'No shit, Sherlock,' Cathy said, laughing. 'Remember. The old jokes are the best.'
'Talk about porcupines,' Betty said from the corner of the room, which was the last thing I remembered until I woke as Cathy removed the needles. I could swear that some of them didn't seem to want to be pulled out.
'What the hell?' I said as she pulled out the last two, which seemed even more reluctant than the others. I felt some sort of electric pull as my skin tented as Cathy lifted the needles.
'Hold still,' Cathy said once the needles were out, moving her hands in the air over my back. 'I'm sweeping your aura clean.'
I probably wouldn't admit it, even under torture, but I felt something, a rippling of skin, a shifting of muscles as Cathy's tiny hands swept over my back.
'What color's his aura?' Betty asked after a stifled laugh.
'You don't want to know,' Cathy said, then slapped me on the butt lightly.
'I'll be damned,' I said as I sat up and swung my legs off the side of the table without help, an errant erection poking its wary head out of my crotch.
'You folks want me to leave you alone?' Cathy asked.
'Milo's on a case,' Betty complained.
As quick as a dragonfly, Cathy's hand flew at my dick and thumped it with her middle finger as she might a watermelon. It throbbed once, then disappeared. 'I hope that's not permanent,' I said as I hopped off the table. Amazingly, not only was the pain in my back gone, but my chest didn't hurt much at all either. Even the nagging burn of the spent.25 round's path through my guts seemed eased. 'I'll be a son of a bitch,' I said.
'You'll be a dead son of a bitch,' Cathy said quietly, 'if you do too much of that cocaine.'
'What?' I said, reaching for my clothes. Cathy pressed one finger lightly into my back behind the liver. I flinched as if she had stuck a knife in me.
'You haven't done too much blow, but it's a bit too close to pure to be completely safe. Where the hell did you get it? I haven't felt anything like that in years.' I didn't think it was any of her business, so I didn't answer. Betty looked worried and started to say something. But Cathy continued quickly, 'Doesn't matter. Just don't do too much, man, quit when it's gone, and don't be buying none of that shit they sell on the street these days. I'll see you next week. You'll be okay for a while, but your back's a real mess. So we need a couple more sessions.'
'What do I owe you?' I asked as I slipped back into my clothes and boots.
'Stop being such a dour son of a bitch,' Cathy said, glancing at Betty. 'Life's too short to be taken that seriously.'
'I'm Slavic,' I said. 'I'm supposed to be dour and serious.'
'You feel more like a black Irishman to me,' Cathy said, laughing.
'That's the American mongrel peeking through,' I said.
'Wear something warm on your back for the next few days. A sweater or a down vest or something like that.' I must have looked confused. Cathy pointed out the glass wall with the northern exposure. A dark band hovered on the horizon. 'Cold rain by dark. Freezing rain by midnight.'
'Thanks for the news.'
'And the next time you want to talk to Sissy Duval,' Cathy said, 'call me, and I'll go along. She owes me big- time.' I assumed that Cathy and Betty had been talking while I had my little nap.
'Owes you?'
'I fixed her orgasms,' Cathy said without a smile.
'I'll keep that in mind,' I said.
'So will I,' Betty giggled from the corner.
'It's happy hour,' Cathy said. 'One martini never hurt anybody.'
By the time we left, my back felt so good I climbed into the driver's seat without thinking about it. 'Are you all right?' Betty asked.
'My back feels like the train wreck never happened.'
'I was thinking about the three martinis,' Betty said.
'Three martinis never hurt anyone my size,' I assured her. 'Besides, we've got a police escort.' I nodded toward the unmarked car parked down the street from Cathy's driveway. We hadn't had any trouble losing the Gatlin County district attorney's investigator on the way to Huntsville, but as soon as we got back in range, the unmarked car latched on to our tail.
'What's wrong with your orgasms?' I asked as we drove away.
'Where'd you get the cocaine?' she replied.
'I took it off a dead man,' I said, hoping she would take it as a joke, knowing she started having trouble with her orgasms after she killed the man who raped her.
The next morning Betty ran out to the ranch to check on her animals, so I slipped into the Lodge's airport van and rented a car when I got there. I didn't want Gatlin County following me when I called on Sissy Duval. No sense helping them make a case against me. I thought about picking up Cathy or the dead man's cocaine, but it wouldn't have mattered. Eldora answered my ring with a frown, as if she expected someone else.
'Mr. Electrolux. I don't know what you did to Mrs. Duval,' she chattered nervously, blocking the doorway and making me stand in the cold rain, 'but last time you paid her a visit, she spent the next three days in bed. Then decided she needed a vacation. She's gone away. On a long trip.'
'Where?'
'None of your business,' Eldora answered, an anxious smile flittering across her face. Then she tried to smirk, but that didn't fit either.
'Thanks,' I grumbled, thinking I should have brought Hangas. Texas wasn't the South, but some people were still Southern.
'She say when she's coming back?'
'No, sir.'
I realized that I'd have more luck squeezing gold from a whore's heart than getting Eldora to talk to me. So I went back to the rented Taurus. I waited in the plain brown sedan until Eldora, just as I expected with Sissy Duval gone, took off before lunch. I followed her new Ford station wagon to the HEB grocery store, then to a small, well-maintained frame house in West Travis Heights.
I called Carver D on my cell phone to leave a message for Hangas, asking him to take a gentle run at Eldora and a brief tour of the black community east of the Interstate for any word of Enos Walker.
'I'll run her through my machine,' Carver D said, 'and in half an hour, we'll know her whole life story.'
'I don't need her life story. I just want to know where her boss is.'
'Grist for the mill, Milo,' Carver D sighed, then laughed.
'And if you can handle it,' I said, 'lend me fifty K for a couple of weeks. Put it into the Mad Dog's offshore account.' Even though he lived like a hermit, Carver D was the last surviving member of a Texas family fortune based on those two popular commodities – pussy and politics – so unlike me he wouldn't have any trouble coming up with fifty K in clean money.
'I thought the fair Phillip had advised you to depart these fair climes,' Carver D said.
'Yeah, but he didn't mean it.'
'At his prices, man, he never says a word he doesn't mean.'
'Tell Hangas I'll call him when I get back tonight.'
'You going anyplace fun?'
'Someplace between Midland and Odessa, actually,' I said. 'Wherever that is.'
'I know exactly where it is and I sure hope you enjoy it without hurting yourself,' Carver D said, then hung up.
I sat in the car, watching the cold rain splatter against the windshield, then I tried Betty on her cell phone. But it was busy, and I didn't bother leaving a message. She was already deep enough in my troubles.
Since I couldn't find a lead on Sissy Duval, I thought I ought to pay a call on Paper Jack, who had insisted that he knew the Molly McBride woman and who, according to the Lodge desk clerk, lived between Midland and Odessa. I still felt good after Cathy's treatment, but not good enough to endure three hundred miles in the cold rain, so I went to the airport, dropped the rental car, hopped a shuttle to Dallas, changed planes, and landed at
