James Crumley - The Final Country

But the strangest message came just about the time I had decided that I was not only going to survive, I was going to enjoy getting even. It came in a registered letter from a lawyer whose name I didn't recognize.

It was a scribbled note from Tom Ben: Well, kid, if you're reading this, I'm dead meat. Hell, I've been half dead since Mary killed herself before I could get back from Korea and beat the shit out of my worthless little brother. But it's too late for regrets. And I don't have the energy for them today. I did as well as I could, given my failures. I'm sure you won't understand what this is about or what's going to happen next, but trust me, I did it in all good faith. For reasons you don't need to know anything about, the girl can't protect my place against the fucking greed-mongering whores. So I'm leaving you my shares in the ranch corporation. And a note with my lawyer. I pray you'll figure out what to do with the land, and maybe with a little luck you can keep them from completely fucking over that small part of the world it has been my pride and joy to inhabit. Good luck, my friend.

The note was signed: Thomas Benjamin Wallingford, Capt. USMC.

I had no idea what it meant then, but when I got hold of his lawyer, I found out. Tom Ben had incorporated the ranch some years before, dividing the shares equally between himself and Betty. He left me his shares, which wouldn't have been a controlling interest, except that, for reasons I didn't understand, and perhaps never would, Betty had outsmarted herself. Every time she cashed one of my rent checks, she transferred ten shares of her stock into my name, so I owned the controlling interest of the corporation. Perhaps trying to protect Tom Ben's ranch from Lomax and Overlord Land and Cattle, thinking I might go up against big money if I had something personal at stake. Just another touch of her desire for a secret life, I assumed. And I was sure that Betty didn't know just how fucking personally I was taking it now. Whatever her reasons, I now owned a controlling interest in Tom Ben's ranch.

Travis Lee showed up unexpectedly a few days later, bearing gifts, a crooked grin, and a complaint. "Hellfire, son, you should have let me know," he said as he stepped into the door. "You look like a man who's been rode hard, put up wet, then run over by a shit-storm."

"I don't have much hospital experience," I admitted. "And I don't want much more." Recovering in an El Paso hospital from a gunshot wound had been enough for me.

"Can't blame you for that," he said. "It's sure as hell hard to get up here in the wintertime. I sure didn't plan on spending a major part of my remaining years in the Salt Lake airport." He nodded toward the snow squall outside my room's windows.

"The price you pay for splendid isolation," I said. "What the hell are you doing up here?"

"Thought you might need something to read," he said, then handed me a sackful of paperback books, canned treats, and two half-pints of vodka.

"Where's the heroin?" I asked, after I glanced through the sack. I had to admit that the small cans of pate, smoked oysters, and clams looked good. Travis Lee had even included a small jar of Dijon mustard and a package of water crackers. "Thanks," I said, oddly touched by the old man's visit. "You came a long way to see me laid up."

"Down at the nurses' station, they said that you're comin' along fine," he expounded. "Said you should be outa here in a couple shakes of a puppy's tail."

"That's not what they tell me," I said. "I'm wearing pieces of my ass on my neck, a dead man's ligament in my knee, and an assortment of screws and pins in my elbow worthy of a hardware store." Then I wondered, "How did you know I was in the hospital?"

"Hell, I don't know," he said, "somebody must have mentioned it. Austin may be on the verge of making Gatlin County look like a city, son, but you know it's a small town as far as gossip goes. And speaking of gossip, I hear you've settled your cash flow problem."

"I don't have a cash flow problem," I said, "so I don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"I'm talking about your sudden acquisition of my brother's ranch."

"Shit, Trav," I said. "That's not gossip, that's criminal behavior. The goddamned will hasn't been probated yet. So how the hell did you know about the will?"

"Word gets around," he said innocently.

"Then maybe you can tell me what the hell Tom Ben had in mind?" I said. "Leaving his place to me?"

"Couldn't speak to that, son," he said, "but I have some idea what that land is worth. Particularly if it's parceled out to the right people at the right time."

"It all seems like a long way away," I said. "I'm going to be in this bed for a time."

"You're coming back to Texas, aren't you?" he said, his face furrowed with worry. "You got a passel of business interests down there, son."

"I don't know what I'm going to do," I said, suddenly very tired and reaching for the nurse's call button. I wasn't going to criticize Tom Ben – he was clearly a man of some honor – but I sure as hell wasn't all that happy about being dropped into the middle of the Wallingford family's troubles. "Right now I'm going to see if I can't beg a shot out of these stingy bastards," I said, "then see about a siesta."

We chatted aimlessly until the nurse came, and I begged like an egg-sucking dog until she gave me a jolt of Demerol just to shut me up. Travis Lee made his exit, explaining that he had spent so much time on the ground at the Salt Lake airport that he had to turn around and head right back to Texas. I wanted to ask him about Sissy Duval, but it slipped my mind. As I drifted off behind the painkiller, I thought that it was nice of Travis Lee to come all the way up here to see me, then I wondered, sleepily, why he had gone to the trouble – he hadn't bothered to mention his investment ideas – but then I let it go as I slipped into the warm, drugged slumber.

Once out of the hospital, I went over to Meriwether to spend a couple of weeks with my ex-partner and his family. Baby Lester wasn't a baby anymore. Which he reminded me every time I slipped and called him that. And they were too busy with law school and a growing Lester to spend much time with me and my problems, and I got tired of watching them try, so I climbed on a plane and hopped back to Texas. I didn't really care if anybody knew I was back, but for some reason I didn't want to return to my room in the Lodge to wait for Tom Ben's will to go into probate. So I rented a car and stopped by my place to check with Lalo and ran into one of my grass widows, Sherry. She invited me up for a drink that turned into a few pleasant days. And nights. Until her big-shot computer-chip-on-the-English-tweed-shoulder husband came back from Boston. Then I crashed with Renfro and Richie at their place off Bee Caves Road for a few more days, but they took such good care of me that I began to feel as if I was either an invalid or a leeching guest at a chichi bed-and-breakfast. A guy can stand out-of-season strawberries and clotted cream for breakfast only so many days in a row.

So I went over to Travis Lee's office to ask him if I could borrow his place down on the Gulf for a few weeks, but he said he was having some work done on the place. When I thought about that last weekend Betty and I had spent there, I decided perhaps I didn't mind too much not going. I asked him if he couldn't get Gatlin County to speed up the probate process.

"Oh, son, I don't know," he groaned, a Confederate cavalry saber balanced on his knee, "down here a favor always calls for a favor in return. You scratch my balls, I'll scratch yours. I strongly suspect those old boys around the courthouse are a little worried that you might be considerin' removing my brother's land from the tax rolls. 'Cause of your former relations with my niece." Travis Lee stood up, holding the old saber in front of him. From this angle I realized that his golden belt buckle wasn't a snake's head but a bullfrog's head, and now I knew what it meant. He pointed the saber at me. "Now if I could go over there and give them some reassurance in this rather important matter," he continued, "I'm sure they would be more than happy to move things along."