The Final Country Read Free

Walker shoved the pistol under his belt, slipped on his shades, and said, “You ain’t finished your drink, old man.”
    “I think I’ve had enough,” I said. Unfortunately, getting older had not made me any smarter.
    “Don’t push your luck.”
    “Fuck it,” I said and left the drink on the bar.
    “Maybe you ain’t as smart as I thought you were, old man,” he said.
    “I expect that wasn’t your first mistake today.”
    That nearly kicked it into the cesspool. But suddenly Enos Walker grinned and placed his hands gently on my shoulders, smiled, then said, “You got balls, old man.” Then he laughed his bitter, hopeless, hard-timer breath right into my face, breath as rank as the winter den of a grizzly. He picked up my drink, slowly poured it down his throat, grabbed the remains of the bottle from the bartender, then left without a backward glance. As he hit the door, the bartender let out his breath, then leaned against the back bar while he guzzled another drink. I headed to the back to check the damage, which was, as I suspected, extensive.
    Long had been a tall man with long gray hair, perhaps even good-looking before the muzzle blast had burned off his face and the heavy round had scattered the back half of his head all over the whorehouse wallpaper and a Troy Aikman poster behind him. A clot of hairy gray matter hung from the quarterback’s upper lip like an incipient mustache. I thought the kid looked better with some hair on his face.
    The bartender peeked around the edge of the office door, then hit the floor in a dead faint. I checked his pulse and made sure that he hadn’t swallowed his tongue, then pulled him over to the side and propped up his feet on a chair. As I did, a meaty fart fizzled out of his backside.
    I went back to the office. From the look of the desk — cluttered with scales, folded and unfolded Snowseal bindles, milk sugar, and a Jack Daniel’s bar mirror — Long had been cutting cocaine and breaking it down into grams, but there was no sign of the source, an ounce bag at least, which was probably riding away in Enos Walker’s leather pocket. The right-hand drawer of the desk was partially open; an empty cash box, a Rolodex, and a partial box of .50 Magnum pistol rounds were visible.
    “Stupid bastard,” I said, but wasn’t sure who I was talking to. Because I used the nail of my little finger to flip through the Rolodex to the Ds and wrote down the telephone and address of the only Duval listed, somebody named Sissy. But that wasn’t the real stupid part. I wrote it down on the back of the largest bindle, the one that had “mine” scrawled on it. Maybe it’s a clue, I thought, as I shoved the bindle into my shirt pocket.
    * * *
    The battered black guy in the Cowboys jersey had disappeared when I went back through the empty joint. I picked up the only purse I saw and a custom cue case with CJW embossed on it. Outside, Carol Jean leaned against the fender of the El Dorado, looking sweetly befuddled, the tip of her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth as she concentrated, twirling her cue like a demented majorette.
    “Took you long enough,” she said, not looking at me. “I would have gone with that big black dude. But he didn’t ask.”
    “A piece of luck, sugar.”
    “What the hell happened in there, anyway?” she asked. “Sounded like a bomb or something.”
    “Something,” I said. “You got wheels?”
    “Nope. I came with Vernon, but he jumped in his pickup and took off like a spotted-ass ape.”
    “How about money?”
    “Baby Joe sent you, huh?” Carol Jean said as she dangled the twenty from her crimson nails.
    I nodded as I dug out another one, then handed it to her. “Listen, kid, carry your ass over to that telephone booth across the street,” I said, “and call a cab.”
    “Shit, man, I can get a ride.”
    “I’ll just bet your sweet ass you can,” I said, “and that’s probably a better idea anyway. Go home to the hubby, lie