The Final Country

TWO

It took longer to find the bartender than it did for me to find out that he wouldn't give me the time of day. For a man who seemed without much backbone, he suddenly bowed up his neck and stayed grimly silent. Either he was more frightened of somebody else than me, or he had some sort of protection that I couldn't find out about.

So Sissy Duval was my only lead. She lived in a fancy ground-floor condo on the south side of Town Lake, which she owned outright, as she did her fairly new BMW 7 series, but except for a small trust fund from her father and several modest alimony checks, she didn't seem to have any visible means of support. And Sissy was her real name. All of which Carver de Longchampe discovered in a quick Internet search. Carver D had retired from the underground newspaper business when he sold The Dark Coast to an alternative chain but that hadn't stopped him from being nosy; he was connected to every information database known to be legal and some I suspected weren't.

When I rang Sissy Duval's bell late the next afternoon, the door was half-opened by a well-dressed black woman with light dusky skin, fine features, and frosted streaks in her straight hair.

"Mrs. Duval?" I said, and the black woman looked at me as if I had cowshit on my boots.

"It doesn't matter who I am," she growled, "whatever you're selling, we've got at least two. Now if you'll excuse me, sir, I'm on my way out."

Before I could step back, though, a sleepy voice came from beyond the half-open door. "Who is it, Eldora?"

"Well, it ain't your date, honey," the black woman said as she opened the door all the way. Some decorator had gone through the living room in his beige-beach period – driftwood, glass, and sketches of sandy tan, wall to wall.

"Bobby Mitchell ain't coming, honey," said a tall, lanky white woman with tousled hair as she drifted into the room.

"Old bastard's seventy-five if he's a day, and he still wants to be called Bobby," the black woman muttered. But I didn't think she was talking to me.

"Bobby says his colon's acting up again," Sissy Duval said as she stepped up to the door. Except for skin color, the two women could have been sisters.

"Well, this gentleman might be full of shit, honey, but he doesn't look like he has a problem with a lower bowel blockage. Maybe he'll take you to the benefit," the black woman said, "after he scatters his bullshit around and sells you another set of aluminum cookware. Or maybe one of those vacuum cleaners that'll suck the dust mites out of your mattress."

"I'm not selling anything," I said as the black woman brushed past.

"Not to me, you aren't," she said.

"See you tomorrow, Eldora," Mrs. Duval said, but she was looking directly at me. And smiling as she estimated my value within five thousand dollars and my age within ten days. She'd never see forty again, and nobody would ever know which one of the myriad shades of her hair might be real, and she'd never actually worked a day in her life, but she had good bones and the Texas sun hadn't turned her skin into a roast duck hide yet. She cocked her hip, rested her diamond-studded hand on it, and smiled innocently. "And how can I help you, sir?" she asked. A question, I suspected, many men had rushed to answer.

I introduced myself, showed her my license, and told her that I would like to talk about her former husband. That seemed a good place to start her talking, since I knew she had several.

"I ain't got nothin' but exes, honey," she said, "and Jesus, they all live in Texas." Then she sighed deeply. "It's five o'clock somewhere," she said. "I'm gonna have a vodka. Can I get you something?"

"Maybe a beer," I said. It seemed that I could still feel my guts burning from the four ounces of Canadian whiskey Enos Walker had made me drink the day before. But the beach atmosphere in the room called for something liquid.

"So which one of the bastards are you looking for?" she asked over her straight vodka after she had lodged me on a raw cotton couch and handed me a Shiner and a frosted glass.

"The one that owned a joint up in Gatlin County."

"Oh, Dwayne, the only one that doesn't live in Texas. He's dead," she said, which I didn't know. She walked over to lean on the mantel of the gas fireplace. "Dwayne had a great ass. So I kept his name and his ashes right here to remind me to stay away from honky-tonk cowboys." She patted a ceramic pot on the mantel, then knuckled a tear from the corner of her eye. "That boy sure could dance," she said fondly.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Duval," I said. "How long were you married?"

"As long as I had a hundred thousand dollars a year to shovel up his nose and keep his tight little buns out of jail," she answered, and finished her vodka, surely not the first of the afternoon, then poured another without freshening the ice. Then she began to rummage through the drawers of the small wet bar in the corner of the living room. "You got a cigarette?" she said as she leaned on the bar.

"Sure," I said, then walked over to lean on the bar across from her. Not a bad place for an aimless interrogation.

"Goddammit," she said once we were smoking. She reached back into the top drawer, where she found a small mirror, a single-edged razor blade, and a short silver straw. "Every time I think about that son of a bitch, it makes me want to smoke and snort cocaine like some East Austin street whore," she said. "I know I had some blow in here somewhere…" But she wasn't talking to me anymore. After a few minutes of clattering about, she stood up to dump more vodka in her glass and looked at me as if I had just appeared, saying, "You wouldn't have any, would you?" Then she said, "Oh, shit, you're not a cop or something, are you?"

"I think I fit into the 'or something' category. But I've got a taste." I had retrieved Long's personal bindle from the convenience store rest room that morning, and broken it down into smaller bindles, managing to do just a couple of tiny lines of the uncut coke. Cocaine, like alcohol, was a fucking snake, and I'd had troubles with both. And not that long ago, either. I poured a tidy sparkling pile on the mirror and chopped two short but shapely lines.

"You first," she said suspiciously when I offered her the straw. She looked ten years older, the fine bones almost visible through the clear skin.

I did my line, then offered her the straw again. She leaned over the mirror, sighed so hard she almost blew the coke away, then went through the line like one of those vacuum cleaners Eldora had accused me of peddling.

Sissy Duval licked her finger, wiped up the residue, and rubbed it on her gums. "Oh fuck," she murmured, "where'd you get this shit?" Then her senses came back to her with the rush. "Sorry," she said softly, "none of my business. Jesus, I don't even remember your name. And why the hell are you looking for that sweet-cheeked dead bastard?"

"Just call me Milo," I said. "Actually, I'm looking for an old friend of his, Enos Walker."

"Jesus, don't be looking for Enos," she said, grabbing her arms as if cold. "He's not looking for me, is he? He's a bad one… and it seems to me that Enos is in prison up in Oklahoma."

"Not anymore."

"What the hell you want with him?"

"He was involved in a shooting yesterday, and my life would be a lot simpler if I could find him."

"Not for long," she said. "Enos used to be the kind of old boy didn't mind hurting people. And I don't expect prison did much for his attitude."

"I noticed," I said. "He was looking for your former husband. And somebody named Mandy Rae."

"Amanda Rae. That little bitch," she said, looking dreamily into the past. "She was the worst of that bunch. A fair to middling country singer but a wild-ass redneck girl. Hell, she was the only one of us who always carried a gun. But I haven't run with that crowd in years. Last I heard about her must have been ten, twelve years ago. Or more."

"What was she doing then?"

"I saw something in the paper," she said, "or maybe on the news. She whipped out a pistol and took a shot at some old boy in a beer joint out on the Bastrop highway. Didn't hit him, as I remember. She was a hell of a shot with a rifle, though. Christ, out at the ranch one afternoon – back when we still had a ranch – I watched her knock down a running buck at two hundred steps with an open sighted.30-.30. Cut his strings with a neck shot. Little bitch could shoot a single hair off a frog's ass."

"You mind if I ask why you call her a little bitch?" I asked.

"Why you think, cowboy?" She spat, then smiled. "You wouldn't have another line of that fine shit, would you?"

"You wouldn't have a picture of this Mandy Rae?"

"I think I'm gonna like you," she said, her phony smile nearly knocking ten years off her face. "You be chopping, I be looking." Then she pranced drunkenly around the bar and up the stairs.

Since I had already done enough, I chopped a single line for Sissy, finished my beer, slipped the bindle under the ashtray – I didn't think she'd be cleaning off the bar this afternoon – then got another beer out of the small refrigerator behind the bar. As she started down the stairs, I picked up the straw and made snorting sounds.

"Couldn't wait for me, huh?" she said, then handed me a publicity still of a sleek blond woman with a photo credit, Albert Homer, and a local address stamped on the back. I shrugged like a cokehead, a gesture I knew all too well. "This is all I could find," she added, her eyes darting to the long line shining on the mirror.

"And why was she a little bitch?" I asked, still holding the straw.

"She was fucking Dwayne," she sighed. "Hell, everybody was fucking everybody back in those days – before AIDS – but I caught them one Sunday afternoon up at the ranch. She was on all fours with his skinny dick up her ass, and the little bitch just grinned over the teddy bear tattoo on her shoulder blade at me. Like she knew I wasn't into that shit, like she could lead the bastard off by his dick any time she wanted." Sissy glanced at the straw again, then fixed herself another vodka.

"This Mandy Rae have a last name?" I wondered.

"Not that anybody knew," she said. "She just showed up one day with Enos Walker and twenty keys of pink Peruvian flake. They paid cash for a place up in Gatlin County and set up a network of college kid dealers. They had a steady supply and obviously some protection, so she was everybody's favorite lady for a while."

"You sure you never heard a last name?" I asked, still holding on to the straw.

Sissy thought for a moment, her eyes on the shining straw. "Quarrels," she said finally. "Seems like I remember somebody making a joke 'bout that – Amanda Rae Quarrels with herself…"

I held out the straw. "How did your husband die?"

"Sucker-punched the wrong kid outside the bar," she said, taking it with shaking hands. "That was always Dwayne's style. Fuckin' kid grabbed a sweet sixteen double-barrel out of his pickup, and let Dewey have two loads of quail shot – one in the guts and one in the face. Took him a long, bad week to die." Then Sissy sighed again, snorted the line, and smiled at me. "You got a suit and tie, cowboy?"

"Sure," I lied. If it was important, I could find a tie.

"Pick me up about eight? A fund-raiser for some political turd."

"Be my pleasure," I lied again, finished the beer, and headed for the door, listening to the rattle of ice in a heavy crystal glass across the empty desert of the living room. But I didn't shut the door all the way and I waited at the edge of the parking lot. I gave her a minute, then went back. But a tall, older gentleman in a tailored suit and a fifteen-hundred-dollar toupee beat me to the door. Bobby, I assumed. The old man had his finger on the doorbell as I walked up behind him.

"Can I help you, sir?" the old gentleman drawled.

"I forgot to leave Mrs. Duval my card," I said.

She came to the door with a cordless phone in her hand, confused to see both of us standing there. "I'll call you right back, honey," she said. "I promise."

"I'll just leave my card on the bar, Mrs. Duval," I said, then hustled around Bobby as she clicked the telephone off. I left one of the cards with just my name and cell phone number, grabbed the bindle from under the ashtray, and heard her whimper, "Wait."

"See you later, ma'am," I tossed over my shoulder.

"Please," she hissed.

"Who was that?" Bobby said as I hurried past them.

"Bobby, what the hell are you doing here?" I heard her say as I stepped slowly down the steps. I also heard her punch a button on the telephone and the beeping as it redialed. "Go get a drink or a suppository or something," she said, then, into the telephone, "Oh, not you, honey. It's that damned Bobby Mitchell littering my front porch again." Then Sissy's drunken laughter echoed through the cedar shrubs and the river willows that screened her condo from the street noise.

Something about Sissy's voice when she said "honey" into the telephone bothered me all the way out to Blue Hollow, bothered me all through my shift behind the bar, distracted me even when Betty Porterfield stopped in for a cup of coffee on her way to the emergency vet clinic where she handled the night shift.

"Not much of a vacation," Betty said as she lifted her coffee cup. Her blue eyes were softly smudged as if she hadn't slept well that day, and wisps of her light red hair mixed with strands of gray drifted aimlessly across her freckled forehead. She brushed it back tiredly.

"Not much," I agreed. "We never seem to have much fun when we try to talk about things. Or get much talking done either."

"Is that my fault?"

Our silences had been louder than the constant wind or the slap of the shallow waves on the beach.

"Is that my fault?" she repeated.

"I don't know," I had to admit, then changed the subject. "You heard what happened yesterday?"

"I told you this PI stuff was going to get you in trouble," she said.

"You don't happen to know a Sissy Duval, do you?" I asked, ignoring her gibe.

"Sissy Duval? Jesus, I never ran with that crowd. Not much anyway," she said quickly. "They were too wild for me. But I knew them. Why?"

"She's about my only connection to Enos Walker," I said lamely.

"Who's he?" she asked, then looked away.

"He's the guy who tussled with Billy Long when he got shot," I said. "If I could find him before the cops do, it might save his life. And me a lot of official grief."

"You know, Milo," she said, the corner of her mouth lifted in a wry smile, "you don't owe this Walker guy anything. And we had a better life when you were retired."

"Maybe you did," I said, "but I didn't. I'm too young to be that old."

"Why don't you drive out to the ranch after you close? I'll fix breakfast when I get home," she said softly. "I'd like to work this out, honey."

It flashed through my mind that women called men "honey" in a different tone of voice than they did women. But I was thinking about the photo credit on the back of Mandy's picture, so once again I begged off the late night drive out to the ranch. "I've got one more lead to follow in the morning."

"I wish you could hear how silly that sounds," she said, suddenly flushed with anger, her lower lip trembling. "Why don't you just admit you hate this place and carry your sorry ass back to Montana?"

"Thanks," I said. "Since I moved my sorry ass down here to be near you."

"That's too much responsibility for me to bear," she said, then left her coffee, and walked slowly out of the bar. The sad stiff stick of her back told me that once again conversation had failed us. We had moved farther away from each other with each word. Just as we had down at her uncle's beach house.

We had drifted into a fight that night, as effortlessly it seemed as we had drifted into bed when we were first together. After the usual silence, then the apologies, I had begun to rub her shoulders.

"I just don't know…" she murmured as we started to make love.

"What? What don't you know?"

"I don't know what we're doing anymore," she said softly, her voice barely audible above the sounds of the Gulf breeze and the soft slaps of the waves. "I don't know where this is going, don't even know if we're making love or just fucking… or if this is some sort of stupid contest to see who can come last…"

I didn't know what to say, so I didn't say anything, just eased out of her and into my sweats, then out of the house, across the glass-enclosed upper deck, then the long, shallow ramp down to the hard-packed sand of the beach. As I walked along the dark verge of the water, the low waves slipped across the sand, dying with a foaming hiss that sounded like a nest of baby snakes. Out in the Gulf, the lights of the oil platforms and derricks glowed like the false fires of ship wreckers, and the oily tar balls glistened in the scummy surf like the eggs of monsters. Texas, Jesus. What had been in my mind?

When I went back to her uncle's beach house, perched like a giant spider on concrete legs above the sand, she seemed to be asleep, so I crashed on a lounge chair on the upper deck out of the wind. The next morning we drove back to Austin without speaking.

After Betty left the bar, I was more than glad to listen to the aimless problems of my customers. I could think of possible solutions to their problems, solutions that were sometimes as simple as a free drink and a friendly ear. So it wasn't until after I had cleaned up, stocked, washed some illegal cash, and- checked out that I had a chance to see if Albert Homer was still at the same place. There he was in the Austin telephone book, still on North Loop, and still in business.

Homer's studio sat on a weedy lot behind a ratty pool hall off North Loop within shouting distance of 1-35 North. He might still be in business, but business didn't look all that lively at noon the next day when I pushed the buzzer beside the front door. Four long separate times. Finally, I heard a door slam and a distant voice from the second floor promising that it was on its way. Darkroom, I assumed, until the young man opened the door wearing a ratty robe over rumpled pajamas. He'd seen better days himself. The long fringe of hair hanging around his thin face hadn't been washed or combed in several days. Something gray clung to the corners of his scraggly mustache, much as the odor of the early morning joint clung to his night clothes, and the stink of stale beer wafted on his breath.

"We ain't open," he mumbled. I showed him a fifty-dollar bill, remembering the good old days when a twenty would have done the trick. "But we could be, man, if you had a cold six-pack, too."

"Don't go away," I said, then headed for the glowing beer signs of a pool hall just down the street.

During the years I had lived in Texas, I'd had almost no cocaine, not many tokes of marijuana, and damn few hangovers. But in the two days since I had the misfortune to run into Enos Walker, it seemed I had been servicing other people's addictions with my own shaky character: Sissy Duval's Hooverized nose, Capt. Gannon's lust for an easy retirement, and now Albert Homer's hangover. Anything for justice, I thought as I crossed the unmown lot, and the faint chance that I might be able to extend Enos Walker's wasted life. They say a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client. But there is no folk wisdom covering a PI who is his own client. Perhaps because it doesn't happen often enough to rate a cliché to cover it.

Five minutes later, I watched Homer suck down the first can of Lone Star and crack another one. From the photographs framed on his studio wall, the rack of Frederick's of Hollywood plus-sized lingerie, and the fake satin bedspread covering the round bed, I assumed that Homer specialized in sexy photos of fat women. It was sort of creepy, but I had to admit he wasn't a bad photographer, and I couldn't think of any good reason why fat women couldn't have as much fun as emaciated models with artificial breasts.

"I'm just guessing here," I said as I pulled the publicity photo out of a manila envelope, "but you probably didn't take this picture."

"Looks like one of my Daddy's," Homer said, barely glancing up from his beer. "He passed over seven years ago."

"You didn't keep his files, did you?"

"They're in a storage locker out in Pflugerville," he mumbled. "About the only thing besides this shithole that survived the divorce. But that fifty won't buy you shit."

"What would?"

"Maybe a hundred," he said, smiling broadly enough to crack the gray matter at the corners of his mouth. "Make it two, if I help."

"That's pretty stiff," I suggested.

But Homer just smiled.

Three hours later I understood why. We had been through another six-pack of beer and dozens of boxes of the ugliest pornography I had ever seen. The storage unit was as steamy as a sauna. The only good news was that Junior had showered and dressed in clean clothes before we drove out. The bad news was that the sleek blond was a woman named Sharon Timmons. Who had done unspeakable things with snakes when her singing career had gone south. And Amanda Rae Quarrels had no folder at all.

"Who buys this shit?" I wondered.

"You'd be surprised," Homer said. "Mostly people who find the new stuff too buffed and tidy for their tastes."

"This is it, right? Your ex-wife didn't take anything?"

"Shit, man," he moaned. "She took everything. House, both cars, and all the money my Daddy brought back from Vegas."

"Vegas?"

"Yeah, he hit one of those hundred-thousand-dollar slots at the Nugget," Junior said, "and got home with it before he blew it. First time for that."

"He gambled?"

"Does the Pope wear red shoes when he shits in the woods?"

"I don't know, I'm not Catholic."

Junior just looked at me.

"You don't remember a woman named Mandy Rae Quarrels?" I asked.

"Not offhand," Homer said, shrugging. "But you know how it is. You remember the tits longer than the names."

"What happened to your father?" I asked, just to be polite.

"Ah, shit," he said, "he was fishing up at Lake Travis a couple of years ago, got drunk, and fell out of the boat."

Somehow I couldn't imagine Homer's father fishing, not after seeing the sort of pictures he liked to snap. "What happened to your marriage?" That was the only thing I could think to ask as I handed Homer the rest of his money.

"Weight Watchers," he said sadly.

On the way back to Austin, I kicked myself several times. I couldn't believe I had let anyone as drunk and high as Sissy Duval lie to me. But clearly she had, and if I went back, I didn't think I had enough cocaine to whip the truth out of her. Maybe I should turn my license in, go back to being a retired gentleman as Betty suggested. But that seemed too easy. I called Carver D on the cell phone, but nobody answered, so I stopped by his unlocked, rambling house in Travis Heights before I headed back out to relieve the daytime bartender. Diabetes and liberal doses of Tennessee whiskey had limited Carver D's mobility. He was alone, which was unusual, in an antique wheelchair on the screened back porch. Petey, my silent partner in the washing of my bad cash, usually took care of Carver D when he wasn't pursuing his degree in computer science and accounting at UT. When he was in class, Carver D's driver, a tough ex-marine master sergeant named Hangas, took over the chores.

"Where the hell is everybody?" I asked.

"They've abandoned me, Milo," Carver D said, then tipped the bottle. Then he laughed, his rolling fat jiggling like a bad Jell-O salad, his tiny black eyes shining like watermelon seeds. "Petey ran to the store," he said, still choking with laughter. "Although Quarrels is not an uncommon name in this part of the world, I can promise you that your Amanda Rae Quarrels doesn't exist as any sort of person, singer, songwriter, or actress. No record of birth, marriage, death, taxes, telephone, or utilities. Nothing under that name. Enos Walker, on the other hand, his life is an open book. Born December 7th, 1960, in Hominy, Oklahoma. His mother was a registered member of the Osage tribe; his father a staff sergeant at Fort Sill who shows up on various records as either black, white, or Seminole and who was listed MIA in Vietnam, presumed dead. Walker's criminal record is longer than my dick, but mostly minor stuff – misdemeanor possession, disturbing the peace in bar fights – that sort of shit. Lots of rumors but no official interest in his dealing down here. Until that last bust. Smuggling cocaine. Got popped with two other guys outside of Tulsa. A sweet setup but they had some bad luck."

"Bad luck?"

"The private plane would file a flight plan out of Jamaica to Tulsa," he said, "and when they dropped down for the airport approach – Christ, who'd suspect Tulsa – they'd kick the coke out into a pasture. Great pilot, too. Hit the fucking mark. Dropped twenty keys wrapped inside an inflated tractor tire tube right on the pickup's hood. Fucking near killed them. Did kill the pickup and the driver. Made it hard to run away when the cops showed up."

"What happened to the two other guys?"

"Both died in the joint. One killed with a shovel," he said, "the other died of AIDS. Bad luck all around. Except for Walker. There was a rumor that somebody dropped a dime on him and some strong but inadmissible evidence that this wasn't the first time they had pulled this number. He was lucky to only do state time and only twelve years at that. Hell, it took five years to finally convict and sentence him. And it was another piece of bad luck when he jumped bail and got swept up in a random check at the Miami Airport. He was not exactly a model prisoner, but still he managed to stay out of serious trouble."

"No probation officer, huh?"

"Nope. Walker did the full jolt," Carver D said. "For the moment, he's a free man. Until they catch him again. Or perhaps you make the collar."

"It feels a little bit like a lost cause. I just don't know enough criminals down here," I complained.

"Hell, this is Texas, man, you don't know nothin' but criminals down here," Carver D said. "All great fortunes start with a small crime."

"Who said that?" I said.

"As far as you know, buddy, I did."

"Maybe I'll just have to take the heat."

"Well, you got a good lawyer in Phil Thursby," Carver D said, "and don't forget that your girlfriend's uncle is the Gov." Then he laughed so hard his tiny dark eyes disappeared. "You can surely pick 'em, partner."

"Guess I'd better handle the fucking mess myself."

"Your ex-partner always said that your favorite problems were your bullheaded refusal to ask for help and your obviously odious choices of womenfolk to lie down among."

"He should talk," I said. "He had to be gut-shot and nailed into a hospital bed before Whitney could get him to date her."

"And speaking of the love birds. How's he handling law school?" he added, asking about my ex-partner and his wife.

"He's okay," I said. "You know, I saw him back in September when they inducted me as an honorary member of the Benewah tribe. Hard to believe that it took more than fifteen years for them to acknowledge the gift of my grandfather's land. The new bunch running the tribal council seems to have forgiven my family. Of course, they had to fight the government for the land."

"Fucking government," he said.

"Fucking government lawyers."

"Redundant," he said. "How's the madman doing?"

"She made law review," I said. "But I think he took a semester off to work on a case before he goes back to school."

"Crazy bastard," Carver D said, then hit the bottle again. "Must be the oldest fucker there."

"Almost. The oldest student is a little old postmistress from some pothole in eastern Montana. They closed her post office, so she enrolled in law school thinking she could sue the bastards. She's at least twenty years older than he is."

"What's he thinking about?"

"Finding a way to do the right thing. That's the only thing he said."

"Jesus." Carver D sighed, then stared into the giant live oak in his backyard until he slumped toward a liquid nap. "Stop by Sunday, man," he murmured. "I'm having people over."

"Working," I said. Carver D looked bored even in his sleep. I promised myself to stop by more often. He was about my only sane friend down here in this crazy place.