James Crumley - The Final Country

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?"