2••••

AS THE OFFICIAL CARAVAN, TWO AMBULANCES AND A deputy sheriff’s unit, swept out of Rosie’s parking lot in a cloud of dust, they all hit their sirens at once and wailed into the distance. From where Rosie and I sat on the front steps, it sounded like the beginning of the end of the world.

“Them boys sure do favor them sirens,” she said quietly.

“It’s just about the only fun they get out of life,” I said.

“You speakin’ from experience?” she asked with narrow eyes.

“I’ve ridden in the back seats of a few police cars,” I said, and she nodded as if she had too.

As she and I had cleaned up the mess inside the bar, moved the wounded outside, and concocted a wildly improbable but accidental version of the shooting, Rosie and I had become friends. Now we were also bound by our mutual lies to the authorities. Lester and Oney would have lied for free, just to be contrary, but I doled out a generous portion of cash to help with medical expenses. Lester pocketed the money, then told me that he and Oney, by virtue of several trips to the drunk farm, were medical wards of the state of California. The middle-aged deputy who questioned us seemed to know we were shucking him but he didn’t seem to care. He was more interested in ragging Oney about shooting himself in the foot. As he left, though, he mentioned that I should drop by the courthouse the next morning to sign a statement, and he and I both knew what that meant.

As soon as the sirens had faded away, Rosie said, “Reckon we should have us a beer?”

“Whiskey,” I said, then went over to my pickup for the road pint in the glove box. When I got back to the steps, Rosie had found two whole bottles of beer for chasers. After we drank silently for a bit, I said, “Sorry for the trouble.”

“Wasn’t your fault,” she answered waving with a tired hand. “It was that damned worthless Lester. Truth is, when that there private detective caught him down in Barstow, Lester smartmouthed him, and that boy proceeded to whip the living daylights outa Lester right there in his momma’s front yard, whipped him till Lester just begged to pay some back childsupport.”

“Thought it might be something like that,” I said.

“How come you were after that big fella, anyway?” she asked. Then she quickly added, ‘“Course you don’t have to tell me if it ain’t none of my business.”

“I was supposed to find him before he drank himself into the hospital,” I said. “Or into the grave.”

“That’s a fool’s errand,” Rosie said with authority.

“I was just supposed to find him,” I said, “not take the bottle out of his hands.”

“Is that what you do for a living?” she asked. “Find

folks?”

“Sometimes,” I said. “Other times I just look.”

“You do okay?”

“Fair to middling,” I admitted, “but it ain’t steady. I end up tending bar about half the time.”

“How come?”

“Beats the hell out of standing around Monkey Wards watching out for sixteen-year-old shoplifters.”

“I reckon so,” she said, then laughed and hit the pint. “How long you been trackin’ the big fella?” “Right at three weeks,” I answered. “Get paid by the day, huh?” “Usually.”

“This job oughtta do you nicely,” she said.

“Hope so,” I said. “They might feel unkindly, since the old man got shot, and decide that I’m overpriced, unworthy of my hire.”

“Sue ‘em.”

“Ever try to sue rieh folks?” I asked.

“Hell, boy, I don’t even know any rich folks,” she said, then paused to stare at the ground. “What you reckon that old boy was runnin’ from?”

“Maybe he just needed a high lonesome,” I said, “or a running binge. I don’t really know.” And I didn’t. Usually, after I had been after somebody for a few days, I had some idea of what they had in mind. But not with Trahearne. During some of my less lucid moments, I had the odd feeling that the old man was running from me, running so I would chase him. “Maybe he just wanted to see what was over the next hill,” I added.

“He musta got tired of lookin’,” Rosie said quietly, ” ‘cause he holed up here like chick come to roost.”

“Well, if he’s only half as tired as I am, he’s plenty damn tired,” I said, “‘cause I’m worn to a frazzle. I could sleep for a week.”

“But you probably won’t, will you?”

“Probably not.”

“What are you gonna do?” she asked, too casually to suit me.

“Hang around the hospital until he gets out,” I said.

“How long would that be?”

“A week or so,” I said. “Depends.”

For a few minutes we sat silently again, watching the

soft spring sunshine spark green fire across the shallow hills, listening to the distant hum of traffic.

“Hey,” she said suddenly, as if the idea had just come to her. “It might be that I could put you on to a piece of work while you’re hangin’ around. No sense in sittin’ idle.”

“I usually work one thing at a time,” I said quickly. “That’s my only advantage over the big outfits.” When she didn’t say anything, I asked, “What do you have? A bundle of bad checks?”

“Enough to paper a wall,” she said, “but that ain’t the problem.” When I didn’t ask her what the problem was, she continued. “It’s my baby girl. She run off on me, and I thought maybe you might spend a few days—whatever time you got—lookin’ around.”

“Well, I don’t know .. . “

“I know this place don’t look like much,” she interrupted, “but it’s free and clear and it turns a dollar now and again—”

“It’s not that,” I interrupted her. “I just need some time off the road.”

“You wait right here,” she said as if she hadn’t heard me, then flounced back into the bar.

As I waited, what had earlier seemed a fine spring haze clearly became Bay Area smog, which reminded me that this wasn’t some country beer joint down in Texas on a spring afternoon in the ‘50’s. The maze of San Francisco lay just across the bay, a haven for runaways, and although the ‘60’s were dead and gone too, young girls still ran there to hide. That hadn’t changed, though everything else had. The flower children had gone sour and commercial or middle-class, and even the enemy was tired and broken, exiled to San Clemente. I didn’t want to hear what Rosie had to tell me—I didn’t want to stare at another picture of a lost child. Whichever wise Greek said that you can’t step into the same river twice was right, even though he forgot to mention that nine times out of ten, you’ll get your feet wet. Change is the rule. You can’t go home again even if you stay there, and now that everyplace is the same, there’s no place to run. But that doesn’t keep some of them from trying. And that didn’t stop Rosie either.

“Here,” she said as she sat down and handed me a photograph. “Look here.”

I glanced at the picture just long enough to see that it was a wallet-sized school photograph of a fairly pretty girl. Then I looked back and saw the dates: 1964-65.

“She was a pretty girl,” I said as I tried to hand the picture back to Rosie.

“Smart as a whip, too,” she answered, holding her hands between her knees.

I had to look at the picture again. It could have been a picture from my high school days in the ‘5O’s. The face was pleasant, no more, though she seemed to have good bones beneath a soft layer of baby fat. The wide mouth seemed pinched, almost sullen, and the thick cascade of blond hair looked fake. The nose was straight but slightly too bulbous at the end to be pretty. Only the eyes were striking, darkly fired with anger and resentment, a redneck rage more suited to a thinner face. She wore an old-fashioned, high-collared lace blouse with a black ribbon threaded through the collar to hold a small cameo to her throat. As I looked at the face again, the blouse seemed oddly defiant, the face so determined not to be laughed at that it seemed sad, too sad.

I knew the story: a nearly pretty girl, but without the money for the right clothes orbraces or confidence, the sort of young girl who either lurked about the fringes of the richer, more popular girls, and was thought pushy for her efforts, or who stood alone and avoided the high school crowd, and for her lonely troubles was thought stuck-up, stuck on herself without good reason. Ah, the sad machinations of high school. As I stared at the picture, I was once again pleased that I had missed most of those troubles. I lived in the country and worked, and although I hadn’t exactly planned it that way, I had joined the Army three weeks before I was supposed to graduate. Somehow the GED I had earned in the Army seemed cleaner than a high school degree. Less sad, somehow.

“How long ago did she take off?” I asked Rosie, the photograph dangling from my fingers like a slice of dead skin.

“Ten years ago come May,” she answered as calmly as if she had said a week ago come Sunday.

“And you haven’t heard from her since?” I asked. “Not a single solitary word.”

“Ten years is too long,” I said, still trying not to sound shocked. “Even a year is usually too long, but ten years is forever.”

Once again, though, Rosie acted as if she hadn’t heard me. “She went over to San Francisco one Saturday afternoon with this boy friend of hers, and he said she just stepped out of the car at a red light and walked off without sayin’ a word or even lookin’ back. Just walked away. That’s what he said.”

“Any reason to think he might have lied?”

“No reason,” Rosie said. “I’ve known him all his life, and his momma’s a friend of mine. She’s been fixin’ my hair once a week for nearly twenty years. And Albert, he was tom up by it something terrible. He kept lookin’ for Betty Sue for years after I give up. His momma says he still asks about her every time she sees

him.”

“Did you report it to the police?” I asked.

“Well of course I did,” Rosie answered angrily, her wrinkled eyes finding an old spark. “What kinda mother would I be if I hadn’t? You think I’d let a seventeen-year-old girl wander around that damned city fulla niggers and dope fiends and queers? Of course I told the police. Half a dozen times.” Then in a softer voice, she added, “Not that they did diddly-squat about it. I even went over there my own damned self. Twenty, maybe thirty times. Walked up and down them hills till I wore out my shoes, and showed pictures of her till I wore them out. But nobody had seen her. Not a soul.” She paused again. “I just hate that damned city over there, you know. Wish it would have another earthquake and fall right into the sea. I just hate it. I was raised Church of Christ, you understand, and I know I ain’t got no right to judge, runnin’ a beer joint like I do, but I swear if there’s a Sodom and Gomorrah in this wicked, sinful world, it’s a-sittin’ over there across the bay,” she said, then pointed a finger like a curse across the hills. When she saw an amused grin on my face, she stopped and glared down her sharp nose at me. “You probably like it over there, don’t you? You probably think it’s all right, don’t you, all that crap over there?”

“You don’t have to get mad at me,” I answered.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, then looked away.

“That’s all right.”

“No, it ain’t all right, dammit. Here I am askin’ a favor of you and hollerin’ at the same time. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I understand.”

“You got any children of your own?”

“No,” I said. “I’ve never even been married.”

“Then you don’t understand at all. Not even a little

bit.” “All right.”

“And don’t go around pretending to, either,” she said, hitting me on the knees with her reddened knuckles.

“All right.”

“And goddammit, I’m sorry.” “Okay.”

“Oh hell, it ain’t a bit okay,” she complained, then stood up and rubbed her palms on her dusty slacks. “God damn it to hell,” she muttered, then turned around and gave Fireball a fierce boot in the butt, which knocked the sleeping dog off the steps into the skim of dust on the concrete. “Goddamned useless dog,” she said. “Get outa my sight.”