The Last Good Kiss (23 page)

"and I guess it works. My mother swears by it--she's

down here every morning at six-and Melinda comes

down late at night to swim laps after she's been

working."

"And what do you do?" I asked.

"I come down for hangovers," he said, "and sit

around until I break a sweat." Then he ducked his head

under the water and stood up. "Am I sweating?" he

asked, then smiled. "I feel like I'm sweating."

"You're certainly all wet," I said, trying not to look

at the maze of purple scars glowing across his chest

through the wet T-shirt. He lowered himself into the

water again.

"Anytime you're ready to go, let me know," he said.

"This wasn't my idea," I said.

"Let's get out of here," he said, "this place always

stinks like a hospital." Then he stood up and lumbered

toward the steps. He had even more scars on his back.

They looked like the deep painful gouges of shrapnel

wounds, reminders etched into his flesh of a longforgotten war. I followed him out of the waters to the dressing room.

As we changed clothes, he said, "Okay, so I'm

bashful about my scars."

"They're not that bad," I said.

"Bad enough," he answered. "Hurry up," he added,

"I think I may be sober enough to try to write this

afternoon."

"I know I'm sober enough to drive back to Meriwether," I said.

"Tomorrow," Trahearne commanded. "Melinda's

got a steak thawing for you."

"Yes, sir," I said, then walked with him out to the

car, which was parked between the back of the pool

house and the tennis courts. An elderly man was

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bouncing balls off a backboard, and two teenaged girls

were engaged in a furiously contested point.

"Don't watch," Traheame said as he climbed into

the passenger seat. "All that nubile flesh will drive you

mad."

"It already has," I said as I drove us away.

Later that afternoon, after a short nap in the sun, a

shower, and a light lunch, I called Trahearne's mother's

house to let Catherine Trahearne know that I hadn't

forgotten who had hired me. She said that she was on

her way to town to play tennis, but she told me to come

over for a drink before dinner, and I accepted.

Trahearne was ensconced in a large study off the living

room, rattling papers and ice cubes and cursing loudly,

and Melinda had gone up the hill to her studio, so I

fixed a drink and wandered along the graveled footpath

toward the creek and a narrow wooden bridge across it.

The creek was small and choked with rocks and brush,

but it picked its way energetically through the clutter,

pausing occasionally in a shallow pool. Creek-watching

is a patient art, and I leaned on the bridge rail and

practiced, sniffing the cool riffles of breeze over the

creek, watching the pan-sized trout shimmer in the

crystal water, their gills fanning like vestigial wings as

they waited for dusk and whatever fly hatch the day

demanded.

"You must be the detective," a gruff woman's voice

said from the shadowy willows beside the pool, and I

nearly jumped into the creek. "Sorry," she said. "I

didn't mean to startle you but I was having an

unplanned nap when you got here."

"That's all right," I said as she stepped out of the

shade.

She was a tall, angular woman with short gray hair,

wearing a worn red flannel shirt, Malone pants, and a

12S

pair of battered Bean's hunting boots. She carried a

knotty cane and leaned on it heavily as she limped

along the creek side to the path.

"I'm Edna Trahearne," she said as she offered me a

gnarled hand to shake. She had to be in her late

seventies, but her eyes were clear, her handshake firm

in spite of the twisted fingers. Deep wrinkles had

eroded the strong features of her face, and her heavy

but withered breasts hung loose beneath the flannel

shirt like useless flaps of flesh. "And you're that

Sughrue fella."

"Yes, ma'am."

"How's my son?" she asked.

"A little tired," I said, "but he's got the constitution

of an ox."

"He comes by it naturally," she said, "but someday

he's going to tie one on and there won't be anybody

around to untie the knot. I told Catherine not to send

anybody after him this time-a waste of money and

effort-but of course she refused to listen to me. I don't

know what that slut he lives with does to him- I

haven't spoken to him since she arrived-but his binges

come on the heels of each other now, and he hasn't

written in over two years. If he doesn't rid himself of

her, he'll be in his grave before me. " Then she paused

to stare at me with a look that almost seemed coy. "You

don't agree?"

"I don't know," I said. "She seems to love him," I

added lamely.

"He doesn't need love, young man, it confuses him,"

she said. "He needs tending like a child. From what I

can tell, my son's young wife makes the mistake of

thinking he's a man. He's an artist, and all artists are

children."

It's true, I thought, some men do need tending, but

it's degrading to talk about it to strangers. I decided to

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see if the old woman was as tough as she acted. "I

understal).d that you once wrote," I said.

"It was the only way for a woman alone to work at

anything besides serving men, and as soon as I had the

money to afford this place, I stopped."

"You weren't dedicated to the art?" I said.

"If you've read my two novels, then you know what

sort of fairy tales they are," she said, "and if you've

talked to my son, you know the truth of my life here. I

took money from fools, boy, and I earned it, but don't

give me any bullshit about art."

"All right," I said. She was as tough as she seemed to

be, so I went back to watching the little creek.

"Are you a fisherman?" she asked suddenly. "Or

just another dude with a fancy fly rod?"

"I'm not much of a fisherman, no, but I have caught

a few trout. "

"If I were to loan you my fly rod, do you think you

could catch half a dozen of those little trout?" she said.

"I can't see well enough to tie a leader anymore," she

added, "even if I had the hands for it, and I would

dearly love a mess of pan-fried trout tonight."

"I've got my fly rod in the pickup," I said, then sat

my drink down and trotted toward it as obedient as a

son.

The creek hadn't been fished in some time, and the

trout rose to whatever fly I offered them, but I caught

more willow branches and wind-tangles than trout, and

it took me an hour to get a stringer of small cutthroat

trout. The old woman watched me like a fish hawk, but

she didn't offer any snide suggestions or sage advice

about my back-casting. I cleaned the fish in the creek,

then followed her to the back door of her house and

into the kitchen. While I washed my hands, she got me

a beer and asked me to join her on the front porch.

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We walked through the living room slowly, as if

through a museum. A war museum. The walls and

tables were covered with mementos of Trahearne's

war: framed pictures of young, freshly commissioned

Marine officers, a thinner Trahearne standing tall

among his contemporaries; the same faces during the

jungle campaigns, hollowed-eyed and worn among the

gray rain-forest debris after the fire storm of battle;

Japanese battle flags, a .25 Nambu automatic pistol,

and an officer's Samurai sword hanging crossed with

Trahearne's Marine officer dress sword; and embroidered pillows and shell necklaces and bone earrings-all the random junk they brought back from the islands.

One of the photographs was a wedding picture, Trahearne in dress blues beneath wind-twisted Monterey pine with white beaches and a phony blue ocean tinted

into the background, but the attractive woman holding

the white bouquet beside him was dressed in black. It

was odd, as if he had been killed in the war. Nothing of

his life after the war was in the living room, and I half

expected to see a faded gold star hanging in the front

window. When I looked, though, the old woman was

waiting at the front door, looking irritated. I shook off

the chill the room filled me with and followed her

outside, where I took a deep breath, the air in the living

room too old and bloody to breathe.

"Were you in the war?" she asked politely.

"Not that one," I said. She shook her head and

smiled as if I had given the wrong answer. I stepped

around her, careful not to touch her, to introduce