Free The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley Page B

in
    next fall's medical school class out at Davis. Thanks to
    Betty Sue, it's taken me ten extra years to get started,
    but now I'm finally going to make it."
    "Good luck," I said.
    "Thank you," he muttered, not noticing my irony.
    "Anything else?"
    "One more question," I said, "which I hate to ask,
    but I really would appreciate an answer. "
    "What's that?" he asked, then saw the two glasses in
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    his hands. He still didn't give me mine. "And why do
    you hate to ask it?"
    "I heard a rumor that Betty Sue had made some fuck
    films in San Francisco."
    "That's so absurd I won't even bother to answer," he
    said, and finally ga�e me my drink.
    "You don't know anything about that, huh?" I asked
    as I stood up and put some ice in the warm whiskey.
    "Don't be ridiculous," he said, facing me across an
    expanse of Persian carpet.
    "Okay," I said. "Do you remember a girl named
    Peggy Bain?"
    "Of course. She was Betty Sue's best friend. Only
    friend, I guess."
    "You wouldn't know where she's living?"
    "Actually, I might," he said. "I handled a divorce for
    her some years ago, and she sends me a Christmas card
    once in a while." He stepped over to the desk and
    thumbed through his Rolodex, then wrote an address
    and telephone number on a card with his little gold pen.
    The simple chore had restored some of his fac;ade, but
    his knuckles were white around his glass when he
    picked it up. "Two years ago she was livirig at this
    address in Palo Alto. If you see her, please give her my
    regards. "
    "Thanks," I said, " I will."
    "Say," he said too loudly, "let's sit down and have a
    drink. Pleasure instead of business."
    "No thanks," I said, setting my unfinished Scotch on
    the coffee table. "I've got a date."
    "Me too," he said sourly as he checked his watch.
    "With my wife." We shook hands as he led me toward
    the door, then he held my hand and asked, "Would you
    do me a favor?"
    "What's that?"
    "If you should, through some insane circumstance,
    find Betty Sue, would you let me know?"
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    "Not for love or money," I said, and took back my
    fingers.
    "Why's that?" he asked, confused and nearly crying.
    "Let me tell you a story," I said, which didn't help
    his confusion. "When I was twelve, my daddy was
    working on a ranch down in Wyoming, west of a hole in
    the road called Chugwater, and I spent the summer up
    there with him-my momma and daddy didn't live
    together, you see-and my daddy was crazy, had this
    notion, which he made up out of whole cloth, that he
    was part Indian. Hell, he took to wearing braids and
    living in a teepee and claiming he was a Kwahadi
    Comanche, and since I was his only son, I was too. And
    that summer I was twelve, he sent me on a vision quest.
    Three days and nights sitting under the empty sky, not
    moving, not eating or sleeping. And you know something? It worked."
    "I'm not sure I understand what you're telling me,"
    he said seriously.
    "Well, it's like this," I said. "I had a vision. And I've
    been having them ever since."
    "So?"
    "You know, when you were telling me about those
    Jane Does and those rubber sheets, I had another
    one," I said.
    "Of what?"
    "I saw your face all scrunched up in disappointment
    every time you dido 't find her under that r�bber
    sheet," I said, and he understood immediately. After
    two years on the couch, he had begun to have visions of
    his own. "I know you're a nice person and all that and
    that you didn't mean to feel that way, but you did, and
    if I find her, -you'Jl never hear about it from me."
    "Why are you doing this to me?" he screamed, but I
    shut the door in his face. I didn't have a vision for that
    yet.
    As I opened the outside door, I held it for a thin,
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    lovely woman with fragile features and a brittle smile.
    She thanked me with a voice so near to hysteria that I
    nearly ran to my El Camino. No visions, no poetry for
    her. Just a road beer for me. I sat for a bit, holding the
    beer from the small cooler sitting in the passenger seat
    like an alien pet,