The Last Good Kiss (3 page)

have been my place, a home where a man could drink

in boredom and repent in violence and be forgiven for

the price of a beer.

After I had thought about it, I stuck my dime back in

my pocket, walked back to the bar for another beer. I

had found bits and pieces of Trahearne all along the

way and I felt like an old friend. It seemed a shame not

to enjoy him, not to have a few beers with him before I

called his ex-wife and ended the party. Whenever I

found anybody, I always suspected that I deserved

more than money in payment. This was the saddest

moment of the chase, the silent wait for the apologetic

parents or the angry spouse or the laws. The process

was fine, but the finished product was always ugly. In

my business, you need a moral certitude that I no

longer even claimed to possess, and every time when I

came to the end of the chase, I wanted to walk away.

But not yet, not this time. I leaned against the bar

and ordered another bottle of beer. When the barmaid

sat it down, a large black tomcat drifted down the bar

to nose the moisture on the long neck.

"The cat drink beer too?" I asked the barmaid.

"Not anymore," she answered with a grin as she

flicked the sodden bar rag at the eat's butt. He gave her

a dirty look, then wandered down the bar past the

bulldog and Trahearne, his tail brushing across Trahearne's stolid face. "Sumbitch usta. drink like a fish but he got to be too much trouble. He's like ol'

Lester there," she said, nodding toward the shadetree mechanic with the most teeth. "He can't handle it. He'd get so ·low-down, dirty-belly, knee-walkin'

drunk, he start up tom-cattin' in all the wrong damn

places. "

The barmaid gave ol' Lester a hard, knowing glance,

then broke into a happy cackle. As he tried to grin, ol'

Lester showed me the rest of his teeth. They weren't

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any prettier than the ones I had already seen. "One

night that crazy black bastard started up a-humpin'

ever'thing in sight-pool-table legs, cues, folks' legs,

anything that didn't move fast enough-and then he did

somethin' nasty on a lady's slacks and somebody

laughed and damned if we didn't have the biggest

fistfight I ever seen. Ever'body who wasn't in the

hospital ended up in jail, and they took my license for

six weeks." She laughed, then added, "So I had that

scutter cut off. Right at the source. He ain't wanted a

drink since."

"Is that Lester or the tomcat?" I asked.

The barmaid cackled merrily again, the other mechanic brayed, but ol' Lester just sat there and looked like his teeth hurt.

"Naw," she answered when she stopped laughing.

"01' Lester there, he don't cause no trouble in here.

He's plumb terrified of my bulldog there."

"Looks like a plain old bulldog to me," I said, then

leaned back and waited for the story.

"Plain," Lester squealed. "Plain mean. And I mean

mean. Hell, mister, one momin' last summer I come in

here peaceful as could be, just mindin' my own

business, and I made the mistake of steppin' on that

sumbitch's foot when he had a hangover, and damn if

he didn't like to tore my leg plumb off." Lester leaned

over to lift his pants' leg and exhibit a set of dog-bite

scars that looked like chicken scratches. "Took fiftyseven stitches," he claimed proudly. "01' Oney here, he had to hit that sucker with a pool cue to get him off'n

my leg."

"Broke that damned cue right smack in two," Oney

quickly added.

"Plain old bulldog, my ass," Lester said. "That

sumbitch's meaner'n a snake. You tell him, Rosie."

"Listen, mister," the barmaid said as she leaned

across the bar, "I've seen that old bastard Fireball

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Roberts come outa dead drunks and blind hangovers

and just pure-dee tear the britches off many a damn

fool who thought he'd make trouble for a poor woman

all alone in the world." When she said alone, Rosie

propped one finger under her chin and smiled coyly at

me. I glanced over her shoulder into the ruined mirror

to see if my hair had turned gray on the trip. An old

ghost with black hair grinned back like a coyote. Rosie

added, "He don't just knock' em down, mister, he drags

'em out by the seat of their britches, and they're usually

damn glad to go."

"Well, I'll be damned," I said, properly impressed,

then I glanced at the bulldog, who was sleeping quietly

curled on his stool. Traheame caught my eye with a

glare, as if he thought I meant to impugn the courage of

the dog, but his eyes lost their angry focus and seemed

to drift independently apart.

" 'Course now, ifn Fireball can't handle all 'em by

his own damn self," Lester continued in a high, excited

voice, "ol' Rosie there, she ain't no slouch herself. You

get her tail up, mister, she's just as liable to shoot your

eyes out as look at you."

I nodded and Rosie blushed sweetly.

"Show him that there pistole," Lester demanded.

Rosie added a dash of bashful reluctance to her

blush, and for an instant the face of a younger, prettier

woman blurred her wrinkles. She patted her gray curls,

then reached under the bar and came up with a

nickel-plated .380 Spanish automatic pistol so ancient

and ill-used that the plate had peeled away like cheap

paint.

"Don't look like much," Lester admitted gamely,

"but she's got the trigger sear filed down to a nubbin,

and that sumbitch is just as liable to shoot nine times as

once." He turned to point across the bar to a cluster of

unmended bulletholes between two windows above a

ratty booth. "She ain't had to touch it off but one damn

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time, mister, but I swear when she reaches under the

bar, things do tend to get downright peaceful in here."

"Like a church," I said.

"More like a graveyard," Lester amended. "Ain't no

singin' at all, just a buncha silent prayers." Then he

laughed wildly, and I toasted his mirth.

Rosie held the pistol in her rough hands for a

moment more, then she sat it back under the bar with a

thump.

"'Course I got me a real pistol at home," Lester said

smugly.

"A German Luger," I said without thinking.

"How'd you know?" he asked suspiciously.

The real answer was that I had spent my life in bars

listening to war stories and assorted lies, but I lied and

told Lester that my daddy had brought one back from

the war.

"Got mine off'n a Kraut captain at Omaha Beach,"

he said, his nose tilted upward as if my daddy had won

his in a crap game. "No-rmandy invasion," he added.

"You must have been pretty young," I said, then

wished I hadn't. People like Lester might tell a windy

tale now and again, but only a damn fool would bring it

to their attention.

Lester stared at me a long time to see if I meant to

call him a liar, then with practiced nonchalance he said,

"Lied about my age." Then he asked, "You ever been

in the service?"

"No, sir," I lied. "Flat feet."

"4-F, huh," he said, tr}'ing not to sound too superior.

"Oney here, he's 4-F too, but it weren't his feet, it was

his head."

"Ain't going off to no damn army," Oney said

seriously, then he glanced around as if the draft board

might still be on his tail.

"Ain't even no draft no more," Lester said, then

snorted at Oney's ignorance.

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"Yeah," Oney said sadly. "By god they oughtta go

over there to San Francisco and draft up about a

hunnert thousand a them goddamned hairy hippies."

"Now, that's the god's truth," Lester said, and

turned to me. "Ain't it?" His eyes narrowed at the

three-day stubble on my chin as if it were an incipient

beard.

For a change, I kept my mouth shut and nodded. But

not emphatically enough to suit Lester. He started to

say something, but I interrupted him as I excused

myself and walked over toward Trahearne. Behind me,

Lester muttered something about goddamned goldbrickin' 4-F hippies, but I acted as if I hadn't heard. I reached over and tapped Trahearne on the shoulder,

and his great bald head swiveled slowly, as if it were as

heavy as lead. He raised an eyebrow, wriggled a

pleasant little smile onto his face, shrugged, then

toppled backward off the bar stool. I caught a handful

of his shirt, but it didn't even slow him down. He

landed flat on his back, hard, like a two-hundred-fiftypound sack of cement. Rafters and window lights rattled, spurts of ancient dust billowed from between

the floorboards, and the balls on the pool table danced

merrily across the battered felt.

As I stood there stupidly with a handful of dirty

khaki in my right hand, Lester leaped off his stool and

shouted, "What the hell did you do that for?"

"Do what?"

"Hit that old man like that," Lester said, his Adam's

apple rippling up and down his skinny throat like a

crazed mouse. "I ain't never seen nothin' as chickenshit

as that."

"I didn't hit him," I said.

"Hell, man, I seen you."

"I'm sorry but you must have been mistaken," I said,

trying to be calm and rational, which is almost always a

mistake in situations like this.

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"You callin' me a liar?" Lester asked as he doubled

his fists.

"Not at all," I said, then I made another mistake as I

stepped back to the bar for my beer: I tried to explain

things. "Listen, I'm a private investigator, and this

gentleman's ex-wife hired me to ... "

"What's the matter," Lester sneered, "he behind in

his goddamned al-i-mony, huh? I know your kind,

buddy. A rotten, sneaky sumbitch just like you tracked

me all the way down to my mama's place in Barstow

just 'cause l's a few months behind paying that whore I

married, and let me tell you I kicked his ass then, and I

got half a mind to kick yours right here and now."

"Let's just calm down, huh," I said. "Let me buy you

boys a beer and I'll tell you all about it. Okay?"

"You ain't gonna tell me shit, buddy," Lester said,

and as if that weren't enough, he added, "and I don't

drink with no trash."

"I don't want no trouble in here," Rosie interjected

quietly.

"No trouble," I said. Lester and Oney might have

comic faces, funny accents, and bad teeth, but they also