8••••

BETWEEN DRUNKS AND HANGOVERS, IT TOOK TRAHEARNE and me two days to drive to Bakersfield, but as we drove from the motel to Betty Sue’s father’s place, we were both sober and not in any great pain, which was good because his place looked like the sort of dance hall and bar where a man wanted his wits about him when he went inside. The marquee promised dancing nightly to the strains of Jimmy Joe Flowers and the Pickers, and the bar, a cinder-block square building in the middle of a parking lot, promised all the trouble you could handle. Since it was early, though, we went inside with the lunch rush—two welders and a traveling salesman who wanted beers and Slim Jims. The daytime bartender told me that Mr. Flowers usually came in about one-thirty, and sure enough at two o’clock sharp, his ostrich-skin boots thumped through the doorway. Ostrich skin makes a lovely boot leather—if you like leather that looks as if the animal had died of terminal acne—and it went well with Flowers’ wine Western-cut double-knit leisure suit, just as his suit matched the woman who followed him.

Flowers was all happy handshakes and smiles until I showed him my license and told him what I wanted. Then he frowned and led his secretary into the closet he called his office. When I didn’t follow on his heels, he stepped back out and waved me hastily inside. He said he had something he wanted to say to me. At some length.

“Ungrateful little bitch,” he said, then slapped his flimsy desk. “I never thought a child of mine would turn out to be a hippie, you know, never thought it for a minute. I mean, what the hell, I like to see kids have a good time, but they got to work for it, and you know, I lost a boy over there in Vietnam, and might have lost the other one, but he had a bum knee, and here I tum around and find this damned hippie for a daughter. I mean, you know, first I hear she’s run off without finishing school—and you know how important an education is nowadays—and here I am her own loving father, you know, and I don’t hear a single solitary word from her for four, maybe five years, then one night she calls, collect, mind you, and wakes me out of a dead sleep.” He paused to look up at his secretary. “You remember that, don’t you, honey?” he said to her, and she reached down to pat his freshly shaven and powdered cheek as if the effort of waking up had been just more than he could bear.

“And you know what she wants?” he asked me suddenly. He didn’t give me time to answer. “Money, by god, she wants money so she can leave that damned dirty commune where’s she been shacked up like some animal.” He paused to shake his head. “And you know what I told her?” I didn’t make a move. “I told her that I hadn’t sent her a single thin dime to get herself into trouble, and I wasn’t going to send a damned cent to get her out. Not by a damned sight I wasn’t, you know what I mean.”

Even if he knew anything else, Betty Sue’s father wasn’t going to tell me, so I didn’t have to be nice for effect. “You mean those dirty hippies were probably stuffing drugs up their noses, too,” I said.

“You got a smart mouth, fella,” he said, his eyes as flat as yesterday’s beer. Then he smiled with just his mouth. “But that’s okay, because you must have a smart head on your shoulders to come into town and tell me that.”

“Peggy Bain told me,” I said, not wanting him to think I was too smart.

Flowers sighed heavily, as if the conversation had been the hardest work he had done in years. His secretary patted his shoulder again. “Remember your heart, honey,” she murmured. She had dressed for the occasion too, but her idea of a sex kitten looked like something the cat had dragged in.

“Most drugs make you stupid,” he lectured me, “but cocaine is a smart man’s high. You have to be smart to enjoy it and rich to afford it.”

“A man in my business needs his wits,” I said, “so I don’t know anything about drugs.”

“I can see that,” he said scornfully. “How much is Rosie paying you for this wild goose chase?”

“Not nearly enough,” I said, meaning to insult him.

“She was always tight with a dollar bill,” he said ignoring my tone. “Goddamned old woman.”

“Well, her place isn’t doing as well as yours,” I said. “You must have done well in the aluminum cookware business.”

“How would you like that smart mouth on the other side of your head, fella?” he said quietly. “Or maybe one of your legs busted at the kneecap.”

“You’d need help,” I said stupidly.

“All I have to do is snap my fingers,” he said as he held up his hand. “You know what I mean?”.

“You have the right connections, right?”

“You could say that.”

“What’s a good ol’ boy like you doing with connections like that?” I asked pleasantly. “Making a living,” he said.

“Okay,” I said, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t let the door hit you in the butt on the way out,” he said.

“Give my best to the family,” I said, then left. He could have been bluffing, but I didn’t want to find out. I made a quick exit, which made Traheame happy.

“This place gives me the creeps,” he said as we left.

“Me too,” I said, and on the way to the car I told him why.

Since I needed some time to think about Betty Sue Flowers, and since Trahearne demanded a few days of luxurious recuperation, we drove straight through to San Francisco, and he checked us into a suite at the St. Francis.

Some time for reflection and recuperation. Cigarettes and whiskey and wild, wild women. One commercial type spent the whole time babbling in my ear about her shrink, so I faked an orgasm for her and hid in the shower until she went about her business. Then there was a lady poet, an old friend ofTrahearne’s, who was so mean that she scared me into hurrying. Hiding in the shower didn’t help a bit. She came in and gave me an endless lecture on my responsibility to women in general and herself in particular. Somewhere in the drunken blur, Trahearne walked oft the balcony bar in the lobby and fell headfirst into a rubber tree, much to the consternation of the management. Somehow, I drove his convertible into the rear of a cable car. Nobody was hurt, but I had to endure a monsoon of abuse about trying to destroy a national monument. The conductor and his passengers acted as if I had run over a nun. The worst thing that happened, though, was that Fireball took to wearing a rhinestone collar and drinking Japanese beer.

One afternoon, it finally came to an end. Fireball was drinking water out of the toilet bowl, a naked blond woman wearing red boots slept on the couch in an extremely revealing position, and the suite smelled like a Tenderloin flophouse.

“This is no way for a grown man to live,” Trahearne announced as he woke me up. “Let’s go home,” he said.

“Home’s where you hang your hangover,” I said.

“Let’s have more movement, jack, and less piss-ant redneck homilies,” he grumbled, holding his head very carefully.

When he decided he wanted to go home, Trahearne wasn’t about to wait for anything. Not even to wake up the blond lady. He griped about the length of time it took me to pack, then he whined all the way to Sonoma as I detoured by Rosie’s to drop off her dog and pick up a tow bar and my El Camino. But there was a strange woman behind the bar. She told me Rosie was asleep in her trailer house, and not to bother her, but I had to.

Rosie came to the door after Fireball and I had spent several minutes standing on the steps. She was hastily wrapped in a faded purple chenille bathrobe, her hair tangled with sleep and sweat. Fireball elbowed past me and trotted toward the rear of the trailer, where the sounds of masculine snoring rumbled.

“What the hell’s that thing around his neck?” she asked, not sounding all that happy to see me. “You shoulda called, gimme a chance to clean up,” she added.

“Sorry,” I said, “but I didn’t know we were coming until a few minutes ago.” “Been on a toot, huh?”

“Had about as much fun as a man can stand,” I said.

“You find my baby girl?” she asked.

I shook my head and looked down. Rosie tried to hide her long, crooked yellow toenails, first with one foot, then the other. I looked back up.

“You come up with any leads?” she asked. “One rumor,” I said, “that she was living up in Oregon six or seven years ago.” “Where’d you hear that?” Rosie looked puzzled. “From her daddy.”

“You talk to that worthless bastard?” she asked. “Just about as long as I could,” I said.

“How’s he doing?”

“Got his own band,” I said, “and a place to play it in.”

“Somebody must be running it for him,” she said.

“He’s got himself a secretary,” I said.

“Naw, it wouldn’t be that,” Rosie said. “Jimmy Joe’s scared sideways by a smart woman. He might’ve loved Betty Sue if she hadn’t been so smart.”

“Maybe so,” I said. “Listen, since I didn’t come up with anything definite, why don’t you take your money back?” I tried to hand her a sheaf of folded bills.

“Get away with that,” she said.

“Take it.”

“You earned it.”

“Okay,” I said, ”I’ll stop in Oregon on the way through and ask around some more.” Which was exactly what I didn’t want to do. I didn’t want to look anymore, didn’t want to find any more scraps of Betty Sue Flowers. “If I find anything, I’ll give you a call.”