The Final Country by James Crumley Read Free Book Online Page A

money appeared. When I first met Petey, he was a skateboard punk with spiked hair and lots of metal in his face. Now he was my silent yuppie partner. He was worth it. I could even turn the program off if one of us wasn’t going to be there to close out the register.
    Most of the people who worked the bar and grill were members of the Herrera family, and Sunday was their day to howl with the familia, so I worked most Sunday nights, but no two were ever the same. Some Sunday nights the bar resembled a fraternity party gone bad. The technocrats and software salesmen visiting the nearby computer companies sometimes drank like spoiled, nervous children, slobbering from rubbery lips onto their pocket computers or loosened silk ties. Then sometimes they didn’t drink at all. The crowd was occasionally leavened by a clot of Japanese, who after their first burst of fun would droop politely like fragile flowers over their martini glasses, or demand karaoke until they passed out. Occasionally the evening would be punctuated by smart professional women hiding their disgust behind brittle smiles. On other Sunday nights, though, the bar resembled an elegant morgue.
    Like that Sunday night. Three nicely buffed executive wives without husbands, down from the large stone houses in the hills to the west, idled over glasses of chardonnay in the nonsmoking section. A large, burly, but aging fellow with a gray crew cut — known as Paper Jack — in a wrinkled suit and a stained tie steadily downed Wild Turkeys on the rocks in the middle of the bar. At the far end a remote and beautiful young woman with a deep tan sipped a Macallan Scotch neat with an Evian back. Everybody left everybody else peacefully alone. The wind softly buffeted the glass walls as dusk rode gently into star-spangled darkness over the Hill Country.
    Two of the grass widows drifted out, seeking either more excitement or the pharmaceutical solace in the medicine cabinets of their large, empty houses. The third one, a tall blond named Sherry, stopped at the bar, as she often did, for an Absolut on the rocks, three of my Dunhill cigarettes, and a gently bored pass at me. I ignored her offer as politely as possible, knowing, of course, that some cold Sunday night I might need the warmth of her bed.
    Once Sherry ambled out, her slim hips as elegant as a glass harp, I watched, smiling sadly, then bought Paper Jack and the lovely young woman a drink, told the cocktail waitress to call it a night, went into the grill to send the cook home early, poured myself a large glass of red wine — Betty had been fairly successful weaning me from double handfuls of single malt Scotch whisky to red wine — and settled in to wait out the evening, leaning against the back bar as I polished glasses and watched Jimmy Stewart tremble and stutter through Bend of the River. So I didn’t exactly notice when Paper Jack started forcing his mumbled attentions on the young lady at the end of the bar.
    Paper Jack, with his seemingly unending supply of hundred-dollar bills, had always been long on cash and short on charm, but he was an old drinking buddy of Travis Lee Wallingford’s and one of Jack’s nephews managed the Blue Hollow Lodge, so I had always cut Jack a large length of slack when he stayed at the Lodge on one of his business trips-cum-binges. But his first clear words got my attention.
    “Hey pretty lady,” Jack said loudly, “where the hell I know you from? I know you from some place?”
    “I beg your pardon,” the young woman said quietly, the arch of a perfect eyebrow raised. “I don’t think so,” she added. She had elegant cheekbones and a generous mouth, and her makeup seemed professionally blended across the smooth planes of her face.
    “I fuckin’ know you, lady,” Jack continued, a crooked smile elastic on his face. “I’ll remember evenschually —”
    “Believe me, sir,” the young woman interrupted calmly, “I’ve never seen you before in my life.” She took a