The Last Good Kiss (18 page)

"Why?"

"You've never met her, right?"

"Right. Why?"

"I can tell by the way you're talking," she said, "that

you're stuck on her."

"It's a professional hazard," I said, trying to wriggle

out of it. "I get stuck on everybody I hunt for. They

stop being pictures and words and become people,

that's all." I nipped at my drink to ease the dry bite of

the hashish. "Sometimes the people I think I'm hunting

for don't turn out to be the people I find," I babbled.

"Or something like that."

"Cut the bullshit, man," she said. "You're stuck on

her. I never met a man who wasn't. Goddammit, she

could do a lot of things well, but nothing better than

that."

"What?"

"Getting men stuck on her-she did that best of all.

They used to come for miles around just to sit at the

queen's feet, just to touch her hem-oh, hell, that's not

fair."

"What?"

"She just never found anybody as good as she was,"

Peggy said, then picked up a wine glass in her stubby

fingers. "She was the most beautiful woman in the

world and she was only a girl-just like me, man, just a

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little high school kid from Sonoma, but she was so

beautiful, a beautiful, lonely lady, lonely because

nobody was good enough for her."

"Stuck up?"

"Not a bit of it, man," she said, "or . why would she

like me? Listen, man, I spent my school years watching

pretty girls try to be my friends so they'd look good

standing next to me, but Betty Sue, she didn't care

about that, she was my friend, and better-looking than

the whole bunch of them, and smarter and nicer-the

whole bit."

"You've thought about her some?"

"Not a day goes by, man, that I don't."

"I see."

"You don't see shit, man," she said quietly. "I loved

her, you see, loved her. I didn't know what it was all

about until I had survived two nightmare marriages,

but since then I've found out, and I loved her. When

she ran away, I cried my eyes out, man, cried myself

blind. Before that, I thought that was a cliche, but

when she left, I wept until I couldn't see. "

"I'm sorry," I said.

"I hated her too," she confessed, "but that was my

fault. I lined up with the smitten swains but didn't know

what I was doing for years. And hell, if sh:! was here

tonight, you and I could stand around with our tongues

out." Then she tried to laugh as she socked me on the

arm. "Lined up to meet the lady."

"I never stand in line for anything," I said lightly.

"This is a lady you'd kill for a chance just to stand in

line," she said with a sad smile. "Or something like

that. That didn't make sense, did it?"

"I know what you meant," I said. "Thanks for your

trouble."

"No trouble, man," she said. "I'm like this all the

time now. And when I finish law school, I'm gonna

make the world pay for it."

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Since it was the first happy thing I had heard her say,

I wished her well and thanked her again. Then I

wandered toward the far side of the yard to find a bush

to water.

Betty Sue Flowers. I had talked to three people but

hadn't found out anything worth knowing, except that

everybody who knew her was stuck on her still. Maybe

I was too. Maybe I didn't have any choice in the matter

any more. But I had to make up my mind. Her daddy

lived down in Bakersfield, Randall Jackson might still be

in Denver, and the remains of the commune were in

southern Oregon-long trips in three different directions, and none of them on the way to Montana.

Rosie's eighty-seven dollars was getting a workout, and

I was getting nowhere, but that's always where I knew

this one was heading anyway. So I shook it off and

headed back to the party.

When I walked through the kitchen, Traheame was

leaning against the wall beside the lady with the chains,

offering her the slug they had removed from his hip,

saying, "You charming little devil, you, I'd like you to

have this as a good-luck piece." He tickled her under

the chin.

"Why don't you lick her on the arm," I said, but they

both ignored me. She giggled and accepted the goodluck gift, and Trahearne lifted her hand to his lips. As I tried to walk past, he grabbed my neck with a meaty

hand and hugged me toward him, his huge face rubbery

and flushed with the whiskey, hanging over mine like

something butchered in a nightmare.

"And what did the little dyke have to say?" he asked.

"Nothing I didn't already know," I said. "Let's get

the hell out of here."

"The party's just getting interesting." He leered at

the chained lady, sloshed whiskey into my glass, and

patted my shoulder. "Hang around," he said, gathering

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the lady with silken clinks beneath his arm and leading

her into the twinkling night.

"Have a good time," I said. "Have a hell of a good

time."

"You've got to learn to relax," he advised over his

shoulder, "learn to have a good time. "

Ah, yes, the good times. The parties that last

forever, the whiskey bottle that never runs dry, the

recreational drugs. Strange ladies draped in denim and

satin, in silver and hammered gold. Ah, yes, the easy

life, unencumbered by families or steady jobs or the

knave responsibility. Freedom's just another word for

nothin' else to lose, right, and the nightlife is the right

life for me, just keep on keepin' on. Having fun is the

fifth drink in a new town or washing away a hangover

with a hot shower and a cold, cold beer in a motel room

or the salty road-tired taste of a' hitch-hiking hippiechick's breast in the downy funk of her sleeping bag.

Right on. The good times are hard times but they're

the only times I know.

The next morning, I woke up with a faceful of

sunshine in the back seat of Trahearne's convertible,

sodden with dew, dogspit, and recriminations of high

degree. When I sat up to look around, it looked like

California, then a passing paperboy told me it was

Cupertino, but that didn't tell me anything at all. Two

houses up the street, a curly-headed guy was standing

in his driveway, sucking on the remains of a half-pint as

he tried to dodge a barrage of kitchf'&l utensils that flew

from an unseen hand inside the house and glittering out

into the morning light. He ducked a large spoon and a

heavy ladle, chortled and dancing, but a potato masher

caught him on the lower lip with a sudden burst of

bright blood. As he started weeping, a blond woman in

a housecoat rushed outside and led him back inside.

I shook my head, shared the last cold beer with

Fireball, then let him out to water somebody's lawn. As

soon as he was finished, I leaned on Trahearne's horn

until he stumbled out of the house across the street, his

shirt in one hand, his shoes in the other, his tail tucked

between his legs.

"Damned crazy woman," he complained as I drove

away. "How was I supposed to know she wanted to

wear all that goddamned junk jewelry to bed. Jesus

Christ, it was like fucking in a car wreck. "

"Beats sleeping in the car," I muttered.

"Wasn't my fault," he grunted as he tied his shoe.

"You refused to come in the house."

"At least you could have put the top up."

"I did," he said. "Twice. But you insisted on having

it down, and you gave the world a forty-minute speech

about sleeping under the stars to clean out your system,

so I left you alone."

"Good idea," I said.

"You're a surly drunk, Sughrue."

"Surly sober, too."

"What happened to the woman?" he asked.

"What woman?"

"The one with you."

"Whatever happened," I said, "I'm sure I enjoyed it.

What did she look like?"

"Soft and furry," he said. "She's not dead in the

trunk or something awful, is she?"

"I don't have any idea,'' I said, "and I'm not about to

look before I have a drink."

"Let's not even act like we're going to have breakfast," he said, grinning. "Let's just find the nearest bar."

"Then it's off to Bakersfield," I said.

"Oh my god," Trahearne groaned.

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8 ••••

BETWEEN DRUNKS AND HANGOVERS, IT TOOK TRAHEARNE

and me two days to drive to Bakersfield, but as we

drove from the motel to Betty Sue's father's place, we

were both sober and not in any great pain, which was

good because his place looked like the sort of dance

hall and bar where a man wanted his wits about him

when he went inside. The marquee promised dancing

nightly to the strains of Jimmy Joe Flowers and the

Pickers, and the bar, a cinder-block square building in

the middle of a parking lot, promised all the trouble

you could handle. Since it was early, though, we went

inside with the lunch rush-two welders and a traveling

salesman who wanted beers and Slim Jims. The daytime bartender told me that Mr. Flowers usually came in about poe-thirty, and sure enough at two o'clock

sharp, his ostrich-skin boots thumped through the

doorway. Ostrich skin makes a lovely boot leather-if

you like leather that looks as if the animal had died of

terminal acne-and it went well with Flowers' wine

Western-cut double-knit leisure suit, just as his suit

matched the woman who followed him.

Flowers was all happy handshakes and smiles until I

showed him my license and told him what I wanted.

Then he frowned and led his secretary into the closet he

called his office. When I didn't follow on his heels, he

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stepped back out and waved me hastily inside. He said

he had something he wanted to say to me. At some

length.

"Ungrateful little bitch," he said, then slapped his

flimsy desk. "I never thought a child of mine would

turn out to be a hippie, you know, never thought it for a

minute. I mean, what the hell, I like to see kids have a

good time, but they got to work for it, and you know, I

lost a boy over there in Vietnam, and might have lost

the other one, but he had a bum knee, and here I tum

around and find this damned hippie for a daughter. I

mean, you know, first I hear she's run off without

finishing school-and you know how important an

education is nowadays-and here I am her own loving

father, you know, and I don't hear a single solitary

word from her for four, maybe five years, then one

night she calls, collect, mind you, and wakes me out of

a dead sleep. " He paused to look up at his secretary.

"You remember that, don't you, honey?" he said to

her, and she reached down to pat his freshly shaven and

powdered cheek as if the effort of waking up had been

just more than he could bear.

"And you know what she wants?" he asked me

suddenly. He didn't give me time to answer. "Money,

by god, she wants money so she can leave that damned

dirty commune where's she been shacked up like some

animal. " He paused to shake his head. "And you know

what I told her?" I didn't make a move. "I told her that

I hadn't sent her a single thin dime to get herself into