Bad To The Bone (28 page)

"Don't worry," he whispered. "My safety's
on."

We kissed until we both realized that an old
lady with a pink poodle was standing on the sidewalk outside our
car, glaring in at us. The dog yapped its disapproval.

"Better go," I said. "While you have the
strength."

"I still have enough energy to kick that dog
on my way past," he promised.

"Kick the old lady instead."

We started to laugh, and it was enough to
carry us through those few awkward seconds that it took for him to
hop from the car and grab his duffel bag. I busied myself stashing
the gun inside my knapsack.

The door slammed and Bill was gone.

I watched him go with a strange mixture of
elation and regret. He'd bailed me out when I needed help, he'd
taken my mind off my troubles, and he'd given me the strength to
keep going.

But I knew it had been one of those times
that you can never get back. They're good exactly because you know
they won't last. 

As I pulled away from the airport, I checked
to make sure no one was following me, then I headed toward the
roustabout hangouts where Tawny had been spotted. The cold front
had retreated and the night was warm. I rolled the windows down and
cruised until I found a strip of seedy storefronts converted into
drinking holes for itinerant workers seeking a few hours of
oblivion. Boy, did I know how they felt.

The first four bars I tried were filled with
snorting, smelly beasts wearing blue jeans and dingy tank tops.
Short of a Merchant Marine hangout I once visited in Norfolk, I
can't think of when I've breathed air more filled with the unsavory
combination of testosterone and sour beer. The women wiggling
through the crowds were clearly working girls going down fast. And
often. Not even Tawny in the throes of cocaine-induced confidence
would venture into one of those joints. Besides, no one recognized
her photo, though few people I asked could even focus their
eyes.

The fifth place was
called
The Green Iguana.
It was hobbled together out of brick and recycled
oak, and looked like it belonged down the road from a Florida
swamp. The crowd was mixed. Men and women sat on fifties-style red
leather bar stools, sipping draft beer underneath the leering
expressions of mounted white-tailed deer heads. The floor was
covered in sawdust, the lighting fluorescent and the jukebox big on
Jimmie Rodgers.

More to the point, the women were
presentable—but not exactly cover girls. This would be Tawny's
tramping ground. She'd stand out like a three-carat diamond in a
box of lug nuts. The only thing it lacked was a neon green animal
in the window, and that mystery was solved when a drunken woman
lurched in the door protesting that someone had forgotten to turn
on the iguana.

Within minutes, a neon iguana was blinking
in the front window and I was sitting beside the drunken woman at
the bar.

Most witnesses are reluctant to talk. The
key to securing their help is to ease into the subject. Which is
why I slapped the photo showing Tawny and her daughter dressed in
matching pink outfits on the bar in front of the woman and
announced: "I'll buy your drinks for the rest of the evening, if
you tell me where I can find this no-good, back-stabbing,
coke-snorting bitch."

She peered woozily at the photo, her puffy
eyes narrowing in concentration. "You got that right," she finally
slurred as her beer-soaked brain cells slowly connected. Her hand
inched across the bar and she pressed a finger down on Tawny's
face, as if she were trying to obliterate her from the world. "That
whore's been acting like she owns this place for the last week. Ask
Freddy where her snooty ass is tonight. She's been polishing his
knob for the last couple of days."

She cocked a thumb over her shoulder in the
direction of a heavy man wearing overalls and a plaid shirt with
cutoff sleeves. He was sitting alone in a booth against one wall.
He had a Santa Claus face, complete with bushy white beard, but he
didn't look too jolly at the moment. He was staring into his beer
as if someone had just pissed in it.

"That's Freddy?" I confirmed, pointing.

"Yup. The one with 'stupid' written on his
forehead." She hiccoughed and peered closer at the photo. "I knew
this bitch was trouble when she first came in here. I could smell
it on her. She's a coke hound, too. Bleeds these boys dry. They're
too fucking dumb to see her coming. You the cops?" She looked up at
me and leered, then brushed a lock of frizzy red hair out of her
eyes.

"I'm better than the cops," I promised,
taking a twenty-dollar bill out of my pocket and placing it next to
her beer. "I'm that bitch's worst enemy."

"All right," she crowed in four-syllable
triumph, then circled a fist in the air as if she were twirling an
imaginary lasso. I steadied her before she toppled off her stool,
then went to twist Freddy's arm.

Poor guy. He was nursing a broken heart. And
a broken wallet, too, no doubt.

"You look like a truck just ran over your
pecker," I said, sliding onto the empty bench across the table from
him.

He glanced at me. "Go away. I ain't
interested in no women."

"What's the matter? Afraid I'll steal your
car, borrow your credit cards, pick your wallet and leave you to
lick your wounds?"

His eyebrows bounced up like a pair of
caterpillars doing the jitterbug. "Who told you what happened?"

"You did. Just now." I paused. "Besides, I
know the lady in question."

The poor sap stared morosely into the depths
of his beer. He was why country music was invented. "She's gone,
ain't she?"

I nodded. "What did she take with her?
Besides your heart?" I asked this last question kindly. He looked
like he had a big heart to break. He was just a teddy bear of a
working man, coming here for a cold brew hot from the fields. He
was neither equipped for nor deserving of Tawny Bledsoe. I patted
his rough hand. He pulled it away like I had scalded him.

"I knew she was too good to be true," he
mumbled. "What the hell did I think she'd see in me?"

"Hey," I told him. "A good man is hard to
find, and a good woman is even harder. Don't let scum like her win
by letting her get to you. She's not worth it. There's plenty of
women who appreciate a hardworking, honest man. Just because she
used those good things against you doesn't mean you won't find
someone who treasures them." Like I said, I should have been a
shrink.

His glassy eyes blinked at me. "Who the hell
are you?"

When I explained who I was and why I was
there, he pushed back into a corner of the booth like he wanted to
disappear into the woodwork. "You really think she did those
things?" he asked.

"Oh, yeah. I do."

"She didn't get my truck or nothing," he
said, gulping at his beer. "Just some money."

"And what else?" I asked, reading his tone
of voice.

His mouth twisted sourly. "My Discover
card."

"You gave her a credit card?" I tried to
hide my surprise, but failed. Pussy power indeed. Yoko Ono must
have had Tawny in mind when she wrote her anthem. This guy had
handed a credit card over to someone he barely knew. Geeze, what
did she do with that thing to get away with so much? I suddenly
felt as if I were sitting on top of a Scud missile, though I have
far too many morals to use my cooter for commerce. It's for
recreational purposes only.

Freddy sensed my disbelief and launched into
an indignant tale about how Tawny's husband was beating her and she
had to get away and blah, blah, blah. Mercifully, we were
interrupted when a skinny guy with a melon head and a missing front
tooth appeared at our booth. He slapped the table with his palm and
began to hee-hee, like some obnoxious character in a cartoon. The
gap in his teeth added a particularly annoying whistle to the sound
and I started to wonder what his laugh would be like if I knocked
the other front tooth out for him.

"Where's your girlfriend tonight, Freddy?"
he asked in a raspy drawl. "She done run out on you, right? I told
you she was trouble." He tapped his nose.

I stood up and looked the guy in his beady
little eyes. "Listen, bubba," I said. "The only reason you're not
the one in this pickle is that even a slut like Freddy's paramour
has standards. I dare say you didn't measure up on either end, so
get your scrawny ass away from us or I'll knock you from this booth
all the way to the bay. And don't think I can't." I flexed my
biceps and smiled.

His eyes blinked furiously as his brain
scrambled to process the unexpected information. He was supposed to
do the dissing—how had his little plan gone so horribly wrong?
"What's a paramour?" he finally stammered.

"A paramour is someone who gives you the
best sex of your life. And Freddy here has just come off a solid
week of hot action you would not believe. Just look at how
exhausted the man is."

We both looked at Freddy, who did look
tired, though probably not from getting any action. He was too
confused to play along with my attempt at salvaging his honor, so I
forged on without him.

"When's the last time you had sex, by the
way?" I asked Melon Head. "I gather you must be the local Don Juan,
what with your in-depth knowledge of the female sex and all."

"Who are you?" the guy asked, his eyes
darting back and forth between us. "You Freddy's sister or
something?'

"I hope not," I said. "Since Freddy and I go
at it like weasels at least twice a week. Of course, that wouldn't
make much difference to you and your sister."

"I ain't got no sister," he said, perplexed,
then added somewhat cryptically, "But I got me a dog."

"Better go home and feed it. Unless you want
your friends to see you get your ass kicked by a girl. Because I am
perfectly happy to oblige."

The guy bobbed his head and gulped, then
scurried away, leaving the decaying scent of old shrimp in his
wake.

I flopped back down in the booth and held my
head. "I am amazed at how much misery a single person can cause in
this world. That woman's disrespect for other people is contagious.
I'll never be able to stop her poison from spreading, even if I do
stop her."

Freddy was studying me. "Thanks for getting
rid of that moron. Dew don't got the sense God gave a possum. But
what's in it for you?"

"Stopping her." I looked up. I didn't have
time to mope. "What's your credit limit?"

"Eight hundred dollars." He looked
ashamed.

"Well, count on that being what she takes
you for. Come on, let's go."

He looked alarmed. "Go where?"

“To my motel room. We're going to call your
credit card company. I want to know where she's been using your
card."

"I can't do that," he protested.

"Sure you can." I grabbed his elbow and
hoisted him up. "You're a good man and you need to do the right
thing. The right thing is to stop her from doing this to anyone
else."

I could have threatened him. I could have
raised the possibility of the cops. I could have used my womanly
wiles. But, like Tawny Bledsoe, I'd figured out that Freddy was
human putty. If I kept on the pressure, he'd bend.

Forty-five minutes later, we were sitting on
opposite sides of my motel bed. We'd taken Freddy's pickup truck,
since I did not trust him to follow me alone. I was glad for the
decision. A dark sedan was parked at an odd angle in a lot across
the highway, in a perfect position to allow anyone inside to watch
my room. I made Freddy park his truck at the far end of the motel
wing, where it would block the sedan's view of my front door, then
we scurried inside together. I wasn't worried they'd spot me. They
wouldn't be looking for a pickup truck. But I kept the lights off,
just in case.

The darkness made Freddy nervous. We sat on
either side of the bed, staring at the telephone between us. He was
getting cold feet.

"Go on," I urged him. "Just say what I told
you."

When he didn't move, I held the phone up to
the glow leaking in under the closed bathroom door and dialed the
800 number I'd gotten from information, then handed him the
receiver. It took a couple of minutes for him to get through to an
actual human being and verify that he was, indeed, the cardholder
on the account. I was amused to find out his mother's maiden name
had been Ratt, which she had traded up for Fink. It's a good thing
hyphenated last names weren't in vogue when Freddy was born.

They were getting down to brass tacks and
Freddy was doing a decent job of lying his ass off. "See," he
explained, "I gave my teenage daughter permission to use the card,
but I told her don't you go charging no more than a hundred
dollars." His furry eyebrows met in the middle as he scrunched his
face in concentration. "How much?" he shouted, his eyes wide with
panic. He was silent. "Well, I never..." He began to chew his lip
and I gestured furiously.

"Can you tell me where she's been charging?"
he asked. He repeated the answer in a stunned voice. "Jacksonville.
Savannah. Where? What the hell is she doing in South Carolina?" He
paused again. "No, she did have my permission. It's okay, but..."
He took a deep breath. "Maybe you better cut her off at your end.
Can you do that?"

A moment later, he hung up, his shoulders
slumped in defeat. "She done charged six hundred dollars in
forty-eight hours. How can a person do that? Most I ever charged in
a weekend was sixty."

"Maybe her coke dealer takes credit cards?"
I studied the towns on my list. "She's going up the Eastern
Seaboard. The I-95 corridor." Same as my ex, I thought. She was
meeting Jeff in the middle.

"Why would she head back to where she was in
so much trouble?" Freddy asked, his head held between two big
paws.

"That's what I want to know."