Don Winslow - Way Down on the High Lonely

“Or is she your woman now?” the nice guy demanded.

“I think she’s probably her own woman,” Neal said, trying to keep his voice low and calm, because maybe if he kept it low enough, no one would hear it shaking. He saw Steve Mills work his way toward the front of the crowd and place himself between Cal Strekker and the impromptu boxing ring. The band had come to the end of the slow song and didn’t bother to start a new one. New Red was probably searching his memory for a country-western dirge.

“You want to take this outside, or settle it right here?” Charlie demanded.

“Uhh… what’s behind door number three?”

There was a titter of laughter from the crowd, but no one stepped forward to stop the upcoming fight.

I don’t believe this, Neal thought. Stuff like this just doesn’t happen. This is so goddamn stupid.

“I’m going to beat the shit out of you,” said Charlie.

Why does everybody want to beat the shit out of me tonight? “Too late,” Neal said. “You already scared the shit out of me.”

Another chuckle from the onlookers. Charlie wasn’t laughing, though, he just looked puzzled.

“Are you afraid to fight me?” he asked. It was the ultimate challenge.

“Of course I’m afraid to fight you. I’m a lousy fighter and fighting hurts, even when you win. I never fight unless I absolutely have to.”

“You’re chicken, yellowbelly!”

“You’re not really getting it, are you, Charlie? And by the way, that was a mixed metaphor.”

Neal felt that awful sensation of having every eye in the place on him, including Karen’s.

“Hold on a second, Charlie,” he said, giving him the time-out signal before turning back to Karen. “Do you want me to fight him? Something about your honor or my honor or something?”

“Of course not. Would you fight him just because I wanted you to?”

“Of course not. Do you want to just get out of here?”

Charlie put his hands up and started forward.

“Just a second, Charlie,” Neal said. “Can’t you see I’m having a conversation here? Jesus.”

Charlie stopped cold, his hands still up in the fighting position.

“Yes,” Karen said, “I would like to get out of here.”

“Let’s go,” Neal said, taking her arm. As they walked past Charlie, he said, “See? You lost.”

As they went through the swinging doors into the street, Neal could hear the roar of laughter from the bar and the music starting up again. Well, he thought, John Wayne might not have approved, but Cary Grant would have loved it.

Karen pushed him up against a pickup parked along the sidewalk.

“That,” she said, “was great.”

She grabbed his face with both her hands and kissed him long and hard.

“You’re not going back to that stupid cabin tonight,” she said.

“I’m not?”

“No, you’re not.”

“Tell me,” she said as she nestled in his arm under the sheets of her old iron frame bed, “if it isn’t too personal a question, how long has it been since you… uh…”

“Since I was with somebody?”

“Okay.”

“Almost four years.”

She thought about that for a couple of seconds.

“Well, that explains it,” she said, and then she started to laugh. She laughed until her body shook and he started laughing, and they laughed until she reached for him and observed, “Well, there are some good things about this four-year gap, too. Lucky me.”

So much for my monklike existence, Neal thought. Good riddance.

Joe Graham meandered out of his cheap room into downtown Hollywood, which looked like a lot of downtowns on a late Saturday night. The winners had already gone home, the losers sulked in anticipation of the dreaded “last call.” The cops pulled out of the doughnut shops to collect their quotas of Dill’s along the strips, the emergency room crews took a breather in the last quiet minutes before closing time brought the rush hour of stitches and cold compresses. On the sidewalks, the working girls circled like vultures, waiting to feed on the defeated men who were skulking away from the singles bars still single. In the back rooms of the biker clubs the boys made low-ball dope deals, while heavy metal teenagers in sleeveless T-shirts scuffled to pick up nickel bags of grass. In gravel parking lots old rivalries burst into new fights, and in the AA club the old-timers and the newcomers drank coffee, smoked cigarettes, and thanked their higher powers that for this twenty-four hours, anyway, they were out of it, out of the old cycle of fresh hopes and stale disappointments that was Saturday night in America.

Back on The High Lonely, Neal Carey slept in Karen Hawley’s warm arms and warm bed, while out on the sagebrush flats the coyotes sniffed, pawed, and whined in an excitement that turned into a howling frenzy.

Don Winslow

Way Down on the High Lonely

Neal found Harley McCall the next afternoon.

He might have found him in the morning, except that he stayed late in Karen Hawley’s bed. He woke to the sound of wind chimes and water. The chimes jangled in Karen’s small backyard; the water came from Karen vigorously brushing her teeth in the bathroom two giant steps from the bed.

Karen’s house occupied a little knoll on the north edge of town. It was a small, white one-story clapboard affair, a little ramshackle on the outside but clean and well furnished. Her small kitchen had all of the modern appliances, the living room had a sofa that looked new, an expensive stereo system, and well-framed Gorman prints on the wall. The bedroom was just large enough for the bed and a chest of drawers.

“Can I give you a lift back out to the Mills’?” she asked as she came back into the bedroom. Then she added, “I have lesson plans to do.”

“If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind. After all, I practically kidnapped you.”

She gave him a breakfast of blueberry muffins and coffee, then gave him the ride back out to the Mills’ place.

“You don’t mind if I don’t come in,” she said as she pulled into their drive. “I don’t think I could stand to see Peggy’s smug smile.”

“Your honor is safe with me.”

“Better not be.” She kissed him lightly. “So I think one of us is supposed to say ‘When will I see you again?’”

“When will I see you again?”

“When do you want to?” Karen asked.

“I usually get into town on Saturdays.”

“You should get a car.”

“I should.”

Somehow they had started kissing again, and somewhere in there they agreed to see each other on Saturday, unless Karen had a chance to pop out to the ranch before that. And somewhere in there-maybe it was while looking at her smiling eyes-Neal felt a tug he hadn’t felt in a long time. Maybe he had never felt it before.

Neal got out of the car, Karen put the Jeep into a swift and skillful K-turn, and Peggy Mills made a precisely timed appearance on the porch under the guise of shaking out a rug.

“Next time you see Karen,” she said as Neal tried to sneak past the house, “you tell her I said she’s a coward. You are seeing her again, aren’t you?”

“Saturday.”

“You’d better work that smile down before your face breaks in half,” Peggy said. “You be good to her.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Peggy rolled her eyes, smiled at him, and disappeared back into the house. Neal figured that she wouldn’t let Steve come out and make any smart remarks.

Neal hiked back toward the cabin. He was almost there when the coyote appeared.

“Sorry I’m late,” Neal said.

The animal ignored him. It was acting strangely, prancing around the brush, tossing its head and celebrating like a dog with a bone. Neal looked closer and saw that it did have something in its mouth. The coyote tossed its head again, almost as if it were trying to show off its acquisition.