The Last Good Kiss (24 page)

myself to the handsome woman sitting in a rocker on

the front porch.

She was dressed in white today instead of black, a

short tennis dress, with a racket and ball bag set beside

her chair. Beads of sweat sparkled across her forehead

and up into the hairline of her tied-back copper hair.

The years hadn't hurt her at all. If anything, she was

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even more lovely now, her complexion smooth and

tanned, her flesh firm and elastic.

"I'm Catherine Trahearne," she said unnecessarily as

she stood up. "I've been playing tennis in town, and I

haven't had a chance to clean up, so you will have to

excuse me."

"That's okay," I said. "I've been fishing."

"Any luck?" she asked.

"Enough for our dinner," the old woman said, "but

just barely." It sounded like both a rebuke and a

command, but for what and to do what escaped me.

"Every one I catch is luck," I said.

"You found Trahearne," Ca:therine said, "so I

choose to believe that you fish with skill rather than

luck."

"Ha," the old woman snorted. "A complete waste."

I didn't know if she meant my fishing or my hunting.

"Whatever, thanks for bringing him home in one

piece," Catherine said. "I'm certain that it was no easy

task. "

" It wasn't all that hard," I said.

"Ha," the old lady added.

"Mother Trahearne, may I get your glass of wine?"

Catherine asked.

"I think I'll wait until I go to bed," the old woman

said "Maybe I'll sleep tonight if I wait."

"Of course," Catherine said, then to me she added,

"I would ask you to stay for dinner but I'm sure that

you have other plans. You must excuse me now,

though. I must shower before dinner." I had the uneasy

impression that she had told me she was going to

shower not out of politeness but rather so I would think

of her tanned and naked body standing under the rush

of hot sudsy water. "If you will send my your bill, Mr.

Sughrue , I'll see that it is taken care of immediately.

And let me thank you once again. It has been a

pleasure meeting you." She shook my hand and went

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inside the house, the fiat, smooth muscles of her thighs

rippling in the afternoon sunlight.

"How my son could give up a woman like that, I'll

never understand," Edna Trahearne said.

"I wouldn't know about that," I mumbled.

"Don't be such a twit," the old woman chided me. "I

appreciate the trout, son, but not enough to allow you

to be a twit on my front porch."

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Don't appologize, either," she said.

I picked up my rod and said goodbye. As I walked

back to Traheame's house, I was convinced that I had

been manipulated in ways I didn't even begin to

understand, for reasons way beyond me. Maybe I was

just a convenient target. Or maybe I had wandered into

a loony bin. They all had to be slightly crazy to live so

close to one another, but I didn't know what was going

on. My job was over anyway. All I had to know was

that Melinda had promised steaks for dinner. I wanted

red meat, two drinks of good whiskey, a sober night's

sleep, and then I wanted to get the hell away from all of

them.

Dinner was ready when I got back to the house, but

Trahearne was too hammered to eat. He sat in his

sutdy, looking at his desk, which was covered with

scraps of yellow paper off a legal pad, idly twirling an

old .45 service automatic while Melinda tried to hold

the steaks at medium rare.

"Now you know," he mumbled as I stepped into the

study with a drink for the two of us.

"I know dinner's ready," I said.

"You've met the crone and the dragon lady and seen

the hall of lost dreams," he said, "so what else is there

to know?"

"Let's eat," I suggested.

"Eat, eat," he said, then broke into his poetic

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brogue. "Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole

unequal laws unto a savage race who eat and sleep and

breed and know not me--"

"It little profits that an idle king," I added, moving

back a line, "fucks up the dinner. "

"How the hell do you know that line?" he asked,

drunken puzzlement twisting his face.

"When I was a domestic spy at the University of

Colorado for the United States Army," I said, "I took

an M.A. in English Literature. "

"You're shittin' me," he said, rearing back in his

chair.

"Not at all."

"By god, boy, let's have a drink," he said, "an' you

can tell all 'bout your life as a spy."

"Over dinner," I suggested.

"All right, godd�mmit," he grunted as he heaved his

hulk out of the chair. "All right, you bastards and your

goddamned dinner," he complained, but he followed

me to the table.

If I had known how he was going to act, I would have

left him in his study quoting bad Tennyson. His steak

was overdone, his baked potato cold, his salad too

vinegary-or so he claimed in a loud, drunken voice.

He ate a few bites, moved his food about his plate as if

he were playing some sort of victual chess, then he

slumped in his captain's chair at the head of the table,

sleeping, thankfully, with only a few light snores.

Melinda smiled at me and shook her head. But not in

reproach.

"Poor dear," she whispered. "His work never goes

well when he first gets home. If you don't mind, we'll

just let him sleep there while we eat."

"I don't mind," I said. "I'm so hungry I could even

eat with him awake. "

"Don't be mean," she said lightly, then smiled again

and brushed her hand through her short hair, the clay

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dust in it fluffing out in a soft cloud. She went back to

her steak, eating like a farm hand at the end of the

harvest season. When she finished it, she sliced off a

portion of Trahearne's, then ate that too with equal

relish. When she finished that, she suggested coffee on

the deck, and we left the big man sleeping in his chair.

It was past eight o'clock but the northern sun still

settled slowly toward the low mountains in the west.

The grass of the pasture grew darkly lush in the limpid

air, and the forested hills shifted from green to a

darkness as black as dead coals. Over the flats,

nighthawks flitted with throbbing cries through the

willows, and small trout leapt into the floating haze

above the creek. In the near . distance, the lights of

Cauldron Springs flickered like signal fires.

"It's a shame," Melinda said softly, "that he can't

write . . . about this place. My work has never gone

better, his never worse, and yet he says it isn't my fault.

Sometimes I wonder, though . . . " She paused to sip

her coffee and stare at me over the cup.

I had had all the confidences I could stand for one

day, so I turned to idle conversation.

"Were you raised around here?''

"What?" she said. The fading light was kind to her

features, and I thought that if she worked at it-maybe

fixed her face and let her hair grow and wore something

besides baggy clothes-she might be an attractive

woman. As I studied her, she blushed, and I wondered

what she felt when she saw the polished beauty of

Catherine, wondered what her fingers felt as she

molded the lovely profiles on her clay.

"Were you raised in Montana?" I asked.

"Oh no," she answered quickly, almost as if she felt

guilty because she hadn't been. "Marin County," she

said, "across the Bay from San Francisco, and Sun

Valley, and the south of France." It sounded like a line

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she had said so many times it had begun to bore her.

She noticed it too. "I'm sorry," she added, "I love this

part of the country, and I'm afraid that I sounded a bit

supercilious. Poor little rich girl, you know, and all

that. I wish I had been raised on a little ranch just like

this, but my parents were both well-off-not wealthy,

mind you, but well-off-incomes from estates and

trusts-and they dabbled at things, you see, the cello

and violin, abstract painting, scuba diving, and skiing.

The worst sort of dilettantes, I'm afraid," she said with

a gentle laugh, "but very good and kind people. "

"Are they still traveling about?" I said, still making

conversation with the poor little well-off girl to whom

Traheame, for all his faults, must have seemed as real

and exciting as a storm in the North Atlantic.

"My parents?"

"Yes."

"No, I'm afraid they're dead."

"I'm sorry," I said.

"My mother died in a skiing accident in the Alps,"

she said, "and my father died of grief. Or so I told

myself. He ran his Alfa off a curve on the Costa

Brava."

"I'm sorry," I repeated.

"Thank you, but there's no need," she said. "It

seems so long ago now, so far away." Then she sat up

and brightened. "I'm certainly glad that you two

weren't hurt in the accident."

"Just a fender bender," I said, wondering what

Traheame had told her.

"Oh, it must have been more than that," she said,

"for Trahearne to be in the hospital for three days."

"Observation," I said, glad that I had my wits about

me. If Trahearne didn't want his young wife to know

that he had been shot, then I certainly wasn't going to

tell her.

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"He must have taken quite a spill when he was