The Last Good Kiss (4 page)

had wrists as thick as cedar fence-posts, knuckled,

work-hardened hands as lumpy as socks full of rocks,

and a lifetime of rage and resentment. I grew up with

folks like this and I knew better than to have any

serious disagreements with them. "No trouble at all," I

said. "I'll just leave."

"That ain't near good enough," Lester grunted as he

took two steps toward me and a wild swing at my face.

I ducked, then backhanded him upside the head with

the half-full beer bottle. His right ear disappeared in a

shower of bloody foam, and he fell sideways, scrabbled

across the floor, cupping his ear and cursing. Oney

stood up, then sat back down when he saw the bru&en

bottle in my hand.

"Is that good enough?" I asked.

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Oney agreed with a nervous nod, but Lester had just

peeked into his palm and found bits and pieces of his

ear.

In a high, thin voice, he shouted, "Goddammit,

Oney, get the gun!"

Behind me, I heard Trahearne stand up and dreamily

wonder what the hell had happened. But nobody

answered him. Oney and Rosie and I were locked into

long silent stares. Then we all moved at once. Rosie

dashed down the bar toward the automatic as Oney

scrambled over it. I glanced at the bulldog, who still

slept like a rock, then I lit out for open country. I would

have made it, too, but good ol' Lester rolled over and

hooked a shoulder into my right knee. We went down

in a heap. Right on his ruined ear. He whimpered but

held on. Even after I stood up and jerked out a handful

of his dirty hair.

Behind the bar, Rosie and Oney still struggled for

the pistol. Trahearne had sobered up enough to see it,

but as he tried to run, he crashed into the pool table,

then tried to scramble under it just as Oney jerked the

pistol out of Rosie's hands and shoved her away. As she

fell, she screamed, "Fireball!" I gave up and raised my

hands, resigned myself to an afternoon of fun and

games in payment for Lester's ear. But as Oney lifted

the pistol and thumbed the safety, Fireball came out of

a dead sleep and cleared the bar in a single bound like a

flash of fat gray light. Still in midair, he locked his

stubby yellow teeth into Oney's back at that tender spot

just below the short ribs and above the kidney. Oney

grunted like a man hit with a baseball bat, dropped his

arms, and blanched so deeply that ancient acne scars

glowed like live coals across his face. He grunted again,

sobbed briefly, then jerked the trigger.

The first round blew off a significant portion of his

right foot, the second wreaked a foamy havoc in the

cooler, and the third slammed through the flimsy

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beaverboard face of the bar and slapped Mr. Abraham

Trahearne right in his famous ass. The fourth powdered

the fourteen ball, the fifth knocked out a window light,

and the rest ventilated the roof.

When the clip finally emptied, Oney sank slowly

behind the bar, the automatic still clutched in his

upraised hand, and Fireball still locked to his back like

a fat gray leech. During the rash of gunfire, the tomcat

had come out of nowhere and shot out the front door

like a streak of black lightning, while Lester had

hugged my knees like a frightened child. Or a man

whose war stories had finally come true.

"Goddammit, Lester," I said when the echoes had

stopped rattling the old beams, "you're bleeding all

over my britches."

"I'm sorry," he said quietly as if he meant it, then

turned me loose.

As I handed him my handkerchief for his ear,

Fireball came trotting around the end of the bar, his

drooping jowls rimmed with blood. He scrambled onto

the platform bar rail, a stool, then up on the bar. He

worked his way along, tilting bottles, catching them in

his muzzle, and drinking them dry. Then he lapped his

ashtray empty, belched, then hopped down to the floor

the same way he had gotten up. With a weary waddle

that seemed to sigh with every step, he wandered over

to the doorway and stretched out in a patch of sunlight,

asleep before his belly hit the floor, small delicate

snores rippling the dust motes around him.

"I don't believe I've ever seen anything quite like

that," I told Lester.

"Goddamned sumbitchin' dog," Lester growled as

he walked over to a booth to sit down.

I went behind the bar to check on Oney and Rosie.

He had fainted and she lay on the duckboards like a

corpse. Except that her hands were clasped to her ears

instead of crossed on her chest.

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"Anybody dead?" she asked without opening her

eyes.

"Some walking wounded," I said, "but no dead

ones."

"If you'd wait till I get my wits about me before you

call the law," she said, "I'd surely appreciate it. We got

to figure some way to explain all this crap."

"Right," I agreed. "You got any whiskey?"

She nodded toward a cabinet, where I found a

half-empty quart of Old Crow. I did what I could for

Oney's foot, took off his work shoe and cotton sock and

poured some whiskey on the nubbins of flesh where his

two middle toes had been, then wrapped the foot in a

clean bar towel. After I washed out the dog bite with

bar soap, I went over to help Lester clean slivers of

glass out of the side of his head and tattered ear.

"Ain't no ladies gonna slip their tongues in that ear

no more," I joked.

"Never much cared for that anyway," he said primly:

"How's ol' Oney?"

·

"Blew off a couple of toes," I said.

"Big'uns or little'uns?"

"Medium sized," I answered.

"Hell, that ain't nothin' ," Lester said as he gently

touched his ear. "How 'bout Rosie?"

"I think she's taking a little nap."

"Looks like the big fella is, too," Lester said with a

nod.

I thought it unkind to point out that "the old man"

had somehow become "the big fella," so I went over to

see why Traheame still huddled under the pool table.

"Are you all right, Mr. Traheame?" I asked as I

knelt to peer under the table.

"Actually, I think I've caught a round," he answered

calmly.

I didn't see any blood, so I asked where.

"Right in the ass, my friend," he said, "right in the

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ass." Then he opened his eyes, saw the bottle, and took

it away from me.

"You drink this pig swill?"

I didn't, or least hadn't, but he didn't have any

trouble getting his mouth around the neck of the bottle.

Not as much as I had trying to get his pants and a pair

of sail-sized boxer shorts down so I could see the

wound. The jacketed round had left a neat blue hole,

marked with a watery trickle of blood, just below his

left buttock . I had no way of knowing if the bullet had

struck a bone or artery, but Trahearne's color and

pulse were good, and I could see the lead nestled like a

little blue turd just beneath the skin below the hump of

fatty tissue hanging over his right hip.

"What's it look like?" he asked between sips.

"Looks like your ass, old man."

"I always knew I'd die a comic death," he said

gravely.

"Not today, old man. Just a minor flesh wound."

"That's easy for you to say, son, it's not your flesh."

"In a few days, you won't have nothing but a bad

memory and a sore ass," I said.

"Thank you," he said, "but I seem to have both

those already," He paused for a sip of whiskey. "How

is it that you know my name, young man?"

"Why, hell, you're a famous man, Mr. Trahearne."

"Not that famous, unfortunately."

"Yeah, well, your ex-wife was worried about your

health," I said.

"And she hired you to shoot me in the ass," he said,

"so I couldn't sit a bar stool."

"I didn't shoot you," I said.

"Maybe not," he said, "but you're going to get the

blame anyway." Then he sucked on the bourbon until

he curled around the empty bottle, adding his gravelly

snore to Fireball's quiet drone.

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.2 ••••

As THE OFFICIAL CARAVAN, TWO AMBULANCES AND A

deputy sheriff's unit, swept out of Rosie's parking lot in

a cloud of dust, they all hit their sirens at once and

wailed into the distance. From where Rosie and I sat on

the front steps, it sounded like the beginning of the end

of the world.

"Them boys sure do favor them sirens," she said

quietly.

"It's just about the only fun they get out of life," I

said.

"You speakin' from experience?" she asked with

narrow eyes.

"I've ridden in the back seats of a few police cars," I

said, and she nodded as if she had too.

As she and I had cleaned up the mess inside the bar,

moved the wounded outside, and· concocted a wildly

improbable but accidental version of the shooting,

Rosie and I had become friends. Now we were also

bound by our mutual lies to the authorities. Lester and

Oney would have lied for free, just to be contrary, but I

doled out a generous portion of cash to help with

medical expenses. Lester pocketed the money, then

told me that he and Oney, by virtue of several trips to

the drunk farm, were medical wards of the state of

California. The middle-aged deputy who questioned us

seemed to know we were shucking him but he didn't

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seem to care. He was more interested in ragging Oney

about shooting himself in the foot. As he left, though,

he mentioned that I should drop by the courthouse the

next morning to sign a statement, and he and I both

knew what that meant.

As soon as the sirens had faded away, Rosie said,

"Reckon we should have us a beer?"

"Whiskey," I said, then went over to my pickup for

the road pint in the glove box. When I got back to the

steps, Rosie had found two whole bottles of beer for

chasers . After we drank silently for a bit, I said, "Sorry

for the trouble."

"Wasn't your fault," she answered waving with a

tired hand. "It was that damned worthless Lester.

Truth is, when that there private detective caught him

down in Barstow, Lester smartmouthed him, and that

boy proceeded to whip the living daylights outa Lester