Some hours later Betty honked at the garage door, then rolled the Caddy through after Red opened it. Then she climbed out looking a bit frazzled, deeply tired, more than slightly hungover, and madder than a flock of constipated hens. She saw Molly stretched out on the workbench, surrounded by fast food wrappers and empty beer cans, and then she really flew off the broom handle.
'You were supposed to wait!' she shouted, ignoring my introductions to the McCraveys.
'It just didn't work out that way, honey,' I said.
'Don't 'honey' me, you son of a bitch!' she shouted. 'You were supposed to wait!'
Then I told her that I'd hoped that she'd help me carry Molly back to a quiet place where we might straighten out some of my questions, and she went off like a rocket. I finally had to drag her to the other side of the garage, so the McCraveys wouldn't have to listen to her tirade.
'If you think I'm riding anywhere with that bitch,' she hissed, 'you've got another goddamned think coming, buddy.'
'So what do you want me to do?'
'Do what you said you would goddamned do,' she said. 'Call the Gatlin County Sheriff's Department, and let them take care of it. We're out of it.'
'She'll end up as dead as her phony sister,' I said.
'You've got me confused with somebody who gives a shit.'
I didn't know exactly what to do with this escalation of her attitude. But I sure as hell didn't like it.
'I guess I'd have to say that you're right,
Betty slapped me so hard my ears rang, then, with tears in her eyes, stormed around me, grabbed her shoulder bag out of the Caddy, then hurried off down the alley.
'You want me to give her a ride, boss?' Red asked quietly behind me as I stepped out the door of the garage.
'Please,' I said. 'I'll pick up the fare.'
'Not a problem,' he said, then hurried after her in the Buick.
I flopped on one of the stools, finally bone-tired. I wondered how she knew that Sylvie Lomax had told me my job was over when I found Molly and called the Gatlin County authorities. But I was just too tired to think about it.
Mrs. McCravey handed me a beer. It was cold comfort but it was all I had. 'How long have you two been together?'
'Not long enough, obviously,' I said. 'Or too long.'
'You sleep with the hooker?'
'Not as many times as she did,' I said. I sounded too bitter even to myself.
'Oh,' Mrs. McCravey said gently. As if that explained everything.
We slumped silently in dim corners of the garage like mourners for what seemed like a long time until Red came back.
'She say anything?' I asked.
'Not even thanks,' Red answered. 'What now?'
'I've got some ideas,' I said. 'But not any good ones.'
After two days and nights under the sedative, when she woke up that first morning she was almost as fuzzy as I was after the long, cocaine-fueled drive from Vegas to Tom Ben's place. The crib set in the front corner of the large unused dairy barn. The windowless walls were steel, as were the bars around the corn crib. The only exits were the locked sliding doors at either end. The faint odor of milk and cowshit drifted out of the large drain that ran down the center of the barn between the unused headstalls.
Without speaking, she took the aspirin and water from my hand, then looked around the small metal corner room, her eyes moving slowly over the comforts of home: a port-a-potty, a milk-house heater, an upright cooler with hot and cold running water, a small chest of drawers with a mirror on top, a small refrigerator with a television on top, and the metal cot she lay on. She leaned down to stretch, touching her feet, finding the thick socks, the sweat pants, and the shackle on her left ankle. Then she touched the bandage on the right side of her face.
'What the hell?' she said, then focused on my face. 'You son of a bitch,' she said softly. 'I should have known.' Then glancing around the room again, she spotted the pile of unshucked corn in the far corner. 'Oh, shit,' she moaned. 'Not again.'
'A little more comfortable than your last visit,' I said. 'What do you want me to call you?'
'What?'
'Your name,' I said. 'You seem to have several.'
'Call me 'shit out of luck,'' she grouched.
'Okay, shit.'
'Just call me Molly,' she said. 'Where's your stuffy girlfriend? You guys looking for a menage a trois? You didn't have to kidnap me. I'm a working girl. To tell the truth, though, I don't think she really gets off on girls.' I let her ramble on until she either ran out of energy or lost track of the thought. She recovered quickly, though, a crooked smile blossomed on her face, and her eyes brightened as the drug flushed out of her system. 'Where are my contacts?' she said. 'And what the fuck do you want?'
'Just a couple of answers,' I said as I pitched her purse to her. 'Everything's in there. Except your little gun.' I had put her derringer in my war bag. 'We can get this over quickly. Just a couple of questions.'
'You're more likely to get me to fuck that old man again, or one of his goats, than get me to answer a question,' she said.
'I can be an unpleasant guy,' I said. 'Ask your Daddy. When he can talk again.'
'Maybe you are an unpleasant guy,' she said. 'But listen, you jerk, I slept with you. I know you. I'd bet my life that you don't have it in you to really hurt me. As long as I don't try to hurt you.'
'That's an interesting approach to reality,' I said.
'What the hell happened to Jimmy Fish?' she said, touching the bandage again. 'And my face?'
'Jimmy decided to defend your honor, I guess.'
'What?'
'He came out of the house shooting. A fragment of one of his rounds poked a tiny hole in your ear and a little scratch across the top of your cheek.'
'Stupid asshole,' she said, touching her face again. 'Is my face going to be all right?'
'The slice on your cheek is clean. The scar will give you character. Like the one at the corner of your mouth,' I said. 'But I fear the hole he put in your ear is sort of permanent.'
'I hope you put a round in his fat head.'
'Actually, in his fat thigh.'
'You should have killed him. He turned out to be a hitter in middle age,' she said. 'He used to just want to spank me, but lately he's taken up hitting.'
'Maybe I should have brought him along.'
'Wouldn't have done you any good, man. You might beat the shit out of me for a month of Sundays,' she said, 'but the people who hired me would run me through a limb chipper. Alive. After half the Third World gangsters in South-Central had a piece of my ass.'
'Don't give me any ideas.'
'What the hell are you so mad about, anyway?' she asked. 'You got a prime piece of ass, and you must have broken up with what's-her-name.'
'They didn't mention anything about blowing my head off?'
She paused a moment, reconsidered her position, then shook her head. 'That was a surprise. I didn't know about it until that doofus cop said something about it that morning.'
'What did he say?'
'First, you. Then me. Eventually.'
'Lovely.'
