The Last Good Kiss (31 page)

success. Since I was tied to the hot money, I couldn't

even raise my voice in silent protest. I took my cut and

kept my mouth shut.

On Monday nights the Baron was the scene of

amateur topless dancing, feckless young ladies exposing their mediocre bodies with enthusiasm in place of talent to a horde of young men driven quite mad by the

mere idea of amateurism. The middle of the week was

devoted to straight semi-pro tits and ass, and the

maniacs usually settled into a dull roar, broken by the

occasional drunken fistfight. Friday and Saturday nights

were given over to heavy metal rock or bluegrass and

free-form boogie, but Sundays were, thankfully, a day

of rest from the reckless abandon of entertainment. On

Sunday night, the drinkers had to have their own fun,

and the place was usually as quiet as a graveyard.

Catherine Trahearne could have come in on a

Sunday night, but she didn't. It had to be Monday.

When she came in the vinyl-padded door that night, she

looked as out of place as a chicken in church, but she

walked directly to the bar and stood behind a group of

flushed and shame-faced young men until they cleared

a space for her. Dressed in wool and leather--soft

beige slacks, a dark cashmere pullover, and a deerskin

vest--she looked even better than she had in a tennis

dress. The dark umber tones of her clear skin hinted at

sultry, mysterious nights, and her slim, athletic body

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promised to fulfill the hints. Whatever women were

supposed to lose in their early fifties, she hadn't lost it

yet. Not a bit of it. A hunk of polished but uncut

turquoise as large and roughly the same shape as a

shark's tooth dangled from a heavy silver chain between her breasts.

When she· sat down at the bar, she took out a

cigarette, and I leaped to light it for her. She stared

over my shoulder toward the stage, where Boom

Boom, our resident amateur heavy-weight, lifted her

shift to reveal breasts as large and round as a bald

man's head with a screaming giggle that should have

shattered glassware. As always, the crowd exploded

into hoots and cheers, table-thumping fists and whistles. In her real life, Boom-Boom was an improbably demure barmaid, but on Monday nights she came out

and killed them. Catherine smiled at the furor, seemingly with honest amusement. I ignored the shrill pleas of the topless dancers doubling as cocktail waitresses,

ignored the bar customers, and asked her if she wanted

a drink.

"What an odd way to make a living," she said, then

blew out the match before it burnt my fingers.

"She's an amateur," I said.

"But joyously enthusiastic, don't you think?" she

said, staring into my eyes with a steady gaze that

reminded me of how I had felt when she told me she

had to take a shower the first time I met her. To get

away from the gaze, I glanced over my shoulder.

Boom-Boom was having a hell of a time, and I felt like

a cretin for not having noticed before. "Actually,

though, I was talking about your new line of endeavor,

Mr. Sughrue."

"Just filling in for a sick friend, Mrs. Trahearne."

"Catherine," she commanded softly.

"C.W. ," I said.

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"What do the initials stand for?" she asked, smiling.

"Chauncey Wayne," I confessed.

"C.W. will do fine," she said, then laughed.

"Would you like a drink?"

"Actually, I'm here on business," she said. "But it

could be conducted over a drink. Later, perhaps?

Someplace more conducive to conversation?"

"Where are you staying?"

"The Thunderbird. "

"They've got a quiet piano bar," I said, "and I could

meet you around midnight. If that isn't too late?"

"Not at all," she said, "it's a date. " Then she

extended her slim hand. Her nails were painted a dark,

dusky red that matched her lips and picked up the tones

of her skin and hair. When I shook it, she held my hand

and focused her bright green eyes on mine until I nearly

blushed. "Trahearne is quite fond of you," she said ,

"and I hope we can be friends." I had heard that

before; all Trahearne's women wanted to be friends of

mine. Catherine gave me an expensive smile and left.

As she walked out, even the dumbest, drunkest of the

kids turned away from Boom-Boom's mighty breasts to

watch Catherine's delicately switching hips.

In the rosy, diffuse light of the piano bar, she looked

even better. She could have passed for thirty. A great

thirty. And she damn well knew it. After we had settled

into a plush booth with our drinks, she went to work on

me with the wise eyes, the slightly amused smile, and

more random body contact than the law allows in

public places.

"Thank you for coming," she whispered.

"You said something about business," I said nervously as I finished my drink before the cocktail waitress walked back to the bar. As much as I had enjoyed the

first trip, I didn't feel up to chasing Trahearne around

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Western America just yet, and I certainly didn't want

to mess around with his ex-wife.

"Yes, I have a small complaint about how you

handled the recovery of my ex-husband," she said with

mock seriousness.

"What's that?"

"When you called from the hospital," she said, "you

told me a little white lie about Trahearne's accident

which we won't even bother to discuss, but now I want

a full report into all the lurid details of his latest

odyssey."

"Right," I said. It seemed odd that Trahearne's

ex-wife seemed to know more about what had happened than his present wife did. I assumed that he didn't care if I told Catherine. "What do you want to

know?"

"Everything," she answered sweetly. "Where he

went, how you found him, how he came to be wounded

in the butt. All the sordid details." She sipped her

vermouth. "I've always wanted to know exactly what

transpired on one of his trips," she continued, "but his

versions were already literature by the time he returned, and none of the other gentlemen I hired were able to either find him or provide me with the details.

They seemed to lack both intelligence and imagination.

Are most of the members of your profession as

pedestrian as those I've done business with in the

past?"

"This may sound strange," I said, "but the only other

private investigator I know is my ex-partner here in

town, and he's an even worse drunk than I am. I know

PI's have conventions, but I've never been to one.

They're all about electronics and industrial security and

crap like that. I just repossess cars and chase runaways

and follow cheating husbands, stuff like that."

"You don't sound very ambitious," she said.

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"I'm not," I said, "not about anything. I spent nine

years in the Army in three separate hitches, mostly

playing football or sitting in a gym or writing sports

stories for post newspapers, and I spent four years

playing football for three different junior colleges

under two different names, and I got in this business

strictly by accident, so I'm not Johnny Quest or the

moral arbiter of the Western world. More like a

second-rate hired gun or a first-rate saddle tramp."

"A classic underachiever?" she said.

"Classic bindle-stiff, apple-knocker, pea-pickin'

bum," I said.

"But still you found Trahearne," she said, "and you

must tell me about it."

As I told her what I thought she wanted to hear, she

moved closer, occasionally smiled and touched my

hand with her fingers, then our hips and thighs were

nudging each other, and her nails drifting across my

wrist. When I finished, she told me to tell the rest of it

now, and she laughed and held my hand as I filled in the

gaps. When I finished the second time, she hugged my

ann against her breast.

"How simply delightful," she said.

"Hey," I said, trying to make a joke of it, "you're

going to have to turn it down a few notches."

She didn't play coy at all, just laughed openly, the

tones ringing crystal through the cozy bar like vesper

bells chiming in a pastoral dusk.

"Don't be so serious," she said. "I won't attack

you."

"Damn it," somebody using my voice complained. I

knew better than to fool around with the ex-wives of

friends, and for all our troubles, Trahearne had become

a friend. But I said it again anyway, "Damn it. " And

Catherine lifted my hand to touch a flattened knuckle

with her lips. Damned if I wasn't as spooky as a

sixteen-year-old kid as I followed her out of the lounge.

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Afterward, as we lay on her motel bed, my hand

resting on the taut muscles of her thigh, I asked her, "Is

this what you drove down for?"

"Flew," she said, and laughed. "I flew down by way

of Seattle. I'm supposed to be visiting friends there.

This is what I came for, yes, and I would have walked."

"Why?"

"Please don't be shocked when I tell you this," she

said, pausing to light two cigarettes, "and please

remember that I might have chosen you anyway. I work

like the very devil keeping this aged body intact, and I

endure yearly humiliations at the hands of expensive

plastic surgeons so I can enjoy my declining years. You

see, I sleep with whomever pleases me" --she paus�d

again and her voice grew hard-"especially Trahearne's friends. Do you mind?"

"Well, it makes me feel a little like I've been rutting

in the old man's track," I said, thinking about the

skinny whore in the desert, "but it's a damn fine track.

So I guess I don't mind."

"Thank you," she said. "I've only a few more years

before I become withered and old--don't interrupt

me-and I have a great many lonely years to recover. "

She stopped to look at me. I watched the cigar;ette

smoke drift across the shadowed ceiling in mare's tails.

"You're not curious about my motives?" she asked,

her fingernails lightly plucking at the hair on my chest.

"Nope."

"I thought detectives were endlessly curious," she

said.

"Only in ·the movies. "

After another long silence, she said, "It's odd, you

know."

"What?"

"I almost never explain my actions to anyone," she