Finnegan's Week (27 page)

Bobbie was interested to find out that the most recent Ms. Emerson was an ex-marine her own age.

When she asked one of the old duffers why they called their beauty contest winner “Ms. Emerson,” the geezer said, “Knock-knock.”

Bobbie looked warily at Fin, but said, “Okay, who's there?”

The codger said, “Emerson.”

Bobbie said, “Emerson who?”

The old coot said, “Em-er-
son
tits!”

Then all the fogies had a good snuffle and cackle, and Bobbie found herself with
three
Bacardis and
two
more brandies, compliments of the geezer gang.

Bobbie was told that some of the teams participating in the OTL Open Division had names like Dicks With Stix, Titty Clitty Gang Bang, and Tongue In Groove. The Women's Open Division had teams named No Flat Chicks, Our Team Sucks, Penis Envy-Not, and George, Stay Outta My Bush.

Bumper-sticker team names were plastered to the walls, alluding to Hollywood movies, such as,
TWAT'S UP DOC?, HANNIBAL ATE JODIE AND SILENCED THE CLAM, DANCES WITH WOOL,
and
DANCES WITH VULVAS.

There were political statements stuck to the ceiling that said:
ARKANSAS WOMEN ARE SO FAST THEY NEED A GOVERNOR PUT ON THEM,
and a reference to Bill Clinton's ex-paramour, Gennifer Flowers:
ROSES ARE RED, VIOLETS ARE BLUE, CLINTON INHALES FLOWERS TOO.

The motto over the smoky hamburger grill said,
IF IT DOESNT GET ON YOUR FACE, IT'S NOT WORTH EATING.

On the door to the women's rest room Bobbie read,
WE SNATCH KISSES & VICE VERSA.

By 11:30 Bobbie was ripped, and sitting in the lap of a retired San Diego cop called “Bub” who'd also been a commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve, thus bridging the two worlds of the two drunks at his table.

Fin's head was starting to loll, and he said, “That is
it
! No more
rum
!”

“Don't be a wuss!” Bub said. “You sound like one of those Secret Service guys last week chasing around after the vice president with spiders in their ears, saying, “I can't drink when I'm on
duty
!”

“They don't make Feds like they used to,” Fin had to agree, scratching his chin but not feeling it. “Only reason the FBI and CIA even exist anymore is so every putz in Hollywood can make movies claiming their leading man is the target of government agents.”

Bub literally bounced Bobbie on his knee like a child, and said, “Put on some tunes, will ya? But nothing by Ozzy Osbourne. It sounds like sea gulls chasing a trawler. And nothing by that crotch-grabbing, former human person, Michael Jackson.”

“Okay, Bub!” Bobbie said, heading for the jukebox. Her cotton top was a mess from spilled rum. The former pink shell now looked like a paisley.

“I either gotta go home or make a dying declaration,” Fin said to Bub, but he knew that before leaving there'd be the long sentimental goodbyes required in such places.

When she came back, Bobbie overheard an old redhead with big hooters whisper to Bub, “Do you like to talk dirty to your wife when you're having sex?”

Bub answered, “Only if there's a phone handy.”

When Bobbie questioned Fin about the age of all the fun-loving fogies, coots, geezers, codgers, duffers and biddies she'd met in the saloon, he didn't know how to tell her that the oldest fossil in the joint wasn't fifteen years his senior.

All he could mumble in their behalf and his own was “Because of all their fun in the sun, crow's-feet are badges of honor. Sorta like the face paint on Alice Cooper and Amazon headhunters. They're really not as antique as they look.”

Fin was doing some shaky driving when they crossed the Coronado Bridge at 2:00
A.M.
He had the radio tuned to a San Diego oldie station, and while Natalie Cole's old man sang “Too Young,” he said to her, “My sisters made me sing that when I took guitar lessons. They thought I was adorable.”

“You still are,” she muttered drowsily, her eyes closed.

He glanced over, thinking that now she looked like a teenager. At the top of the bridge he saw the Suicide Prevention Hotline number, and thought: What is happening to me? Where am I going with my life? Do I have a life left? Where's the
Menopause
Hotline number? Does it get worse than this?

When they drove through the toll gate he said to her, “Time to wake up, kid, I mean, Bobbie. Open up your peepers.”

“Huh?” she said, bolting upright.

“It's
not
a Scud attack,” he said, “but we're in Coronado. Where do you live?”

She directed him to a house just off Fourth Avenue, and after he parked in front, he retrieved her .45 automatic. Then he opened the car door for her, and this time he had to pull her up by the hand. She staggered when she took the first step so he put his arm around her waist and walked her to her upstairs apartment in the rear.

She fumbled in her purse, and didn't object when Fin took the purse and rummaged for the keys. She didn't object when he unlocked the door and led her inside. Nor did she object when he put her purse on the kitchen counter, along with the holstered automatic, gun belt, and keys.

She
did
object when he pecked her on the cheek and turned toward the door.

In fact, still wobbly, Bobbie intercepted him and threw her arms around his neck, exploring his gold crowns with her tongue.

When he pulled away he knew he was in trouble. Gallantly, he said, “No way, kid.”

“Don't call me kid.”

Hoarsely: “No way. Not in your condition. Not in
my
condition.”

Bobbie ran her hands under Fin's jacket and over his buns saying, “What condition are you
in
?”

“No way, Bobbie!” he said, even more raspy. “Your boyfriend went back to his wife, right? You're just lonely.”

“Sure, but I don't have to hit on toll-booth attendants. I can find somebody
any
time I want.”

“You'd be sorry tomorrow,” he said.

“I never had an older guy,” she said. “Besides, it's already tomorrow.”

A croak: “I can't go the distance.”

She stepped back then and said, “I can't believe it! You're the first guy ever turned me down!”

“I'm
not
turning you down,” he said. “Just asking for a rain check.”

“But why?”

That
stopped him. His mouth was dry. His heart was hammering. His hands were shaking. He wanted to peel off that rum-stained pink shell right this second and fondle those Emersons for a week at least!

Instead, he said, “I can't take advantage of a kid … of a young
woman
that's drunker than a beer-hall mouse.”

“You
are
a gentleman!” she said in amazement. “For real! The first one I ever met in California!”

Trudging out the door, he said, “I wish I had Jimmy Carter's home number ‘cause I sure got a lotta lust in my heart!”

She popped her head out and said, “You really are! A gentleman!”

He was boozy and woozy and
full
of self-pity when he said, “I'm a combat veteran of the battle of the sexes, but somehow I can't bring myself to really use-and-abuse personnel of your gender. Because of my sisters! Those three babes have wrecked my entire life!”

When he got to the bottom of the steps she said, “Wait, Fin!”

He paused: “Is it about the rain check?”

“It's about the shoe!” Bobbie said. “I been forgetting to ask you all evening about the shoe on the dead guy's foot. Whazzisname, Pepe Palmera? What kinda
shoe
was it?”

C
HAPTER
21

N
ell Salter had trouble going to sleep that night because of confusion, and mixed feelings concerning the neurotic cop, Fin Finnegan.

Bobbie Ann Doggett had difficulty sleeping because of her raging blood-alcohol level, and her astonishment at having met a gentleman in the state of California.

Jules Temple couldn't sleep because he was furious at the notion that he was losing control of his own life, and at his dismal sexual performance with Lou Ross. But finally, he blamed his failure on Lou's deteriorating body, and took a sleeping pill.

Fin Finnegan slept badly because of a plethora of emotions that involved Bobbie Ann Doggett, Nell Salter, his three ex-wives, and all three sisters. He had a momentary rum-soaked fantasy about living the remainder of his days in a monastery out near Borrego Springs, until he remembered that he'd still be a
forty-five-year-old
monk.

Abel Durazo was awake longer than the few minutes it usually took, because of the extreme violence he'd seen in the bikers' bar. And also because tomorrow he was going to collect six thousand dollars from Soltero. Abel had never had so much money at one time in his entire life.

Shelby Pate couldn't sleep at
all
. It was mostly because he'd snorted so much meth he was totally amped, and when he was like this he did all sorts of strange things, such as going out to his girlfriend's one-car garage and trying to take his truck engine apart and put it back together. Sometimes when he was wired he'd work on his Harley in the front yard under a droplight, or he might initiate a frenzy of hedge clipping until it looked like a herd of starving goats had raided the yard.

When he got like this, his neighbors would scream at him and threaten to call the cops, but they were tweakers too. They knew that Shelby was vibrating from having done a teener of go-fast, and that he'd chill pretty soon. Or else he'd flat-line, and they wouldn't mind that either.

There was another reason though, that Shelby Pate couldn't sleep, and it had nothing to do with the twitching and jumping and oscillating caused by the cringe. It had to do with the visit by Nell Salter and Fin Finnegan. It had to do with Shelby learning for the first time that they were hauling a very dangerous pesticide called Guthion, and that such a load should've been manifested for disposal outside California.

When Shelby had got home from the bikers' bar—long after the paramedics had hauled away the bearded biker with his guts kicked out—Shelby had crept into his girlfriend's closet and retrieved his leather jacket, the one he'd worn last Friday night. He removed both manifests from the pocket of the jacket and read them. The material from North Island was properly manifested for disposal at a Los Angeles refinery. Then he sat down at the kitchen table and carefully read the manifest from Southbay Agricultural Supply.

On line 11-a of the State of California Health and Welfare Agency form, the proper shipping name, hazard class, and I.D. number did
not
list a waste poison mixture of Guthion. It was listed as “waste flammable liquid,” and specifically described as “weed oil and kerosene.”

And on line 9, which required the name and address of the disposal site, the facility listed was a refinery in Los Angeles where Shelby and Abel had often hauled
ordinary
waste. There was no mention of a disposal site in Texas.

Shelby folded the manifest and put it inside a plastic sandwich bag. Then he hid the plastic bag inside one of his spare boots and took that pair of boots out to the garage. After that, Shelby fired up the power mower and started running it over the little yard until a next-door neighbor and fellow tweaker walked out of his house in his underwear at 4:30
A.M.,
and said, “Dude, if you don't stop workin like a deranged fuckin beaver my old lady said she's gonna burn your house down and that's a promise!”

The first one up the next morning was Bobbie Ann Doggett. The second was Fin Finnegan, only because Bobbie phoned him at 8:00
A.M.
sharp.

Fin stared at the ringing telephone like he was Alexander Graham Bell's cleaning lady wondering what the hell that strange contraption
was
.

“Uuuhhhh!” he mumbled, after he worked it all out and picked it up.

“It's Bobbie!” she said. “I'm real sorry, Fin, but I could hardly wait to call!”

“Uuuuuhhh!” he said, afraid to raise his head from the pillow. “Bobbie, I'm near death! Please!”

“Don't you want a second opinion? Listen to me, Fin. The shoe? Whaddaya say we call and talk to the officer that found the dead guy's foot? Or maybe we could call the morgue?”

“It's Saturday, Bobbie! I'm on a day off.
You're
on a day off.”

“But Fin,” she said, “if the dead guy's foot was inside a black steel-toe high-top U.S. Navy flight-deck shoe, I'm gonna arrest those two truckers for grand theft!”

“Wait, Bobby!” he said, sitting up. Then, “Owwwwww!”

“What's wrong?”

“What's wrong? You drank as much, no,
more
than I did and you ask what's wrong?”

“I felt a little sick last night, but I went for a jog this morning and I'm fine,” she said.

Youth. Communication was hopeless. “Don't go running off and arresting anybody,” he said. “Lemme get up and find my head and make some coffee and call a priest for last rites. Then I'll phone the CHP and see if I can get in touch with the young officer who added to my present torment by going on a treasure hunt for a goddamn
foot
!”

“Okay, I'm at home and I'm ready to go to work,” she said. “This'll be the biggest arrest I ever made. It's rad!”

“Rad,” Fin said, hanging up the phone. Then, “Rad. Cool. Awesome. Ow, my freaking head!”

While Fin was trying to accomplish the most difficult task of the week, namely, locating the bathroom door,
another
urgent call was being made by an equally anxious caller.

“Here, pus brain,” she said, “it's for
you
.”

Shelby Pate didn't know where he was. He didn't know who
she
was for a moment, even though he'd been living with the woman for eighteen months.