, even

for grade school, and Betty Sue had been wasted in the

fairy godmother role, but let me tell you, my friend,

when that little girl, that mere child, was onstage, all

the other children seemed like creatures of a lesser

race. She had the best natural stage presence I had ever

seen. Offstage, she wasn't anything special, a pleasantlooking child, no more, but onstage she was in charge.

Such presence. Such a r,tatural sense of character, too. "

He paused to chuckle. "Her fairy godmother was a

queen, her gifts bestowed grandly on her inferiors. And

even then, she had a frighteningly sexual presence. You

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could almost hear the middle-aged libidos in the

audience whimpering to be unleashed.

"After the production, I went backstage to talk to

her," he continued, "and found her staring with such

awful longing eyes at the little girl who had played

Cinderella that I gave her a lecture then and there

about how good she had been. I'm afraid I quite lost

control for a bit. When I finished, she looked up at me

and said , 'It's just a prettier dress than mine, that's all. I

wouldn't be Cinderella, anyway. I wouldn't stand for

it.' She was nine, my friend, nine years old.

"After that, of course, I took her in hand, and

whenever possible I arranged my high school and Little

Theatre productions with a role for her in mind. I also

tried to get that horrid mother of hers to allow me to

enroll her in an acting class in the city-even offered to

pay all the expenses out of my own pocket. Of course,

she refused. 'Buncha damn foolishness,' I believe were

her exact words." He paused again and clasped his

hands together. "Her damned mother foxed me at

every turn. I suppose she had been considered goodlooking in her youth-though the idea escapes me now-and she resented Betty Sue. And who wouldn't,

stuck on that horrid trailer house behind that sordid

beer joint. Once, when Betty Sue was fifteen, I had a

friend-a professional photographer-take a portfolio

of photographs of her. They were lovely. Later, when I

asked Betty Sue what she had done with it, she told me

that it had been lost, but I remain convinced that her

mother destroyed it.

"So sad," he said, sipped his drink, and hurried on.

"At fifteen, she played Antigone in Anouilh's version,

and at sixteen, Mother Courage. I wouldn't have

believed it possible."

"Pretty heavy stuff for high school," I said.

"Little Theatre productions," he said. "We had a

great company then. Even the San Francisco papers

so

reviewed our productions favorably. She was so wonderful. " He sounded like a man remembering heroics in an ancient war. "With a bit of luck, she might have

made it on Broadway or in Hollywood. With a bit of

luck," he repeated like a man who had had none. "The

luck is nearly as essential as the talent, you know."

Then he gazed into his empty glass.

I broke into his reverie. "How old was she when you

seduced her?"

Gleeson laughed lightly without hesitation, his

capped teeth gleeming in the sunlight. The hummingbird buzzed the sun deck like a gentle blue blur, pausing to check Gleeson's fragrance. But he wasn't a

flower, so the bird flicked away. Gleeson rattled his ice

cubes and stood up.

"I think I'll have that drink now," he said pleasantly.

"Would you care for another Tecate?"

"I'd rather have an answer to my question," I said.

"My good fellow," he said as he fixed a drink,

"you've been the victim of sordid rumors and vicious

gossip."

"I got your name from Mrs. Flowers," I said, "and

that's all. Except that I understand now why she gritted

her teeth when she said it. Otherwise, I don't know a

thing about you that you didn't tell me. "

"Or that you surmised?"

"Guessed."

"You do the country bumpkin very well, my friend,"

he said as he handed me another beer. "But you

slipped up when you didn't ask me to explain what ACf

stood for, and you didn't learn about Brecht and

Anouilh in the police academy or in a correspondence

course for private investigators. "

"I'm supposed to be the detective."

"I imagine you play that role quite well, too," he

said, "and I suspect that it isn't in my best interest to

continue this conversation. "

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"I don't live here," I said. "I couldn't care less how

many adolescent hymens you have hanging in your

trophy room. Better you here with candlelight and

good wine than some pimpled punk in the back seat of

a car with a six-pack of Coors."

"I'm not that easily flattered," he said, but I could

see smutty little fires glowing in the depths of his eyes.

"However, I do occasionally indulge myself," he

added, smiling wetly. "Most of the simple folk in town

think I'm a faggot, and I let them. A very nice

protective coloration, don't you think?" I nodded.

"But Betty Sue and I never had that sort of relationship. Not that I wasn't sorely tempted, mind you-she had a fierce sexuality about her-and not that she might

not have been willing. Certainly, if I had known _

. . . known how things were going to work out, known

that she wouldn't pursue a career in the theatre, I

would have snatched her up in a moment. But I was

afraid that a sexual relationship might interfere with

our professional relationship."

"Professional?"

"That's right," he said. "I may be only a high school

drama teacher now, but I have worked off-Broadway

and in television, even taught in college, and I know the

business. Betty Sue might have made it. And I confess

that I intended to use her if she did." He sighed again.

"Athletic coaches often rise on the legs of their star

players, and I saw no reason why I shouldn't have the

same chance. So I abstained. Betty Sue, as young girls

so often do, might have grown bored with the older

man in her life, and confused the sexual relationship

with the professional one. So, my friend, I kept my

hands off her," he said with just the right touch of

remorse mixed with pride.

"I'm sorry," I said, trying to see his fare behind the

wistful mask. "You must still have friends in the

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theatre," I said, "and I assume that you have asked

them about Betty Sue over the years. "

"So often that I've become an object of some

derision," he said ruefully. "But no one has ever seen

or heard of her. That's a dead end, I'm afraid."

"Could she have been pregnant?"

"She could have, yes," he said. "I assumed that she

wasn't a virgin much past her fourteenth birthday. But,

of course, I had no way of knowing."

"You know," I said, still bothered about the earlier

lie about his drink, "sometimes people confess a little

thing-like your selfish intentions about her career-to

cover up something larger."

"What could I possibly have to hide?" he said

blandly.

"I don't know," I said, then leaned forward until our

hands nearly touched. "I've got a little education," I

said, "but I'm particularly sophisticated-"

"Still a country boy at heart?" he interrupted.

"Right. And, like you said, you're a professionalyou know all about acting and lying, wearing masks," I said, "and if I find out that you've been lying to me, old

buddy, I'll damn sure be back to discuss it with you." I

crushed my empty beer can in my fist. An oldfashioned steel can.

Gleeson laughed nervously. "You're a terrible

fraud," he said as cheerfully as he could. "You couldn't

fool a child with that act."

"Unlike yours, old buddy," I said, "mine ain't an

act." Then I grabbed his wrist and squeezed the heavy

silver bracelet into his soft flesh. "Intellectual discourse

is great, man, but in my business, violence and pain is

where it's at. "

"My god," he squeaked, squirming, "you're breaking my ann."

"That's just the beginning, man," I said. "Keep in

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mind the fact that I like this, that I don't like you worth

a damn."

"Please," he whimpered, sweat beading across his

scalp.

"Let's have the rest of it," I whispered.

"There's nothing, I swear . . . Please . . . you're

breaking . . . "

"Listen, old buddy," I said pleasantly, "the U.S.

Army trained me at great expense in interrogation,

filled my head with all sorts of psychological crap, but

when I got to Nam, we didn't do no psychology, we

hooked the little suckers up to a telephone crankalligator clips on the foreskin and nipples-and the little bastards were a hundred times tougher than you,

but when we rang that telephone, the little bastards

answered."

"All right," he groaned, "all right." I released h,is

wrist. "Can't you get this off?" he grunted as he

struggled with the bent bracelet.

"Sure," I said, then straightened the silver. His face

wrinkled and his eyelids fluttered. He rubbed his wrist

as I fixed him a drink. "You had something to tell me."