The Last Good Kiss Read Free Page A

reluctance to her
    blush, and for an instant the face of a younger, prettier
    woman blurred her wrinkles. She patted her gray curls,
    then reached under the bar and came up with a
    nickel-plated .380 Spanish automatic pistol so ancient
    and ill-used that the plate had peeled away like cheap
    paint.
    "Don't look like much," Lester admitted gamely,
    "but she's got the trigger sear filed down to a nubbin,
    and that sumbitch is just as liable to shoot nine times as
    once." He turned to point across the bar to a cluster of
    unmended bulletholes between two windows above a
    ratty booth. "She ain't had to touch it off but one damn
    10
    time, mister, but I swear when she reaches under the
    bar, things do tend to get downright peaceful in here."
    "Like a church," I said.
    "More like a graveyard," Lester amended. "Ain't no
    singin' at all, just a buncha silent prayers." Then he
    laughed wildly, and I toasted his mirth.
    Rosie held the pistol in her rough hands for a
    moment more, then she sat it back under the bar with a
    thump.
    "'Course I got me a real pistol at home," Lester said
    smugly.
    "A German Luger," I said without thinking.
    "How'd you know?" he asked suspiciously.
    The real answer was that I had spent my life in bars
    listening to war stories and assorted lies, but I lied and
    told Lester that my daddy had brought one back from
    the war.
    "Got mine off'n a Kraut captain at Omaha Beach,"
    he said, his nose tilted upward as if my daddy had won
    his in a crap game. "No-rmandy invasion," he added.
    "You must have been pretty young," I said, then
    wished I hadn't. People like Lester might tell a windy
    tale now and again, but only a damn fool would bring it
    to their attention.
    Lester stared at me a long time to see if I meant to
    call him a liar, then with practiced nonchalance he said,
    "Lied about my age." Then he asked, "You ever been
    in the service?"
    "No, sir," I lied. "Flat feet."
    "4-F, huh," he said, tr}'ing not to sound too superior.
    "Oney here, he's 4-F too, but it weren't his feet, it was
    his head."
    "Ain't going off to no damn army," Oney said
    seriously, then he glanced around as if the draft board
    might still be on his tail.
    "Ain't even no draft no more," Lester said, then
    snorted at Oney's ignorance.
    11

    "Yeah," Oney said sadly. "By god they oughtta go
    over there to San Francisco and draft up about a
    hunnert thousand a them goddamned hairy hippies."
    "Now, that's the god's truth," Lester said, and
    turned to me. "Ain't it?" His eyes narrowed at the
    three-day stubble on my chin as if it were an incipient
    beard.
    For a change, I kept my mouth shut and nodded. But
    not emphatically enough to suit Lester. He started to
    say something, but I interrupted him as I excused
    myself and walked over toward Trahearne. Behind me,
    Lester muttered something about goddamned goldbrickin' 4-F hippies, but I acted as if I hadn't heard. I reached over and tapped Trahearne on the shoulder,
    and his great bald head swiveled slowly, as if it were as
    heavy as lead. He raised an eyebrow, wriggled a
    pleasant little smile onto his face, shrugged, then
    toppled backward off the bar stool. I caught a handful
    of his shirt, but it didn't even slow him down. He
    landed flat on his back, hard, like a two-hundred-fiftypound sack of cement. Rafters and window lights rattled, spurts of ancient dust billowed from between
    the floorboards, and the balls on the pool table danced
    merrily across the battered felt.
    As I stood there stupidly with a handful of dirty
    khaki in my right hand, Lester leaped off his stool and
    shouted, "What the hell did you do that for?"
    "Do what?"
    "Hit that old man like that," Lester said, his Adam's
    apple rippling up and down his skinny throat like a
    crazed mouse. "I ain't never seen nothin' as chickenshit
    as that."
    "I didn't hit him," I said.
    "Hell, man, I seen you."
    "I'm sorry but you must have been mistaken," I said,
    trying to be calm and rational, which is almost always a
    mistake in