Way Down on the High Lonely (7 page)

Neal tried a hunch. “Do you have a girl named Doreen?”

“If you want one. I mean, honey, they’ll answer to any name you like, except that they do get a little spooked at ‘Mommy.’”

“I’m looking for a real Doreen.”

“A real Doreen. Well, we do have us a real Doreen. Now, how would you like her dressed? Real Doreen does your basic pink teddy and garter thing, or a kind of Annie Oakley with just the gunbelt and boots, or she does a real prim schoolmarm and makes you talk to the tune of the hickory switch, but that’s another twenty.”

Neal pulled out his wallet and handed her three twenties and a ten.

“My, my,” Bobby said.

Neal shrugged.

Bobby shook her head and spoke into the intercom. “Doreen, we have us a bad little cowboy out here who needs to stay after school with the teacher.”

She turned back to Neal.

“She won’t be but a minute,” she said. “Would you like a drink while you wait? First one’s on the house.”

“Scotch?”

“You got it.”

She poured him a drink, then reached under the bar and handed him a key, a towel, and a bar of soap.

“Trailer 3. Do yourself a favor, cowboy, shower
before,
this time. The schoolmarm don’t like dirty little boys.”

An unshowered Neal was sitting on the purple bedspread when Doreen opened the door and strode in. True to her billing she was carrying a switch, wore a long print dress, and had her light brown hair put up in a severe bun. She looked to be in her late twenties. She was tall and thin. She flashed her blue eyes at him in a determined, if unconvincing, display of feigned anger.

“Stand up when I come in the room!” she ordered.

“You can save the act, Doreen. I just want to talk.”

She sat down on the bed beside him. “I’m not going to tell you the story of my life, if that’s what you’re hoping for.”

At closer inspection, she was older than Neal had thought. Now he put her in her middle thirties and figured that she was developing this little specialty act to stretch out her working life by a couple of years.

“No,” Neal said. “I was hoping you could tell me something about my buddy Harley McCall.”

She leaned back and laughed.

“There is very little I couldn’t tell you about that son of a bitch,” she said. Her voice had turned hard and bitter. “But why should I?”

Neal knew right then that McCall had skipped out again.

“Why shouldn’t you, if he’s a son of a bitch?” he asked.

She looked him over.

“You’re no friend of Harley’s,” she said.

“Neither are you.”

“But that don’t make us friends.”

Neal got up from the bed and took his wallet from his pants pocket. He laid five hundred-dollar bills on the bed. “Maybe this does.”

Doreen looked at the money and gave a little snort. “After all,” she said, “I’m a whore. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Pretty much.”

“Well, you’re pretty much right.”

She scooped the bills up and stuffed them into the dress pocket.

“Harley stayed here awhile with the little boy,” she said. “That’s probably why you’re looking for him, right?”

Neal didn’t answer.

“Right,” she said. “He got a job as a bouncer on the night shift. Bobby put him and the boy up in one of the trailers in back as part of the deal. Harley and me hooked up about the second day he was here, I guess. He’s a good-looking son of a buck. I even switched over to day hours so I could baby-sit Cody nights. Fixed his meals, watched TV with him, tucked him in. It was kind of nice. I guess I had thoughts about becoming a real-life family, but it didn’t last.”

“What happened?”

“We had a black guy come in from one of the bases out around Fallon. He picked me out of the roundup. Harley got wind of it and went nuts. Got mean drunk and said things.”

“What things?”

“You want a lot for your money.”

“It’s a lot of money,” Neal answered.

“Said he just couldn’t even think about putting his thing where a nigger had put his, called me a no-good whore. I imagine he’s right. This is no kind of work for a white woman. Anyway, he packed up his stuff, put Cody in the pickup, and took off.”

She put a pillow behind her head and leaned back against the wall.

“Do you know where he went?” Neal asked.

“Maybe. We had talked about it a lot, because we had been going to go together. There’s a ranch near Austin that was looking for hands. Harley knew the owner from California and had some buddies working the place. We was just working here to put some money away to eventually buy our own place. I’m sure he headed there without me. I’ve even thought about trying to look him up myself, see if … so you think you got your five hundred’s worth yet?”

“Do you remember the name of the ranch?” Neal asked, not believing he was going to be that lucky.

She shook her head. “The son of a bitch never said. Maybe he was always figuring on dumping me.”

“How long ago did he leave?”

“It’s been about a month now, I guess.”

Well, at least we’re whittling it down, Neal thought. “Okay, thanks.”

She sat up and gave him a nasty, knowing smile.

“You still got seventy bucks’ worth coming to you,” she said. She flicked the switch against her hand. “I mean, you chose the school-marm for some reason, huh?”

“I figured it would be the one where you’d be wearing the most clothes.”

She stared into his eyes. “You’re a real bastard.”

That about sums it up, Neal thought. “I’ll take the shower, though,” he said, “if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind if you drown.” She got up from the bed and stalked out.

Neal showered, then headed out the door. He was about halfway back down the gravel pathway when he heard footsteps behind him. He turned around and the bouncer from the corral stuck a big revolver under his nose and cocked the hammer. He still had his shades on.

“Turn back around,” he said.

“Absolutely.”

The cowboy smashed the pistol right behind Neal’s ear and Neal dropped to the ground. He was conscious just long enough to hear the cowboy say, “Help me get him in his car.”

The cowboy grabbed him under his arms and Doreen took his feet. They shoved him into the passenger seat of the Nova and drove him about five miles east along the highway. Doreen relieved his wallet of the rest of his expense money, about twelve hundred dollars, during the ride. The cowboy pulled the Nova off onto a little washout, dragged Neal out of the car, and laid him alongside some rabbit brush.

Neal started to wake up when he heard shots. He cracked an eye open enough to see the cowboy put a slug into each of the Nova’s tires and another in the gas tank.

“Let’s get out of here,” said the cowboy.

“Not quite yet,” said Doreen.

She hauled back and planted a nice sharp schoolmarm shoe into Neal’s groin and then into his ribs.

“That’ll teach the uppity son of a bitch,” she said.

Neal passed out again.

He woke up to the sound of tires crackling on the dry gravel.

I wonder if Matt and Miss Kitty are coming back to polish me off, Neal thought. Maybe I should try to crawl out of here.

He was lying on his stomach. He touched the right side of his head and felt blood caked in his hair. He traced the blood where it had run down his neck, then he tried to lift his head up out of the dirt. But even that small effort sent a bolt of pain searing across his ribs and started his head throbbing all over again.

He laid his head back down and settled for just raising his eyes to the battered car that sat between him and the road. He smelled gasoline and knew he should get up, but it just felt like too much work.

A car door shut. Footsteps came closer. Neal saw cowboy boots.

“What in the name of Sam Hill … ?” a man’s voice asked. “Are you all right?”

Neal raised an eye to see a middle-aged man in a green gimme cap leaning over him.

“I’ve been better,” Neal mumbled.

“I’ll bet you have.”

The man gently turned him over on his back.

“That’s quite a knock you have on your head.”

Not to mention my balls, Neal thought. Ouch.

“What the hell happened to you?”

“I’m not sure I know.”

The man chuckled. “You didn’t by chance enter the bareback event at the Filly Ranch, did you?”

“I guess I got thrown.”

“Well, you wouldn’t be the first. Come on.”

The man gently held him under the arms and lifted him to his feet. Neal’s feet didn’t really want the responsibility.

The man picked Neal’s wallet up from the ground and looked inside. “You won’t have to worry about managing your money anymore.”

“Shit.”

“Although, judging by your vehicle, it doesn’t look like it was ever a very big concern for you.”

Neal steadied himself on the old Nova and looked around. He could have been on the moon except the moon wasn’t this flat. There was nothing but desert around.

What the hell am I doing out here? he asked himself. Oh yeah, Cody McCall.

“I think I can drive,” he said to the man, who was just sort of standing there staring at him.

The man laughed. “Where do you want to go?”

“Nowhere, really.”

“Well, that’s about where you’ll get in this car. I’ve never seen a car that’s been shot before. Somebody must’ve taken a real dislike to you.”

“I can have that effect on people,” Neal said.

“I hadn’t noticed,” said the man. He stuck his hand out. “I’m Steve Mills. I have a ranch out by Austin. Or it has me.”

A ranch out by Austin, Neal thought. It has a ring to it. “My name’s Neal Carey.”

“Come on over to the truck. I have a first-aid kit.”

Mills led Neal over to an old Chevy pickup, opened the passenger door, and sat Neal down. Then he got his kit, expertly cleaned the wound on Neal’s head, swabbed some antiseptic on it, and applied a bandage.

“I’m a regular Sue Barton, student nurse,” he said. “Out where we live, you have to be a little bit of everything—medic, mechanic, cook, farmer, cowboy, and sometime psychiatrist. You’re from back East, aren’t you?”

Neal focused his eyes and took a good look at the man for the first time. He was in the tall range, real thin, with that slight stoop at the shoulders that tall men get from having to duck under things. He wore a blue checkered shirt rolled up at the sleeves, with a pack of cigarettes peeking out of the breast pocket. He had on jeans over his cowboy boots, which were old, tan, and worn.

He had a handsome face that had weathered more than its share of cold, harsh winds, and baking sun. It was deeply tanned up to the telltale line on the forehead that betrayed a habitual ball cap. His brown hair was still thick at about forty-five years of age, and his dark brown eyes shone with life. It was a face you liked right away, a face with nothing to hide.

“I’m from New York,” Neal said.

“City or state?”

“City.”

Steve Mills scratched his cheek. “I’d have thought you could have gotten yourself mugged
there.
What brings you out this way?”

I’m looking for a man who works on a ranch out by Austin. “I like to travel,” Neal said.

“Well, you don’t
have
to tell me,” Steve said.

Good.

“Well, Neal Carey, mystery man, why don’t I throw what’s left of your personal possessions in the back of the truck and take you to Austin with me? If your destination is nowhere, Austin is at least close. There’s a bus that comes through every couple of days.”

Neal reflected on his options and quickly arrived at the conclusion that he didn’t have any.

“This is very generous of you,” he said.

Steve was already tossing Neal’s duffel bag into the truck.

“I’m going there anyway. Wouldn’t mind some company for the ride.”

“Hold on a second,” Neal said. He straightened himself up, tottered over to the Nova, and opened up the trunk. He tore the fabric off the inside of the trunk hood, reached in, and pulled out a stack of bills, the last five hundred dollars of his expense money.

“You may not be as dumb as I thought,” Steve observed.

“Don’t get carried away,” Neal answered. He felt pretty dumb. He’d come on too fast with Doreen. And much too rough. He could have gotten the answers he needed without insulting her, just as he probably could have gotten the truth out of Paul Wallace without slapping him. He had substituted tough for smarts, and that was stupid. And flashing all that cash around had been just plain idiotic. He didn’t blame Doreen and her gun-wielding cowboy friend as much as he blamed himself. He’d been trained better.

He hauled himself back into the truck and the resulting pain felt almost like satisfaction.

Steve climbed into the cab and pulled the truck back onto the road. The old truck rattled, rumbled, and roared down the highway.

Neal settled back in the seat and tried to figure out his next move.

I’m headed toward Austin, he thought, the last known location of Harley McCall. I know McCall has hooked up with a rancher, someone he knew from his California days. That’s the plus side.

The down side is that I don’t have a car or much money, and that Levine and Graham are expecting me to show up in New York any day now. And they’re going to be pissed off that I didn’t follow orders. But at least I dumped the car.

He was pondering the wisdom of calling the office when he fell asleep. He woke up over an hour later.

“You don’t look crazier than a pet coon!” Steve shouted.

“What?” Neal Carey shouted over the noise of the old pickup truck as it rattled over Highway 50.

“I said you don’t
look
crazier than a pet coon.” answered Steve Mills. His face crinkled into a wry smile. “I was thinking that you’d have to be crazier than a pet coon to be wandering around this country all by yourself with no particular purpose.”

“Maybe I am.” Neal answered. “How crazy is a pet coon?”

“Pretty damn crazy. Course, anybody who tries ranching Nevada has no damn business calling anyone else crazy. So even if you are crazier than a pet coon, I figure I still got about twenty years of crazy on you! Hold the wheel, will you?”