The Final Country Read Online Free PDF

could find him.”
    “Not for long,” she said. “Enos used to be the kind of old boy didn’t mind hurting people. And I don’t expect prison did much for his attitude.”
    “I noticed,” I said. “He was looking for your former husband. And somebody named Mandy Rae.”
    “Amanda Rae. That little bitch,” she said, looking dreamily into the past. “She was the worst of that bunch. A fair to middling country singer but a wild-ass redneck girl. Hell, she was the only one of us who always carried a gun. But I haven’t run with that crowd in years. Last I heard about her must have been ten, twelve years ago. Or more.”
    “What was she doing then?”
    “I saw something in the paper,” she said, “or maybe on the news. She whipped out a pistol and took a shot at some old boy in a beer joint out on the Bastrop highway. Didn’t hit him, as I remember. She was a hell of a shot with a rifle, though. Christ, out at the ranch one afternoon — back when we still had a ranch — I watched her knock down a running buck at two hundred steps with an open sighted .30-.30. Cut his strings with a neck shot. Little bitch could shoot a single hair off a frog’s ass.”
    “You mind if I ask why you call her a little bitch?” I asked.
    “Why you think, cowboy?” She spat, then smiled. “You wouldn’t have another line of that fine shit, would you?”
    “You wouldn’t have a picture of this Mandy Rae?”
    “I think I’m gonna like you,” she said, her phony smile nearly knocking ten years off her face. “You be chopping, I be looking.” Then she pranced drunkenly around the bar and up the stairs.
    Since I had already done enough, I chopped a single line for Sissy, finished my beer, slipped the bindle under the ashtray — I didn’t think she’d be cleaning off the bar this afternoon — then got another beer out of the small refrigerator behind the bar. As she started down the stairs, I picked up the straw and made snorting sounds.
    “Couldn’t wait for me, huh?” she said, then handed me a publicity still of a sleek blond woman with a photo credit, Albert Homer, and a local address stamped on the back. I shrugged like a cokehead, a gesture I knew all too well. “This is all I could find,” she added, her eyes darting to the long line shining on the mirror.
    “And why was she a little bitch?” I asked, still holding the straw.
    “She was fucking Dwayne,” she sighed. “Hell, everybody was fucking everybody back in those days — before AIDS — but I caught them one Sunday afternoon up at the ranch. She was on all fours with his skinny dick up her ass, and the little bitch just grinned over the teddy bear tattoo on her shoulder blade at me. Like she knew I wasn’t into that shit, like she could lead the bastard off by his dick any time she wanted.” Sissy glanced at the straw again, then fixed herself another vodka.
    “This Mandy Rae have a last name?” I wondered.
    “Not that anybody knew,” she said. “She just showed up one day with Enos Walker and twenty keys of pink Peruvian flake. They paid cash for a place up in Gatlin County and set up a network of college kid dealers. They had a steady supply and obviously some protection, so she was everybody’s favorite lady for a while.”
    “You sure you never heard a last name?” I asked, still holding on to the straw.
    Sissy thought for a moment, her eyes on the shining straw. “Quarrels,” she said finally. “Seems like I remember somebody making a joke ‘bout that — Amanda Rae Quarrels with herself…”
    I held out the straw. “How did your husband die?”
    “Sucker-punched the wrong kid outside the bar,” she said, taking it with shaking hands. “That was always Dwayne’s style. Fuckin’ kid grabbed a sweet sixteen double-barrel out of his pickup, and let Dewey have two loads of quail shot — one in the guts and one in the face. Took him a long, bad week to die.” Then Sissy sighed again, snorted the line, and smiled at me. “You