from the back. 'They work you over pretty good?'
'Nothing that will show,' I said.
'What did they do?' Betty said, finally looking at me, her fingers soft on my cheek.
'Nothing I didn't deserve,' I admitted. 'One of theirs is dead. And Fm the chosen asshole.'
'What else?' Wallingford said, sitting up now.
'They're holding the Beast, my license, and my piece,' I said.
'How long?' Betty asked, as if it mattered.
'The Airweight's probably history, and I suspect the Caddy will come back in lots of little pieces. It's just stuff. Fuck it.'
'They can't do that,' Betty said, but neither of us looked at her. We knew they could do damn near anything they wanted.
'You want to give me the rest of it?' Wallingford said. 'The long version.'
'After the emergency room. In the bar,' I said. 'I need something solid to lean on.'
When I didn't show up for my shift, Mike Herrera doubled over without complaint. He even made a joke when I hobbled to the bar on Betty's arm wearing a gray sweat suit we'd picked up at the nearest mall, Wallingford close behind me. But when I didn't smile, Mike closed his face into a well-learned expressionless Mexican mask and brought the drinks without comment as we huddled at the empty end of the bar. We ordered drinks, then I asked Mike for the telephone so I could call the front desk to ask the reception clerk to pull the security tape from Molly McBride's registration, and to make a copy and lock the original in the hotel safe.
I drank the Scotch in one long painful swallow, wiping out the taste of the pissant pain pills, which were all I could talk out of the ER doc. Well, it didn't have to go on too long. I had a stash of codeine in the gun safe on the north side of Austin. Wallingford sipped at a pint of draft beer as Betty stirred her coffee thoughtfully, her face carefully blank after she heard me mention Molly McBride's name. I didn't think much about it at the time, just ordered another Macallan, a water back this time.
'You sure you don't want to sit down?' Betty asked.
'Sitting down is the last thing on my mind.'
'This isn't the best venue to tell your story,' Wallingford suggested.
'Here or nowhere,' I said. 'This is the only time you're going to hear it.' Then I turned to Betty. 'Maybe you better have a drink, too, hon. This isn't going to be pretty.'
Betty ordered a shot of Frangelico, dumped it into her coffee, then stared stiffly into the remains of the sunset. Wallingford reached for his notebook, but I stopped him with a look. Then I ran down the whole sordid story. Betty never flinched. Not even when I finished by saying, 'Please don't ask me if I'm as stupid as I look, because I am. And Betty, before you say anything, I need a quick favor.'
'What?'
'Go in the bathroom. Check the serial number of your revolver against your carry permit.'
'Order me another drink,' she said as she picked up her large purse and walked quickly out of the bar.
'What's that about?' Wallingford wanted to know. 'What's going on?'
'Just hope I'm wrong,' I said, then signaled for another drink.
She seemed to be gone a long time. Travis Lee put his hand on my shoulder, then said, 'Milo, I know this might not seem the right time for this question, but given your troubles, maybe it is. Have you thought any more about that investment opportunity I was tellin' you about?' He had been nagging at me for weeks about some surefire investment he wanted me to help him with. I guess I must have looked at him as if he were insane. 'Another time,' he said quickly, patting me softly on the shoulder.
Betty came back, her tear-stained face white, her fingers trembling as she gunned the liqueur. 'Serial numbers don't match,' she said quietly. 'Guess I should go to the range more often.'
'Right,' I said. 'Shouldn't we all.'
'And it's worse than that,' she said, a sudden blush rising so hard up her face that her freckles nearly disappeared beneath the flushed skin. 'I gave that woman the Annette McBride story,' she said, then paused for a long moment. 'And the dog, I gave her the goddamned dog. She came around saying she was doing a piece for a San Francisco environmental paper about trying to save the Blue Hole, and she pumped it all out of me.' Then she added carefully, 'In a motel room bed. It started when you went to Montana.'
'Wonderful,' I said. 'I'll be fucked.' It was all I could think to say. Her admission hit me like a jolt from the stun gun. Hell, I knew that Betty had slept with several women in the years after she had been raped. But I didn't know what to think about this. I shook my head as if I'd just been hit, then laughed. Or something like a laugh, only hollow and empty, like a sleeping dog's dreaming bark. 'Well, whoever the hell she is and whatever the fuck it is that she does for a living,' I said, 'she's damned good at her job.' Then I barked again.
Betty's eyes brimmed with tears. I had to look away.
'But why?' Wallingford wanted to know.
'I don't know,' I said. 'I don't even know how to begin guessing.'
Wallingford excused himself, leaving Betty and me alone in the uncrowded bar.
A room service waiter came into the bar to hand me a videotape. 'Room clerk says it's in the right place.'
'Thanks,' I said, then when the kid left, turned to Betty, and said as softly as I could, 'And thank you, too.'
'For what?' she asked quietly.
'You didn't have to tell me,' I told her. 'At least now I know that we were both being set up. But I have to admit that I don't know what to think or what to feel or anything. Except maybe I'd like to hit somebody.'
'Hit me.'
'No, I'd rather hit a stranger,' I said. 'Or myself. Fuck it, I'll think about it later.'
Betty didn't say anything, just leaned over to hug me, her wet cheek against mine. I leaned into her body and bit my lip when a series of back spasms hit under her hard embrace, but she felt it, moved her hands lower to knead the jerking muscles.
'I'm off for a couple of days. I could… could stay with you tonight,' she murmured with a soft sob. But she felt me shake my head. 'What the hell, I've already been stood up once today.'
My mind was cluttered with too many things to think about what she had said. One of the things we had fought most often and most bitterly about since I had moved out of the ranch house was Betty's constant refusal to stay with me at the Lodge. 'I don't think so,' I whispered into her shoulder.
Which is how Wallingford found us. 'You folks are crazy,' he said. 'This is no time for spoonin'.'
'Don't be stupid, Uncle Travis,' Betty said over my shoulder. Sometimes she seemed constantly angry at her uncle.
I stood up as straight as I could, took a deep breath that felt as if somebody had hit me in the chest with an axe handle, then leaned heavily on the bar. 'Look, folks,' I said. 'I really appreciate your help. Why don't you two take off? I'm going to have a couple of more drinks, then a double dose of these pissant pain pills, and I'm going to bed. I'll think about all this shit when I wake up. I'll call you two tomorrow.'
Travis Lee slapped me on the shoulder and wished me a good night. Then Betty hugged me again, perhaps harder than she meant to. I sagged against the bar.
'Are you okay?' she asked.
'I'm fucking fine,' I snapped.
They finally left, and I wrapped myself around my Scotch.
Which is how Gannon found me later as he served the search warrant for my room and the court order to confiscate my passport.
'Hell, I don't have even have a passport,' I said – I
'And I'd like you to watch the search,' Gannon said. 'If you don't mind, Mr. Milodragovitch.'
'As long as you'll give me a hand, and I can take my drink,' I said.
'You want your lawyer?' Gannon asked. 'I think I saw him standing around the lobby phone bank.'
'No fucking lawyers,' I said, then held out my elbow for Gannon to grasp.
As Gannon helped me down the hall, he said quietly, 'You're walking like an old man.'
