The Final Country (15 page)

“I’m not sure,” I said, “but I know you can live without it.”

“That’s what they said, but it’s nice to hear it from you,” Renfro said. “They said they put all my stuff in a bag underneath the night stand. How come you put Sissy’s money back in my pocket?”

“Didn’t want the cops to take it off me.”

“Thanks. Maybe you should take charge of it? I don’t want to have to explain it to my mother. She’s not fond of Sissy.”

“Let me count it,” I suggested, “then I’ll give you a receipt, and stash it in the safe at the Lodge. If Sissy calls, tell her to messenger me a note at the Lodge — no telephone calls — and I’ll get the money to her. It’s probably not necessary, but be sure to tell her not to use her credit cards, no matter what.” Then I counted the cash.

“You know,” Renfro whispered hoarsely, “I thought she was just in one of her self-dramatization modes but I guess I was wrong.”

“You know, you said ten grand didn’t seem like enough cash for a woman like Sissy to get very far away. Any idea where she might be headed?”

“Sissy’s got some kind of under-the-table income nobody knows about, a sugar daddy or something, you know,” Renfro said, “and she can take care of herself. She comes from tough Texas root stock. Back in the twenties, her great-grand-daddy, ol’ Homer Logan, raised the cash to sink his first dry hole by standing ass-deep in an East Texas slough from daylight to dark, skimming runoff crude with five-gallon cans.”

“His first dry hole?”

“And his second,” Renfro said, oddly proud, “but he finally brought in a well on his third try. The family’s made the transition from oil field royalty to oil field trash two or three times, you know, and Sissy was along for the ride the last couple.”

“You know Sissy’s housekeeper?”

“Her cousin Eldora? She’s a paid companion, not a housekeeper,” Renfro said. “She keeps her from falling completely into the vodka and the cocaine. She’s been watching out for Sissy since they were children.”

“Any chance she might tell you where Sissy might be?”

“Only if she wanted to,” he said, chuckling tiredly. “Eldora is tougher than a cheap steak.”

Renfro chuckled once more, then began to fade under the weight of the drugs. I put the receipt in his night table sack, then turned to leave.

“I gotta ask, you know,” Renfro whispered from the bed. “How come that guy was shooting at us?”

“Got tired of waiting for Sissy, I guess,” I answered. “I’ll check on you tomorrow,” I said. “You take care of yourself.”

Renfro smiled sleepily as I left.

Walking down the hallway I dug out the five hundred that Renfro had given me, then stuffed that into the envelope. Hell, I guess I’ve never done any of this shit for money. I tried to count up all the money I’d spent since beginning the search for Carol Jean Warren. But given the way things were going, it seemed a bit early to start counting the costs. Even if I could.

* * *

I went out to the Lodge to stash Sissy’s money in the safe, then spent a bit of time making sure that I didn’t have a tail, drove back to the safe locker, where I picked up a less bulky vest, another Browning Hi-Power, a stash of codeine, a pile of running cash, my second best set of false identity papers, and a bag of traveling clothes. Then it was back to Austin to the Four Seasons, where I used the fake identification to register, let the bellhop take my bag, then shouldered through the five o’clock crowd to have a quick drink before I went to the hotel down the street to use a pay phone. I called Betty on her cell phone.

“Where the hell’ve you been?” she asked. “You didn’t even leave a note, you bastard.”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I said. “And I didn’t think I’d be gone that long. Where are you right now?”

“Standing in your room and tapping my foot like a mad housewife.”

“This fuckin’ shit’s way out of hand,” I said. A woman at the pay phone bank beside me, who could have been a hooker or an heiress, in a leather coat with a wolf fur collar and snakeskin boots, looked at my rumpled, sandy clothes, then crinkled her nose as if she smelled a fart. So I gave her the opportunity. Then I made the mistake of laughing as she huffed away. “Maybe you should take a trip or something, hon,” I said to Betty.

“I don’t take a step without you, bud,” she answered sharply. “I don’t know what you’ve got yourself into, but I’m in it with you.”

“Somebody took a couple of shots at me last night,” I said, knowing as soon as the words left my mouth that they were the wrong ones. Betty became even more adamant. Finally, she wore me down. I needed another drink, some food, and a long nap. “Fuck it,” I said, sighing tiredly. “Pack a bag. I’ll send somebody you know to pick you up and bring you to me.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Betty asked.

“I’m just tired, hon,” I admitted. “I need a night’s sleep before I think about this shit… I’ll see you in a bit.” Then I hung up and leaned my head against the wall beside the pay phone, wishing I had some way to ask Betty to spirit Long’s cocaine out of the elevator. Somebody tapped me roughly on the shoulder. I whirled, my hands raised defensively, to find a clean-cut young man in a blue blazer and gray slacks, who held up his hands, open and placating. “What?” I said, then looked down at the cop shoes beneath the slacks. “Hotel security?” I asked. The kid nodded. “What’s up?”

“Can I see some ID, sir?” the kid asked in his flat cop voice, his cold blue eyes checking out my rumpled jeans and muddy boots.

I started to complain but assumed I’d already called enough attention to myself, so I showed the kid a valid North Dakota driver’s license, making sure that he saw the sheaf of credit cards and the retired Grand Forks deputy’s card, too. “Airlines lost my bags during the delay in Denver,” I explained.

“You staying with us, Mr. Malvern?”

“Too cold here,” I said. “I’m running from an early winter dose of cabin fever and I don’t think I’ve run far enough south. Just stopped in to use the telephone to let my wife know where to find me — crazy woman won’t fly — and pick up some new clothes.” The kid handed the driver’s license back. “One more quick call,” I said, “then back into a cab.”

“Good luck,” the kid said but he didn’t mean it.

“Sorry. Guess I forgot how sensitive the ladies are down here,” I said. “I knew I shouldn’t have farted in front of her.”

“You’re lucky she didn’t call the police,” the kid said, shaking his head. “She has before. For less reason.”

“Thanks,” I said, shaking my head, too, then turned back to the telephone to call Hangas.

“Sarge, I need a quiet favor,” I said when Hangas answered.

“Name it,” Hangas rumbled, then added, “I need to talk to you, too.”

“Remember that damned expensive glass of wine I bought you?” I asked. Hangas just chuckled. “Run out and pick up my woman, then bring her there. And maybe you should watch your back a little bit.”

“It’s like that, huh?”

“Probably just horseshit and gunsmoke,” I said, turning to find the security kid’s eyes on me, “but who knows when you’re going to run into the typical Texas experience.” I hung up, smiled at the kid, and hustled out of the lobby as quickly as I could.

* * *

I nursed a couple of Scotches at the Four Seasons bar until Hangas and Betty showed up just before eight o’clock.

“Sorry it took so long,” Hangas said as Betty wrapped me in her arms.

“You look terrible, love,” she whispered, her lips against my ear.

“I’ve been better,” I said, then to Hangas, “Thanks, man. But maybe we’d better get a table.” We found one in a dark corner, settled in, ordered drinks, and went to business. I told them about the aborted meeting with Sissy Duval and the shooter.

“Unless they were using four cars, they weren’t on my tail,” I said, “so the only way the shooter could know how to cover the meet would be a scanner tap on Renfro’s cell phone, and I don’t know why they would do that. Hell, he’s just a hairdresser. And as far as I can figure, the only reason to whack her would be because she knows something about Enos Walker or Amanda Rae Quarrels. And right now I’m just too tired to think about it.”

“You’ve got a room here?” Betty asked as the cocktail waitress brought the drinks. I nodded. “So can we go up when we finish our drinks?”

“But I don’t think that Renfro and I were the real target,” I said, “or they would have handled it differently.” Hangas knew what I meant: somebody would have walked over to put a couple of rounds into the backs of our heads. But Betty didn’t realize that. Then I took a healthy slug of the double Macallan, relaxing for the first time since the silenced gunfire started. “Then I nearly got arrested because I farted in front of a woman dressed in the skins of endangered species.”

“A good piece of luck that you picked up the vests,” Hangas said.

“It wasn’t luck, man. I guess I’ve been on a hair trigger ever since that Rooke asshole tried to kill me, and I’ve been watching my back ever since,” I admitted, then turned to Betty. “The best piece of luck is that they haven’t checked the serial number on your piece yet.”

“See, I am involved,” Betty said brightly, as if she’d just won a prize.

“I’m sorry, love,” I said, then hit the whisky again, hard, and circled my finger at the cocktail waitress. “Shit. Molly McBride and Mandy Rae Quarrels don’t exist, Enos Walker and Sissy Duval are in the wind, and I’ve got something less than three weeks before I’m indicted for capital murder. What the hell, let’s have one more.” For once, nobody argued with me.

“I caught up with Enos Walker’s older brother,” Hangas said quietly. “He’s got a big church operation over on the East Side. He seems dead straight and mightily embarrassed by his little brother, but I’d bet anything that he knows where he is. Trouble is, we’ve got no leverage on him. Same trouble with Eldora Grace. She’s nervous as a cat in a Vietnamese neighborhood.”

“Bigot,” I said, but Hangas just smiled like a man who had done three tours in the Mekong Delta as the cocktail waitress set another eighteen-dollar glass of wine in front of him.

“She knows something but she’s one hard-nosed woman.”

“Let’s leave her alone,” I said, “and leave this shit alone, too, tonight. I’ll think about it tomorrow.” I settled the tab with cash and asked the waitress for a telephone. I ordered a couple of cheeseburgers and a six-pack of Bohemia beer from room service to be delivered to my room, then a bellhop to pick up Betty’s bags, which Hangas had stashed under the table. “And get me another key for my wife,” I said. Hangas and Betty both looked at me. “Tomorrow,” I added, “tomorrow, I’ll explain everything. Maybe.”

Hangas made his goodbyes, and we finished our drinks silently.

Up in the room Betty waited until we’d finished the cheeseburgers and I was on my second beer and she’d fired up one of Cathy Scoggins’s bomber joints before she asked, “So what’s my married name?”

“Malvern. An ugly name but give it a couple of days,” I answered, tossing her the walletful of fake ID, “Mrs. Hardy P. Malvern.”

“What’s the P stand for?” she asked, handing it back.

“Peter,” I admitted. “It took ten days in the Grand Forks cemeteries to come up with that one. It’s only my second best fake ID, but it’s a good one. Social Security number’s valid, driver’s license is current, and credit cards are live, all the other stuff is state-of-the-art.”

“You should have been a criminal,” she said, handing me the joint.

“I am,” I said, hitting it, and handing it back. “And now you are, too.”

“Well, Hardy Peter,” she said, smiling, “what’s next?”

“After this doobie,” I said, grinning, “maybe you could help me out of these clothes and into a Hardy Peter nap…” Then a wave of giggles swept over us. When it was over, I said, “Fuck, I’m nearly sixty years old, I’ve been beat up, tortured, and shot at. I shouldn’t be giggling like a kid.”

“You’ll live longer that way,” Betty said.

After Betty pushed the rolling room service table out in the hallway, she stepped over to me, kissed me softly, then began helping me out of my clothes. I could feel the bullet bruise spreading across my back, so I tried to avoid questions by keeping my T-shirt on, but she eased it over my head before I could stop her.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Betty whispered when she saw my back. “Honey, can’t you find some other hobby? Something besides… besides whatever it is you’re doing.”

“Many are called,” I allowed, “but few are chosen.”

She wasn’t amused. “How the hell do you know the shoulder blade’s not broken?”

“Doesn’t hurt enough?”

“How the hell would you know?” she asked angrily. “You’ve got half a quart of whisky in you.”

“And four codeines, too,” I admitted. Tears filled her eyes as Betty drew back her hand to slap me. I caught her wrist. “I’m old, babe, but not dead.” The evening’s fun seemed to be over. “I don’t hit you,” I said. “Don’t hit me.”

“No, you’ve got other ways of hurting me, you bastard,” she said, angrily jerking her wrist away, then storming off to the bathroom. “And you won’t fucking quit,” she snapped over her shoulder before she slammed the door.

When she came out of the bathroom, it seemed simpler just to pretend to be asleep. Then in a moment, I was.

* * *

When my cell phone woke me the next morning, Betty was gone, bags and emotional baggage, and only a terse unsigned note:
If you’re still alive at four this afternoon, you bastard, meet me at Cathy’s.
I answered the phone. Gannon.

“Wake up, Milo, it’s a lovely day,” the cop said. “And by the way, where the hell are you?”

“Who wants to know?”

“The district attorney’s office,” he said. “Among others.”

“Why?”

“You’re supposed to check in every day.”

“Nobody told me,” I said.

“Consider yourself told.”

“Consider me checked in.”

“And they want —” was all I heard before I turned the phone off and rolled over to finish my nap.

* * *

A couple of hours later, as I stood in a long, hot shower, I wondered where this was going. No closer to an answer, further from Betty. All the money my father had left me and all the money I’d stolen from the
contrabandistas
hadn’t changed my life that much. I stayed in hotels where the hot water didn’t run out in the middle of a shower now, and drove a Cadillac instead of a beat-up Toyota rig. But now a Toyota Land Cruiser cost damn near as much as a Cadillac. And there was no place in the world for me to buy a new body. As far as I could tell under the solid beat of the water, this one had given up on me. I didn’t check too closely but I couldn’t find a place that didn’t throb like a boil the size of my fist.