“Heap good, red man,” he said. “Paleface workem ass off today.” He talked loudly, aware of an audience, assuming his Lone Ranger Indian dialect was funny. He turned around on the barstool, hooked his elbows over the bar and surveyed the room. “How’s the quiff situation, Rudy?” he said.
“Same as always, Eddie. You don’t usually seem to have any trouble.” Eddie was staring across the room at two college-age girls drinking Tom Collinses. I got up and walked down the bar and slipped onto the stool beside him. I said, “You Eddie Taylor?”
“Who wants to know?” he said, still staring at the girls.
“There’s a fresh line,” I said.
He turned to look at me now. “Who the hell are you?”
I took a card out of my jacket pocket, handed it to him. “I’m looking for Pam Shepard,” I said.
“Where’d she go?” he said.
“If I knew I’d go there and look for her. I was wondering if you could help me.”
“Buzz off,” he said and turned his stare back at the girls.
“I understand you spent the night with her just before she disappeared.”
“Who says?”
“Me, I just said it.”
“What if I did? I wouldn’t be the first guy. What’s it to you?”
“Poetry,” I said. “Pure poetry when you talk.”
“I told you once, buzz off. You hear me. You don’t want to get hurt, you buzz off.”
“She good in bed?”
“Yeah, she was all right. What’s it to you?”
“I figure you had a lot of experience down here, and I’m new on the scene, you know? Just asking.”
“Yeah, I’ve tagged a few around the Cape. She was all right. I mean for an old broad she had a nice tight body, you know. And, man, she was eager. I thought I was gonna have to nail her right here in the bar. Ask Rudy. Huh, Rudy? Wasn’t that Shepard broad all over me the other night?”
“You say so, Eddie.” Rudy was cleaning his thumbnail with a matchbook cover. “I never notice what the customers do.”
“So you did spend the night with her?” I said.
“Yeah. Christ, if I hadn’t she’d have dropped her pants right here in the bar.”
“You already said that.”
“Well, it’s goddamned so, Jack, you better believe it.” Eddie dropped another shot of bar whiskey and sipped at a second beer chaser that Rudy had brought without being asked.
“Did you know her before she picked you up?”
“Hell, I didn’t pick her up, she picked me up. I was just sitting here looking over the field and she came right over and sat down and started talking to me.”
“Well, then, did you know her before she picked you up?”
Eddie shrugged, and gestured his shot glass at Rudy. “I’d seen her around. I didn’t really know her, but I knew she was around, you know, that she was easy tail if you were looking.” Eddie drank his shot as soon as Rudy poured it, and when he put the glass back on the bar Rudy filled it again.
“She been on the market long,” I said. Me and Eddie were really rapping now, just a couple of good old boys, talking shop. Eddie drained his beer chaser, burped loudly, laughed at his burp. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to dazzle him with my sophistication.
“On the market? Oh, you mean, yeah, I get you. No, not so long. I don’t think I noticed her or heard much about her before this year. Maybe after Christmas, guy I know banged her. That’s about the first I heard.” His tongue was getting a little thick and his S’s were getting slushy.
“Was your parting friendly?” I said. “Huh?”
“What was it like in the morning when you woke up and said goodbye to each other?”
“You’re a nosy bastard,” he said and looked away, staring at the two college girls across the room.
“People have said that.”
“Well, I’m saying it.”
“Yes, you are. And beautifully.”
Eddie turned his stare at me. “What are you, a wise guy?”
“People have said that too.”
“Well, I don’t like wise guys.”
“I sort of figured you wouldn’t.”
“So get lost or I’ll knock you on your ass.”
“And I sort of figured you’d put it just that way.”
