The Last Good Kiss Read Online Free PDF Page B

crew beat the
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    police to the body, and none of it was any fun at all.
    Not anymore. I knew. I had seen Rosie in her best
    double-knit slack suit and a pair of scuffed flats
    wandering those hills, staring into each dirty face that
    came down the street, then back into the photograph in
    her hand, just to be sure that it wasn't her baby girl
    hiding behind Ian� hair, love beads, a bruised mouth,
    and broken eyes.
    "It's been so long," I said to Rosie, "so long. Why
    start looking again now?"
    "She's all I got left, son," she answered softly. "The
    last child, the only one I ain't seen in a coffin. Lonnie
    got blown up in Vietnam right after she run off,
    and Buddy, he got run over by a dune buggy down at
    Pismo Beach last summer. Betty Sue's all I got left, you
    see."
    "Where's their daddy?" I asked, then wished I
    hadn't.
    "Their daddy? Their wonderful, handsome, talented
    daddy?" she said, giving me another hard, accusing
    look . "Last I heard he was down in Bakersfield sellin'
    aluminum cookware on time to widow-wimmen." She
    let that stand for a moment, then added, "I run the
    worthless bastard off when Betty Sue was a junior in
    high school."
    "You mind if I ask why?"
    "He thought he was Johnny Cash," she said, and
    stopped as if that explained it all. "Damn fool."
    "I'm not sure I understand."
    "Ever' other year, he'd get drunk and clean out the
    bank account and take off for Nashville to find out if he
    could make the big time as a singing star. Only thing
    the damned fool ever found out was how long my
    money would last, then he'd drag-ass home, grinnin'
    like an egg-suckin' dog. Last time he done that, he
    showed up and found himself divorced and slapped in
    jail for nonsupport. That's the last I seen of him," she
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    said with a grin. "He was sure enough a good-lookin'
    devil, but like my daddy told me when I married him,
    he's as worthless as tits on a boar hog."
    "He's never heard from Betty Sue either?"
    "Not that I know of," Rosie said. "Betty Sue was
    always stuck on her daddy, but Jimmy Joe was stuck on
    himself and he did favor the boys too much, so I don't
    know if she ever forgave him for that, but I think he'd
    told me if he heard from her. He knows I been lookin'
    for her, and he's plumb scared I'll dun him for all that
    back support, so I think he'd mentioned it." Then she
    paused and looked down at me. "So what do you
    think?
    "You want the truth?"
    "Not a bit of it, son. I want you to spend a few days
    lookin for my baby girl," she said, then handed me a
    wad of bills that had been clutched in her fist all this
    time. "Just till the big fella gets out of the hospital,
    that's all."
    "It's a waste of my time," I said trying to hand the
    sodden bills back to her, "and your money."
    "It's my money," she said pertly. "Ain't it good
    enough to buy your time?"
    "What if she doesn't want to be found?"
    "Did that big fella ask you to come huntin' for him?"
    she asked.
    "She might be dead, you know," I said, ignoring the
    point she had made. "Have you thought of that?"
    "Not a day goes by, son, that I don't think of that,"
    she answered. "But I'm her mother, and in my heart I
    know she's alive somewhere."
    Since I had never found any way to argue with
    maternal mysticism, I shook my head and went over to
    the El Camino for my note-and receipt books, carrying
    the wad of bills carefully, as if the money were a bomb.
    Then I went back, asked questions, took notes, and
    counted the money-eighty-seven dollars.
    l8
    Rosie gave me the name of the boy mend, who was a
    lawyer over in Petaluma now, Betty Sue's favorite high
    school teacher, who still taught drama in Sonoma, and
    her best girl friend, who had married a boy from Santa
    Rosa, named Whitfield, divorced him and married a
    Jewish boy from Los Gatos, named Greenburg or
    Goldstein, Rosie wasn't sure, divorced him, and was
    supposed to be going to graduate school down at
    Stanford. Details, details, details. Then I asked what
    sort of girl Betty Sue had