The Last Good Kiss (5 page)

right there in his momma's front yard, whipped him till

Lester just begged to pay some back childsupport."

"Thought it might be something like that," I said.

"How come you were after that big fella, anyway?"

she asked. Then she quickly added, '"Course you don't

have to tell me if it ain't none of my business."

"I was supposed to find him before he drank himself

into the hospital," I said. "Or into the grave."

"That's a fool's errand," Rosie said with authority.

"I was just supposed to find him," I said, "not take

the bottle out of his hands."

"Is that what you do for a living?" she asked. "Find

folks?"

"Sometimes," I said. "Other times I just look."

"You do okay?"

"Fair to middling," I admitted, "but it ain't steady. I

end up tending bar about half the time."

"How come?''

"Beats the hell out of standing around Monkey

Wards watching out for sixteen-year-old shoplifters."

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"I reckon so," she said, then laughed and hit the

pint. "How long you been trackin' the big fella?"

"Right at three weeks," I answered.

"Get paid by the day, huh?"

"Usually."

"This job oughtta do you nicely," she said.

"Hope so," I said. "They might feel unkindly, since

the old man got shot, and decide that I'm overpriced,

unworthy of my hire."

"Sue 'em."

"Ever try to sue rieh folks?" I asked.

"Hell, boy, I don't even know any rich folks," she

said, then paused to stare at the ground. "What you

reckon that old boy was runnin' from?"

"Maybe he just needed a high lonesome," I said, "or

a running binge. I don't really know." And I didn't.

Usually, after I had been after somebody for a few

days, I had some idea of what they had in mind. But not

with Trahearne. During some of my less lucid moments, I had the odd feeling that the old man was running from me, running so I would chase him.

"Maybe he just wanted to see what was over the next

hill," I added.

"He musta got tired of lookin'," Rosie said quietly,

" 'cause he holed up here like chick come to roost."

"Well, if he's only half as tired as I am, he's plenty

damn tired," I said, " 'cause I 'm worn to a frazzle. I

could sleep for a week."

"But you probably won't, will you?"

"Probably not."

"What are you gonna do?" she asked, too casually to

suit me.

"Hang around the hospital until he gets out," I said.

"How long would that be?"

"A week or so," I said. "Depends."

For a few minutes we sat silently again, watching the

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soft spring sunshine spark green fire across the shallow

hills, listening to the distant hum of traffic.

"Hey," she said suddenly, as if the idea had just

come to her. "It might be that I could put you on to a

piece of work while you're hangin' around. No sense in

sittin' idle."

"I usually work one thing at a time," I said quickly.

"That's my only advantage over the big outfits." When

she didn't say anything, I asked, "What do you have? A

bundle of bad checks?"

"Enough to paper a wall," she said, "but that ain't

the problem." When I didn't ask her what the problem

was, she continued. "It's my baby girl. She run off on

me, and I thought maybe you might spend a few

days-whatever time you got-lookin' around."

"Well, I don't know . . . "

"I know this place don't look like much," she

interrupted, "but it's free and clear and it turns a dollar

now and again-"

"It's not that," I interrupted her. "I just need some

time off the road."

"You wait right here," she said as if she hadn't heard

me, then flounced back into the bar.

As I waited, what had earlier seemed a fine spring

haze clearly became Bay Area smog, which reminded

me that this wasn't some country beer joint down in

Texas on a spring afternoon in the '50's. The maze of

San Francisco lay just across the bay, a haven for

runaways, and although the '60's were dead and gone

too, young girls still ran there to hide. That hadn't

changed, though everything else had. The flower

children had gone sour and commercial or middle-class,

and even the enemy was tired and broken, exiled to San

Clemente. I didn't want to hear what Rosie had to tell

me--l didn't want to stare at another picture of a lost

child. Whichever wise Greek said that you can't step

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into the same river twice was right, even though he

forgot to mention that nine times out of ten, you'll get

your feet wet. Change is the rule. You can't go horne

again even if you stay there, and now that everyplace is

the same, there's no place to run. But that doesn't keep

some of them from trying. And that didn't stop Rosie

either.

"Here," she said as she sat down and handed me a

photograph. "Look here."

I glanced at the picture just long enough to see that it

was a wallet-sized school photograph of a fairly pretty

girl. Then I looked back and saw the dates: 1964--65.

"She was a pretty girl," I said as I tried to hand the

picture back to Rosie .

"Smart as a whip, too," she answered, holding her

hands between her knees.

I had to look at the picture again. It could have been

a picture from my high school days in the 'SO's. The

face was pleasant, no more, though she seemed to have

good bones beneath a soft layer of baby fat. The wide

mouth seemed pinched, almost sullen, and the thick

cascade of blond hair looked fake. The nose was

straight but slightly too bulbous at the end to be pretty.

Only the eyes were striking, darkly fired with anger and

resentment, a redneck rage more suited to a thinner

face. She wore an old-fashioned, high-collared lace

blouse with a black ribbon threaded through the collar

to hold a small cameo to her throat. As I looked at the

face again, the blouse seemed oddly defiant, the face

so determined not to be laughed at that it seemed sad,

too sad.

I knew the story: a nearly pretty girl, but without the

money for the right clothes or· braces or confidence, the

sort of young girl who either lurked about the fringes of

the richer, more popular girls, and was thought pushy

for her efforts, or who stood alone and avoided the

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high school crowd, and for her lonely troubles was

thought stuck-up, stuck on herself without good reason. Ah, the sad machinations of high school. As I stared at the picture, I was once again pleased that I

had missed most of those troubles. I lived in the

country and worked, and although I hadn't exactly

planned it that way, I had joined the Anny three weeks

before I was supposed to graduate. Somehow the GED

I had earned in the Army seemed cleaner than a high

school degree. Less sad, somehow.

"How long ago did she take off?" I asked Rosie, the

photograph dangling from my fingers like a slice of

dead skin.

"Ten years ago come May," she answered as calmly

as if she had said a week ago come Sunday.

"And you haven't heard from her since?" I asked.

"Not a single solitary word."

"Ten years is too long," I said, still trying not to

sound shocked. "Even a year is usually too long, but

ten years is forever."

Once again, though, Rosie acted as if she hadn't

heard me. "She went over to San Francisco one

Saturday afternoon with this boy friend of hers, and he

said she just stepped out of the car at a red light and

walked off without sayin' a word or even lookin' back.

Just walked away. That's what he said."

"Any reason to think he might have lied?"

"No reason," Rosie said. "I've known him all his

life, and his momma's a friend of mine. She's been

fixin' my hair once a week for nearly twenty years. And

Albert, he was tom up by it something terrible. He

kept lookin' for Betty Sue for years after I give up. His

momma says he still asks about her every time she sees

him."

"Did you report it to the police?" I asked.

"Well of course I did," Rosie answered angrily, her

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wrinkled eyes finding an old spark. "What kinda

mother would I be if I hadn't? You think I'd let a

seventeen-year-old girl wander around that damned

city fulla niggers and dope fiends and queers? Of course

I told the police. Half a dozen times." Then in a softer

voice, she added, "Not that they did diddly-squat about

it. I even went over there my own damned self. Twenty,

maybe thirty times. Walked up and down them hills till

I wore out my shoes, and showed pictures of her till I

wore them out. But nobody had seen her. Not a soul."

She paused again. "I just hate that damned city over

there, you know. Wish it would have another earthquake and fall right into the sea. I just hate it. I was raised Church of Christ, you understand, and I know I

ain't got no right to judge, runnin' a beer joint like I do,

but I swear if there's a Sodom and Gomorrah in this

wicked, sinful world, it's a-sittin' over there across the

bay," she said, then pointed a finger like a curse across

the hills. When she saw an amused grin on my face, she

stopped and glared down her sharp nose at me. "You

probably like it over there, don't you? You probably

think it's all right, don't you, all that crap over there?"

"You don't have to get mad at me," I answered.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly, then looked away.