The Last Good Kiss Read Free Page B

situations like this.
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    "You callin' me a liar?" Lester asked as he doubled
    his fists.
    "Not at all," I said, then I made another mistake as I
    stepped back to the bar for my beer: I tried to explain
    things. "Listen, I'm a private investigator, and this
    gentleman's ex-wife hired me to ... "
    "What's the matter," Lester sneered, "he behind in
    his goddamned al-i-mony, huh? I know your kind,
    buddy. A rotten, sneaky sumbitch just like you tracked
    me all the way down to my mama's place in Barstow
    just 'cause l's a few months behind paying that whore I
    married, and let me tell you I kicked his ass then, and I
    got half a mind to kick yours right here and now."
    "Let's just calm down, huh," I said. "Let me buy you
    boys a beer and I'll tell you all about it. Okay?"
    "You ain't gonna tell me shit, buddy," Lester said,
    and as if that weren't enough, he added, "and I don't
    drink with no trash."
    "I don't want no trouble in here," Rosie interjected
    quietly.
    "No trouble," I said. Lester and Oney might have
    comic faces, funny accents, and bad teeth, but they also
    had wrists as thick as cedar fence-posts, knuckled,
    work-hardened hands as lumpy as socks full of rocks,
    and a lifetime of rage and resentment. I grew up with
    folks like this and I knew better than to have any
    serious disagreements with them. "No trouble at all," I
    said. "I'll just leave."
    "That ain't near good enough," Lester grunted as he
    took two steps toward me and a wild swing at my face.
    I ducked, then backhanded him upside the head with
    the half-full beer bottle. His right ear disappeared in a
    shower of bloody foam, and he fell sideways, scrabbled
    across the floor, cupping his ear and cursing. Oney
    stood up, then sat back down when he saw the bru&en
    bottle in my hand.
    "Is that good enough?" I asked.
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    Oney agreed with a nervous nod, but Lester had just
    peeked into his palm and found bits and pieces of his
    ear.
    In a high, thin voice, he shouted, "Goddammit,
    Oney, get the gun!"
    Behind me, I heard Trahearne stand up and dreamily
    wonder what the hell had happened. But nobody
    answered him. Oney and Rosie and I were locked into
    long silent stares. Then we all moved at once. Rosie
    dashed down the bar toward the automatic as Oney
    scrambled over it. I glanced at the bulldog, who still
    slept like a rock, then I lit out for open country. I would
    have made it, too, but good ol' Lester rolled over and
    hooked a shoulder into my right knee. We went down
    in a heap. Right on his ruined ear. He whimpered but
    held on. Even after I stood up and jerked out a handful
    of his dirty hair.
    Behind the bar, Rosie and Oney still struggled for
    the pistol. Trahearne had sobered up enough to see it,
    but as he tried to run, he crashed into the pool table,
    then tried to scramble under it just as Oney jerked the
    pistol out of Rosie's hands and shoved her away. As she
    fell, she screamed, "Fireball!" I gave up and raised my
    hands, resigned myself to an afternoon of fun and
    games in payment for Lester's ear. But as Oney lifted
    the pistol and thumbed the safety, Fireball came out of
    a dead sleep and cleared the bar in a single bound like a
    flash of fat gray light. Still in midair, he locked his
    stubby yellow teeth into Oney's back at that tender spot
    just below the short ribs and above the kidney. Oney
    grunted like a man hit with a baseball bat, dropped his
    arms, and blanched so deeply that ancient acne scars
    glowed like live coals across his face. He grunted again,
    sobbed briefly, then jerked the trigger.
    The first round blew off a significant portion of his
    right foot, the second wreaked a foamy havoc in the
    cooler, and the third slammed through the flimsy
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    beaverboard face of the bar and slapped Mr. Abraham
    Trahearne right in his famous ass. The fourth powdered
    the fourteen ball, the fifth knocked out a window light,
    and the rest ventilated the roof.
    When the clip finally emptied, Oney sank slowly
    behind the bar, the automatic