The Last Good Kiss (34 page)

eternal victim flooding her eyes.

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"I guess I knew that you'd come," she said. "I guess

I've been waiting. How did Trahearne find out?"

"Find out what?" I said. "Your mother sent me. "

"But I'm her mother," Selma whimpered.

"Didn't you tell her I was dead?" Melinda said.

"She wouldn't believe me," I said. "And then you

sent your daddy a postcard. "

" A postcard?" she said, looking amazed.

"I'm her mother," Selma repeated, trying to draw

herself back together.

"If you didn't, somebody did," I said. "Trahearne,

maybe, or some of your friends in Denver. Somebody

sent a postcard so Rosie would know you're alive, so

I'd come here. I just don't understand why."

"I don't either," she said. "Nobody's looking for me

anymore but my mother. "

"I'm your mother," Selma wailed, then sank to her

knees in the soft dark soil, weeping.

"It's all right," Melinda said, holding Selma's head

against her thigh.

"Tell him I'll pay . . . pay anything for his silence,"

Selma sobbed. "Pay anything."

"Listen," I said, "as far as I'm concerned Betty Sue

Flowers is dead. I only walked up that damned hill to

be sure. If you want your mother to think you're dead,

that's on your conscience, and if you want to act like

Trahearne doesn't know who you are, that's between

the two of you. I'm out of it. I'm going home."

"I'll pay anything," Selma moaned.

"Hush," Melinda said kindly. "It had to happen

sometime. It'll work out." Then she looked at me.

"Wait for me, please," she said. "At the bottom of the

trail. I've got to take Selma inside and calm her down.

But please wait. I have to talk to you."

"You'll just tell me things I don't want to know," I

said.

"I'll pay!" Selma screamed. The dogs in the kennel

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woke and began to yap, which in turn woke Fireball out

of his sun-dazed stupor. He yawned , sniffed the air,

then trotted over to greet me. As I scratched his head,

Melinda helped Selma to her feet and led her toward

the cabin. When they were inside, I headed down the

hill.

"Please wait for me," Melinda said from the doorway. "Please."

"All right," I said from the edge of the clearing.

Fireball followed me down the trail, plodding steadily through sunlight and shade, his nose lifted in the morning air as if he could smell a beer.

"No drugs on the mountain," I said to him, and he

quickened his step.

At the bottom of the trail, I crossed the highway to

wash my face in the river, to lave the miles away with

cold water. Fireball gave me a dirty look, then lapped

up a quick drink, shaking his head as if the water

horrified him. I took him back across the road and gave

him a beer. We had both earned one.

I woke up with the can warm in my hand in the

middle of the afternoon. Melinda was sitting in the

passenger seat, dressed now in hiking boots, shorts,

and a tank top. It was as if she had shed her baggy

clothes to show me what it was all about-long, shapely

legs rippling with muscle, high, firm breasts, the sort of

body men dream about.

"You were sleeping so hard , it seemed a shame to

wake you up," she said. "Selma doesn't have any

coffee, but I made you some herb tea, " she added,

holding up a thermos.

"I'll have a beer," I said. "I don't want to get too

healthy."

As I rustled up a beer, she said, "Trahearne must

know, then?"

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"He led me right to your mother's place, and then

after Rosie hired me to find you, he encouraged me.

He must have had it in mind."

"I should have told him the truth about my . . . my

life," she said as she poured herself a cup of the weak

tea.

"You should have told him," I agreed. "In the course

of my search, he had the wonderful chance to see your

acting debut. "

She sighed. "Oh, that poor, poor man. Now he'll

never believe me."

"About what?"

"I have to travel a lot, have to be alone, too," she

said, "and he's convinced that I . . . I sleep with other

men when I'm away from him." When I didn't say

anything, she added, "And it isn't true. He just wants it

to be true. I know he does, and it doesn't matter to me,

but I don't fool around."

"Okay."

"You don't sound convinced," she said.

"I don't care," I said, "and it's none of my business

anyway what either of yeu do or don't do, okay?"

"You don't even care why Betty Sue had to die, do

you?"

"Nope."

"They came looking for me," she said, "and I had to

die to make them leave me alone."

"Randall Jackson and the Denver hoods," I said.

"You know them?" she asked, amazed all over

again.

"Intimately."

"I was in jail," she said defiantly, "and I . . .

"

"I know," I said. "You got busted for soliciting."

" . . . I lost thirty pounds in jail, a pound a day," she

continued as if she hadn't heard me. "Selma came to

the jail when I was in, and I wanted to come up here,

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but I had to go by Jack's place to get some things, some

books and things, and he saw me, you know, with all

the fat gone, and he made me go to work for those

awful people. It wasn't like San Francisco at all-that

time we were just high and having fun and making

money for bread and dope-this was a business, and

they made me go to the hospital to have this scar I

have . . . made me have plastic surgery on this scar,

and they spent a lot of money and they wouldn't let me

leave. You understand, don't you?"

"Right. "

"So I stole a little money from Jack's billfold and ran

up here to hide, qut they came looking for me in a week

or two, and I had to hide in the woods and Selma had to

lie-she hates to lie, she hated lying to you before.

Then later that summer her daughter drowned in the

wreck, and she told the sheriff it was me, you see, and I

could start over again, could act like none of it ever

happened, don't you see?" She sat the plastic thermos

cup very carefully on the dash, then began to weep.

"But you don't care, do you?" She sobbed between her

hands.

I had had a bellyful of weeping women. "Jesus

fucking Christ!" I shouted as I threw my unfinished

beer can out the open door and across the road. "Your

mother paid me eighty-seven dollars to find you," I

said, "and I chased you all over the fucking country,

and I don't know if I did it for Rosie or for myself or for

some idea I had of you, but I know fucking-a well that I

didn't do it for eighty-seven fucking dollars, so don't

tell me I don't fucking care!"

"I'm sorry." She giggled, then moved her hands and

began to wipe away the tears. "I was so involved in my

own problems that I forgot how hard you had worked

trying to find me."

"You didn't know," I said huffily.

187

"I understood without knowing," she said with a

smile.

"Bullshit."

"You're cute when you're mad, C.W. ," she said.

I got out of the pickup and kicked a few rocks

around, raising a cloud of dust that nearly choked me.

"So what now?" I said as I climbed back into my

seat.

"I truly don't know," she said. "I'll have to think

about it for a few days. That was always the trouble

before-! did so many things without thinking about

them first."

"In spite of what I said up there, I've got to tell your

mother something. "

"Will you wait a few days?" she asked. "Just until

I've straightened this out with Trahearne?"

"I've got to call your mother tomorrow," I said.

"All right, I'll call Trahearne tonight," she said. "I'd

rather not do it by telephone, but if he already knows

about me, I can tell what he thinks about it. Come back

tomorrow. I'll meet you down here about ten. I think it

might be best if you didn't come up the hill . . . you

know, for Selma's sake. She's taken this whole thing so

hard. She buried her daughter with my name, and of all

the things I owe her, I owe her most for that. She gave

me my life back, you see, and that's the most one

person can do for another. That's how I feel about

Trahearne sometimes--that I can give him his life back,

take it back from those two awful women who have

held him captive so long. You've seen them-you

understand."

"Maybe I do," I said, "and maybe I don't. It doesn't

matter. I would like to know one thing, though."

"I thought you didn't want to know anything," she

said with a gentle smile. I was amazed that I hadn't

noticed how beautiful her smile was before. "I thought

you had no curiosity at all."

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"Don't be a smartass," I said. "Just tell me why you

ran away in the first place."

"Well, you don't know everything, do you?"

"Nope."

"I was pregnant," she said, "and my boy friend took

me to San Francisco for an abortion. On the way out of

the hotel where they did it, I started hemorrhagingit's an old story, you know' so old it's almost trite until it happens to you-and he ran off and left me bleeding

to death ·on the emergency room steps of the Franklin

Hospital. He dumped me there and ran away-"

"Albert Griffith?" I interrupted.

"You know some things, don't you?" she said. "They

stopped the bleeding all right, but I came down with a