The Last Good Kiss (33 page)

"In style," I said. "If she's down this way, maybe she

could drop him off. "

"Be too far out of her way," he said too quickly.

"You don't know where she is, do you?"

"Not exactly, no ," he said, "but it's okay."

"Want me to go looking for her?"

"She's not lost."

"Neither were you," I said, "but I found you

anyway."

"Yeah, thanks," he said. Over the telephone, his

sneer sounded like the snort of a wounded cape

buffalo. "What's the matter? Are you getting bored

down there?"

"I was born bored."

"Well, hell, drive up and help me stay dry," he said.

He almost sounded serious.

"Isn't that like the halt leading the lame or something

like that?"

"I'm doing pretty good on my own," he said. "I'm

just about ready to go back to work."

"Your public's waiting with bated breath," I said.

"Hey, you're a literary type-what the hell's that

mean?''

"How should I know? Maybe it just sounds good."

"Great," I said. "Give me a call when she comes

back with my dog, and I'll drive up for a weekend."

"All right," he said cheerfully.

Then we chatted aimlessly about the weather and the

fishing we intended io do-all the assorted foolishness

that keeps Ma Bell whistling a happy tune. It wasn't

until we had hung up that I thought of Catherine, which

I assumed meant that I was cured. As they say, I

heaved a sigh of relief. When I tell folks that I've never

been married, I neglect to mention the fact that I've

been engaged about forty times.

Once I decided that I had stopped moping about,

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though, my foot started itching so badiy that I had to

take my boot off. I scratched it furiously, but the itch

went deeper than I could reach with anything but five

hundred road miles. I got back on the horn and called

every bailbondsman I knew, but nobody had any

jumpers to chase. Then I tried all the usual thingswalking around my tiny office, three steps one way, four the other. I got a glass and tried to listen to the

marriage counselor next door, but the aluminum walls

didn't do much for vocal reproduction. My office is in a

double-wide trailer house that I share with the marriage

counselor, who gives me a lot of business, and two

shady real-estate salesmen. None of my neighbors were

known for their conversational versatility, so I moved

the plastic drapes to look at my view. How long can you

stare across an alley at a battered Demster Dumpster

behind a discount store, though. I thought about going

out to talk to the current inept secretary I shared with

my neighbors, but she buzzed me before I could leave.

"You have a call," she said.

"Who is it?"

"Long distance," she crooned.

"Ol' long calls a lot," I said.

"Sir?"

"Nothing," I said. "If it's not collect, put them on."

"Oops," she muttered. "I'm sorry, sir, but we seem

to have been disconnected." Which meant she had

forgotten how to use the hold button again. "Maybe

the party will call back."

"Hope so."

The party did. It was Rosie. Before I could say hello,

she said, "I tal' you she wasn't dead."

"You told me," I answered. The itch raced up my leg

and burrowed under the skin between my shoulder

blades. "What happened?"

"Jimmy Joe called me and said he got a picture

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postcard from her this morning," she said, "mailed

from Denver."

"Was he sure it was her handwriting?"

"It had to be," Rosie _said. "WJ:io'd be playing a

mean trick like that?"

"I don't know," I said.

"He read it to me and it sounded like Betty Sue," she

added.

"You haven't heard from her in ten years," I said.

"How would you know what she sounds like?"

"I just know," she said.

"I'll be damned."

"Don't be down on yourself, C.W. , anybody can

make a mistake," she said. "How much would you

charge to go down to talk to that lady who said my baby

girl was dead and in her grave?"

"Not a cent," I said.

"Now, don't be that way," she said.

"Okay, I'll send you a .bill. If I find anything," I said.

"You can do me a favor, though."

"What's that?"

"Call your ex-husband back and ask him to send me

the postcard general delivery in Fort Collins, Colorado,

okay?"

"Good as done. "

"I'll call you i n a couple of days," I said.

"If you should just happen to find her, just tell her

she don't have to come home or nothing," Rosie

pleaded. "Just ask her to call me collect. That's all. Just

hearing her voice would be more than enough."

"Okay."

"Say," she said, "how's that worthless bulldog

doing?"

"He's doing fine," I said, "but he's homesick. I

thought I might tote him back down that way sometime. If you'd like me to."

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"I guess I would at that," she said. "And, say, I'm

terrible sorry for the way I talked to you before . . .

when . . .

"

"Don't worry about it," I said. "Take care."

"You too, son."

Within the hour, I had the El Camino packed and

headed out for Colorado.

During the fourteen-hour trip, I had plenty of time to

think about things, this all-too-convenient postcard and

the beating I had suffered on my last trip to Colorado,

but nothing made any sense. Even if I had had fourteen

years instead of fourteen hours, I probably wouldn't

have worked it out. That's not how I work. My

ex-partner once found me in a bar puzzling over a

contorted divorce case that had me completely

baffled-! couldn't find out who was doing what to

whom-and he advised me to forget about thinking and

to get my ass out on the street and put my hands on

somebody. He was drunk, of course, but drunk or

sober, he was a hell of a divorce detective.

But I was on the road, instead of the street, and

didn't have any idea who to put my hands on. Either

Selma Hinds had lied, for reasons that made no sense,

or somebody had lied to her, which made even less

sense. If she had lied and wanted to keep on lying, my

hands were tied. Unlike Jackson, Selma Hinds was a

proper citizen, and if I laid a finger on her, she would

scream for the laws, and I would probably end up in the

slammer down in Canon City doing twenty to life. I

didn't know what was going on, didn't understand a bit

of it, didn't like any of it. Maybe that's why the first

thing I packed was my guns. If your brain won't work,

wave a gun around. Sometimes that helps.

As it turned out, though, all the worry and thought

was wasted. When I pulled off the Poudre Canyon

highway at Selma Hinds' trailhead, I parked behind a

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red Volkswagen convertible with Montana plates and a

crunched right fender. At first, I wondered what the

hell Melinda Trahearne was doing up at Selma's, then I

wondered why I had been so blind and dumb. That

crazy, goddamned Trahearne had been leading me

around by the nose from the moment I had found him

in Rosie's. Maybe even before that, which would

explain that long insane jaunt through the bars, explain

why he had been so easy to follow and so hard to find,

why he waited at Rosie's. He wanted me to look for

Betty Sue Flowers, wanted me to nose around in her

past, like a hungry dog turning up the buried bones and

ripe flesh of her life so he could have an excuse for the

bitter taste in his own mouth, the stink of corruption in

his nose. If I hadn't been looking so hard for Betty Sue,

I would have seen her face in Melinda's the first time.

Goddamned Trahearne. I had been bounced around

like a foolish little rubber ball on an elastic string, and

seeing it now made me so tired that I didn't even care

who held the paddle-! just wanted off the string.

Selma and Melinda were on their knees weeding the

garden, their soft voices and laughter echoing across

the ridge like windchimes. At the edge of the garden,

curled in a shallow depression, Fireball slept among dry

pine needles. The rest of the dogs were sleeping too, in

a wire kennel beyond the small cages.

"Excuse me," I said when I stopped at the edge of

the garden.

The two women paused, then stood and turned

toward me. Selma's face wore the same forgiving look,

but now it seemed like a gaze painted on a stone,

passive and permanent. When she recognized me,

though, her face broke into a thousand fragments, wild

and frightened like that of a deer poised to run.

Melinda sighed and relaxed with the patience of an